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VPS and cloud servers

Akamai Cloud (Linode) vs DigitalOcean Droplets

Akamai Cloud (Linode) matches DigitalOcean’s mid-size shared prices but halves the overage rate to $0.005/GB and includes 24/7 phone support; DigitalOcean starts lower at $4 and offers more managed services.

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The short answer

Shared plans line up in the middle: 2 GB for $12 and 2 vCPU with 4 GB for $24 on both. At the bottom they differ. Linode’s $5 Nanode has 1 GB of RAM, 25 GB of storage and 1 TB of transfer; DigitalOcean’s $4 Droplet has 512 MiB, 10 GiB and 500 GiB, and its 1 GiB plan lists $6.

Both pool transfer across the account, but overage is $0.005/GB on Linode in most regions against $0.01/GiB on DigitalOcean, which matters for traffic-heavy services. Linode includes 24/7 email and phone support for every customer. On Linode, Jakarta and São Paulo cost 20% to 40% more than the base price.

DigitalOcean has the wider platform: managed PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Kafka and Valkey, plus Kubernetes, load balancers and App Platform. Linode offers managed Kubernetes (LKE), block storage and VPCs, and is less suited to projects that need many managed services. Backups cost extra on both.

Choose Akamai Cloud (Linode) if

  • Your service pushes a lot of traffic and $0.005/GB overage matters
  • You want phone support without buying a support tier
  • You want 1 GB of RAM for $5

Choose DigitalOcean Droplets if

  • You want managed databases, Kafka or App Platform alongside your servers
  • A $4 server with 512 MiB is enough for your project
  • You want per-second billing rather than hourly
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Side by side

Akamai Cloud (Linode) DigitalOcean Droplets
Stages HobbyIndieStartupScale-upEnterprise HobbyIndieStartupScale-upEnterprise
What it is Cloud VPS Cloud VPS
From From $5/mo From $4/mo
Free tier None None
Cheapest plan 1 vCPU, 1 GB, 25 GB SSD: $5/mo (Nanode) 1 vCPU, 512 MiB, 10 GiB SSD: $4/mo
Regions 25+ core regions (26 listed on pricing page) 13 regions, 16 data centers
Transfer 1 TB to 20 TB pooled; $0.005/GB over in most regions 500 GiB to 11,000 GiB pooled; $0.01/GiB over
Billing Hourly, capped monthly Per second (60 s minimum), monthly cap
Open source No No
Self-hostable No No
EU data residency Available Available
Compliance Not stated Not stated
Checked 28 Sept 2026 28 Sept 2026
Strengths
  • Egress overage at $0.005/GB is among the lowest published by a major cloud.
  • Phone support for every customer, not only paid support tiers.
  • Many regions across four continents with the same base price in most.
  • Published plan catalog with clear hourly and monthly rates.
  • Clear published prices with transfer included and a low $0.01/GiB overage rate.
  • 13 regions across North America, Europe, India, Singapore and Australia.
  • Managed databases, Kubernetes and App Platform let a project grow without changing provider.
  • Well-known documentation and tutorials, with API, CLI and Terraform support.
Limitations
  • Shared plans at a given price have similar or less RAM than DigitalOcean and far less than budget European hosts.
  • Jakarta and São Paulo prices are 20% to 40% higher than the base.
  • Backups cost extra on every plan.
  • No managed-server option: you run the operating system yourself.
  • Basic plans give less RAM per dollar than budget hosts such as Hetzner, netcup or Contabo.
  • The $4 plan has only 512 MiB RAM and 10 GiB of disk.
  • Backups are extra, at 20% to 30% of the Droplet price.
  • Some newer data centers (Atlanta, Richmond, Kansas City) have limited availability for Basic plans.

Sources: Akamai Cloud (Linode) pricing, DigitalOcean Droplets pricing. Full plans on each tool's page.

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Plans

Akamai Cloud (Linode)

Nanode 1GB
1 vCPU, 1 GB RAM, 25 GB storage, 1 TB transfer		 $5/mo
Linode 2GB
1 vCPU, 2 GB RAM, 50 GB storage, 2 TB transfer		 $12/mo
Linode 4GB
2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 80 GB storage, 4 TB transfer		 $24/mo
Linode 8GB
4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM, 160 GB storage, 5 TB transfer		 $48/mo
Dedicated CPU
2 to 64 dedicated cores, 4 to 512 GB RAM		 From $36/mo
High Memory
Linode 24GB: 2 dedicated cores, 24 GB RAM		 From $60/mo

DigitalOcean Droplets

Basic 512 MiB
1 vCPU, 512 MiB RAM, 10 GiB SSD, 500 GiB transfer		 $4/mo
Basic 1 GiB
1 vCPU, 1 GiB RAM, 25 GiB SSD, 1,000 GiB transfer		 $6/mo
Basic 2 GiB
1 vCPU, 2 GiB RAM, 50 GiB SSD, 2,000 GiB transfer		 $12/mo
Basic 4 GiB
2 vCPU, 4 GiB RAM, 80 GiB SSD, 4,000 GiB transfer		 $24/mo
CPU-Optimized 4 GiB
2 dedicated vCPU, 4 GiB RAM, 25 GiB SSD		 $42/mo
General Purpose 8 GiB
2 dedicated vCPU, 8 GiB RAM, 25 GiB SSD		 $63/mo

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