Head-to-head
DigitalOcean vs Linode (Akamai Cloud)
Two hosts, side by side. Pricing, features, and the trade-offs that actually matter.
DigitalOcean from $6/mo
The original developer-friendly VPS — now with a full PaaS layer on top.
HQ US · founded 2011
Linode (Akamai Cloud) from $5/mo
Twenty years of unflashy, reliable Linux hosting — now part of Akamai.
HQ US · founded 2003
Quick verdict
Cheapest: Linode (Akamai Cloud) wins on entry price ($5/mo vs $6/mo).
More features: DigitalOcean ships more first-party platform features out of the box.
Region: DigitalOcean is HQ'd in US; Linode (Akamai Cloud) in US.
Cheapest plans, side by side
| DigitalOcean | Linode (Akamai Cloud) | |
|---|---|---|
| Entry plan | Basic 1 GB | Nanode 1 GB |
| Price | $6/mo | $5/mo |
| CPU | 1 vCPU (shared) | 1 vCPU |
| RAM | 1 GB | 1 GB |
| Disk | 25 GB | 25 GB |
| Bandwidth | 1 TB | 1 TB |
Feature parity
| DigitalOcean | Linode (Akamai Cloud) | |
|---|---|---|
| Managed Postgres | ✓ | ✓ |
| Managed Redis | ✓ | × |
| Object storage | ✓ | ✓ |
| One-click apps | ✓ | ✓ |
| Private network | ✓ | ✓ |
| IPv6 | ✓ | ✓ |
| DDoS protection | ✓ | ✓ |
| Snapshots | ✓ | ✓ |
| Public API | ✓ | ✓ |
| Terraform | ✓ | ✓ |
DigitalOcean pros
- +Best documentation in the industry by a wide margin
- +Managed Postgres, MySQL, Redis, Mongo, Kafka — all first-party
- +App Platform (Heroku-style git push) on the same dashboard as droplets
DigitalOcean cons
- −Roughly 2× the price of Hetzner for equivalent compute
- −Bandwidth overage charges hit hard once you exceed the bundled allotment
- −Some regions (Sydney, Bangalore) have noticeably slower disk than NYC/AMS
Linode (Akamai Cloud) pros
- +Akamai backbone means very stable peering globally
- +5 GB free DDoS protection on every plan
- +Excellent Linux-focused community guides (older than Stack Overflow)
Linode (Akamai Cloud) cons
- −Acquisition by Akamai in 2022 bolted on enterprise features that confuse the dashboard
- −Dedicated CPU plans cost noticeably more than Hetzner CCX
- −No managed Redis (only Postgres and MySQL)