by Akamai TechnologiesCloud servers (VPS)
Linode virtual servers under Akamai: shared and dedicated CPU plans billed hourly up to a monthly cap, with pooled transfer at $0.005 per GB over the allowance.
A 2 vCPU, 4 GB Linode for $24 a month with 4 TB of pooled transfer, overage at $0.005 per GB and ISO 27001 coverage for compute.
Akamai Cloud keeps Linode's simple plan list: the Linode 4 GB has 2 shared vCPUs, 80 GB of SSD, 4 TB of transfer and an IPv4 address for $24 a month, capped at the monthly price. Transfer is pooled across most core regions and overage is $0.005 per GB. Akamai's ISO 27001, 27017 and 27018 certificates list the compute plans, the DPA is part of the MSA, and standard support is included. It suits teams that move a lot of data or want ISO-certified hosting at small-server prices.
Against 3 other products we reviewed in Cloud servers (VPS): what you pay for with each, the five access facts, the plan limits we recorded and each review's bottom line. The note under the table says how each one was checked.
| Metric | Akamai Cloud (Linode) | DigitalOcean Droplets | Vultr Cloud Compute | Amazon Lightsail |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What you're paying for | Worth the priceA 2 vCPU, 4 GB Linode for $24 a month with 4 TB of pooled transfer, overage at $0.005 per GB and ISO 27001 coverage for compute. | Worth the priceA 2 vCPU, 4 GiB server with 4,000 GiB of pooled transfer and a public IPv4 address for $24 a month, billed per second and capped at 672 hours. | Worth the priceA 2 vCPU, 4 GB, 80 GB server for $20 a month with 3 TB of pooled transfer, backed by Vultr's own SOC 2 Type II report and ISO 27001. | Easy to adoptA fixed-price AWS server: 2 vCPUs, 4 GB, 80 GB SSD, 4 TB of transfer and an IPv4 address for $24 a month, with a path to Amazon EC2. |
| Overall score | 6.7Best | 6.6 | 6.6 | 5.6 |
| Free option | Free trial | Free trial | Free trial | Free trial |
| Card to start | Card required | Card required | Card required | –Not measured |
| Getting access | Self-serve | Self-serve | Self-serve | Self-serve |
| Starter priceCheapest paid plan | $5/mo | $4/mo | $2.50/mo | $3.50/mo |
| Pricing model | Usage-based | Usage-based | Usage-based | Usage-based |
| Pricing page | Public prices | Public prices | Public prices | Public prices |
| Reference server | Linode 4 GB: 2 vCPU (shared), 4 GB, 80 GB SSD, 4 TB transfer, $24/mo | Basic Regular: 2 vCPU (shared), 4 GiB, 80 GiB SSD, 4,000 GiB transfer, $24/mo | Regular Performance: 2 vCPU (shared), 4 GB, 80 GB SSD, 3 TB transfer, $20/mo | Linux General Purpose: 2 vCPU (burstable), 4 GB, 80 GB SSD, 4 TB transfer, $24/mo with IPv4 |
| Reference scenario (US, monthly) | $29: $24 plan + $5 Backups add-on, computed | $28.80: $24 plan + $4.80 weekly backups, computed | $24: $20 plan + $4 backups (20%), computed | $28: $24 plan + $4 for one 80 GB snapshot, computed |
| Billing | Hourly, rounded up, capped at the monthly price; G8 plans and extra IPv4 uncapped | Per second, 60-second minimum, capped at 672 hours a month | Hourly, 1-hour minimum, capped at 672 hours; VX1 and GPU at 730 hours | Hourly up to the monthly bundle price |
| Transfer overage | $0.005/GB (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific); pooled; inbound free | $0.01/GiB in every region; pooled across the team; inbound free | $0.01/GB; pooled across the account with 2 TB free; inbound free | $0.09/GB in US regions; inbound counts toward the allowance; pooled per plan and region |
| Public IPv4 | One per Linode included; extra addresses need justification, price not listed | Included on bundled plans; reserved IPv4 $5/mo when unassigned | One included; reserved IP $3/mo; extra addresses for an unlisted fee | Included in IPv4 bundles; IPv6-only bundles $1.50 to $4 less |
| Backups | Priced per plan ($2 to $5/mo at small sizes); daily, weekly and biweekly copies | Weekly 20% or daily 30% of the Droplet price; usage-based from $0.01/GiB | 20% of the server price; daily to monthly schedules; two most recent kept | Automatic daily snapshots, latest 7 kept, billed as snapshot storage (Linux only) |
| Snapshots | One manual snapshot in Backups; captured images $0.10/GB-month | $0.06/GB-month | $0.05/GB-month of compressed size | $0.05/GB-month, incremental |
| Free credit | $100 for new customers via promo page or referral, payment method required | $5 for 90 days, payment method required | Coupon credit up to $300 (up to 30 days); free tier server by application | $100 in AWS credits, up to $100 more, Free plan up to 6 months |
| Dedicated vCPU from | $36/mo (G6 Dedicated 4 GB) or $43 (G7) | $42/mo (CPU-Optimized, 2 vCPU, 4 GiB, 25 GiB) | $28/mo (CPU Optimized, 1 vCPU, 2 GB); 2 vCPU, 4 GB at $40 | Not offered (burstable plans) |
| Image export | No backup download; raw .img image upload up to 6 GB | No snapshot download; custom image import (raw, qcow2, VHDX, VDI, VMDK) | No snapshot download; ISO and raw image import from a URL | Snapshot export to Amazon EC2 only; no download or import |
| SOC 2 / ISO 27001 | SOC 2 Type 1 for compute; ISO 27001:2022 covers compute | SOC 2 Type II; own ISO 27001 not stated | SOC 2 Type II (with HIPAA) in the console; ISO 27001:2022 | Lightsail not listed in AWS SOC or ISO scope |
| HIPAA BAA | On request; compute listed in HIPAA scope | Through sales or support | By contract, after an architecture review | Lightsail not on the HIPAA eligible services list |
| EU regions | Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Paris, Milan, Madrid, Stockholm | Amsterdam, Frankfurt (London in the UK) | Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Paris, Madrid, Stockholm, Warsaw, Milan | Frankfurt, Ireland, Paris, Stockholm, Spain (opt-in) |
| Spend cap | None; transfer emails at 80, 90 and 100% | Spend alerts only | None self-serve; bandwidth usage emails | AWS Budgets alerts; project spend limits that pause resources only in AWS's new sign-up experience, which is in limited release |
| Bottom line | From its public pages, Akamai Cloud keeps Linode's clear plan list and adds low-cost pooled transfer ($0.005 per GB over the allowance), ISO 27001 for compute and free support. Compute has a SOC 2 Type 1 report, and G8 plans are billed without a cap. | From its public pages, DigitalOcean is a predictable choice for small servers: IPv4 included, a monthly cap, pooled transfer at $0.01 per GiB and backups at a flat share of the price. Images cannot be downloaded, and new accounts start with limits. | From its public pages, Vultr has the lowest list price for the reference server and a broad compliance file with free SSO. Some regional prices are missing from the pricing page, and several pages disagree on details such as DDoS protection. | From its public pages, Lightsail is a simple way to a fixed-price AWS server, with snapshots billed by storage and an export path to EC2. It is not on AWS's compliance scope lists, and transfer beyond the allowance costs $0.09 per GB. |
Evidence: Akamai Cloud (Linode): facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; DigitalOcean Droplets: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; Vultr Cloud Compute: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; Amazon Lightsail: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run. Prices in USD as listed, excluding tax. "–" means not recorded.
Review from public pages
Written from Akamai Cloud (Linode)'s public pages (pricing, security or privacy, and docs) as read on Oct 16, 2026. We did not sign up, and no hands-on run is published yet.
We read Akamai's cloud pricing pages (the North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Jakarta and São Paulo price tables), the backups, images, block storage and NodeBalancer price pages, and the cloud computing docs on plan types, billing, network transfer, IP addresses, reserved IPs, backups, images, quotas, cancellation, single sign-on, the referral program and log delivery, plus the free-credit landing page, the compliance page, the MSA and the DPA on Oct 16, 2026; we did not sign up, create a Linode or call the API for this review. All prices are in US dollars. The compliance page redirects to a trust center that loads by script, so we read the failover copy Akamai hosts on akamai.com.
The plan pages are clear: each plan lists its hourly and monthly price, vCPUs, storage and transfer, and the billing docs say usage is rounded up to the hour and capped at the monthly price. Jakarta and São Paulo are priced higher, and their tables are published. Since July 1, 2026, G8 dedicated plans, GPU plans and additional IPv4 addresses are billed for actual hours with no monthly cap, and G8 plans include no transfer.
A few points need a question. Additional and reserved IPv4 addresses have no price on the current pages; the only figure is $2 a month in a 2023 blog post. The $100 sign-up credit has no duration on its landing page, while the referral docs say 60 days. And the MSA calls all fees non-refundable, while the billing docs describe refunds and a full refund within the first 7 days.
Allowances are pooled across most core regions and overage is $0.005 per GB in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific; inbound transfer is free.
Compared: DigitalOcean and Vultr charge $0.01 per GB over the allowance; Amazon Lightsail $0.09 in US regions.
ISO 27001:2022, 27017 and 27018 list Dedicated, Shared, High Memory and GPU plans, Backups, Images and Block Storage; the certificate can be downloaded.
Compared: DigitalOcean lists SOC 2 Type II but no ISO 27001 certificate of its own.
The MSA includes standard 24x7 telephone and online support at no charge, and no paid support tiers are listed.
Compared: DigitalOcean sells support plans from $24 to $999 a month per team.
Single sign-on works with SAML 2.0 identity providers and can be enforced for the account; account events are kept for 90 days, and login and configuration audit logs can be streamed to Object Storage or an HTTPS endpoint, one stream per account at no cost.
The compliance page lists a SOC 2 Type 2 report for CDN, security and DNS products, and a SOC 2 Type 1 report for cloud compute.
Workaround: ISO 27001, 27017 and 27018 certificates cover the compute plans.
G8 dedicated plans are billed hourly with no monthly cap, all their transfer is billed, and the 4x2 size has a 40 GB disk.
Workaround: G6 and G7 dedicated plans keep a monthly cap and 4 TB of transfer at the 4 GB size.
Backups restore only to a Linode; image upload accepts raw .img files up to 6 GB uncompressed, and image export is not described.
Workaround: Restore a backup and copy the disk over SSH with dd, or use Rescue Mode to transfer data.
Only transfer-pool emails at 80, 90 and 100% are described; the $50 billing threshold triggers an invoice and does not stop usage.
Plans are priced per server and billed by the hour up to the monthly price. For our scenario, the Linode 4 GB (2 shared vCPUs, 80 GB, 4 TB of transfer, one IPv4 address) costs $24 a month and the Backups add-on $5, so $29 a month (computed); the 2 TB of transfer fits in the pooled allowance, and overage would be $0.005 per GB. Dedicated CPU at the same size is $36 (G6, legacy hardware) or $43 (G7); G8 is hourly only, $0.07 an hour for 4 GB with no transfer included. Jakarta and São Paulo cost more (the Linode 4 GB is $28.80 and $33.60). Block Storage and captured images are $0.10 per GB-month, a NodeBalancer $10 and Linode Managed $100 per server.
Backups cannot be downloaded and restore only to a Linode. The docs describe restoring a backup and copying the disk over SSH with dd as a .img file, or booting Rescue Mode to transfer data off the disks. Image upload accepts raw .img files; image export is not described. Cancelling the account marks all services for deletion immediately, and deleting a Linode deletes its backups.
From its public pages, Akamai Cloud keeps Linode's clear plan list and adds low-cost pooled transfer ($0.005 per GB over the allowance), ISO 27001 for compute and free support. Compute has a SOC 2 Type 1 report, and G8 plans are billed without a cap.
| Limit | As recorded |
|---|---|
| Reference server | Linode 4 GB: 2 vCPU (shared), 4 GB, 80 GB SSD, 4 TB transfer, $24/mo |
| Reference scenario (US, monthly) | $29: $24 plan + $5 Backups add-on, computed |
| Billing | Hourly, rounded up, capped at the monthly price; G8 plans and extra IPv4 uncapped |
| Transfer overage | $0.005/GB (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific); pooled; inbound free |
| Public IPv4 | One per Linode included; extra addresses need justification, price not listed |
| Backups | Priced per plan ($2 to $5/mo at small sizes); daily, weekly and biweekly copies |
| Snapshots | One manual snapshot in Backups; captured images $0.10/GB-month |
| Free credit | $100 for new customers via promo page or referral, payment method required |
| Dedicated vCPU from | $36/mo (G6 Dedicated 4 GB) or $43 (G7) |
| Image export | No backup download; raw .img image upload up to 6 GB |
| SOC 2 / ISO 27001 | SOC 2 Type 1 for compute; ISO 27001:2022 covers compute |
| HIPAA BAA | On request; compute listed in HIPAA scope |
| EU regions | Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Paris, Milan, Madrid, Stockholm |
| Spend cap | None; transfer emails at 80, 90 and 100% |
Read from the vendor's public pages on Oct 16, 2026. No hands-on run is published yet. How we check
We have not published a sign-up run for Akamai Cloud (Linode) yet. The access facts above were read from its sign-up and pricing pages on Oct 16, 2026.
We have not published API calls for Akamai Cloud (Linode) yet.
Akamai Cloud (Linode) lists 5 plans. The cheapest paid plan, Nanode 1 GB, costs $5/mo.
Prices as listed, USD, excluding tax; observed 2026-10-16.
Source: akamai.com pricing page. Prices change; the observed date above is when our agent read them.
We read the pricing, billing, transfer, backup, trust and legal pages of three developer clouds on the same day and scored them on the same six indicators. What a 2 vCPU, 4 GB server with backups costs, how transfer is billed, how you leave, and who should pick which.
