I haven't used Linode in a few years, but if they offer exactly the same thing, then DigitalOcean wins handily just based on price for many. I know there are other factors that can go into choosing a VPS or similar service, but price is a big deal for many customers.

Linode doesn't do hourly billing either. They will credit your account for what you don't use, but you get charged for the month upfront.

They've recently released an hourly billing model into beta: https://forum.linode.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=10817

My mistake then, thanks for correcting me.

I believe they now offer hourly billing. If you choose it, you are billed hourly, not monthly, but the hourly rate maxes out at the monthly rate. I got an email about it a month or two ago but haven't tried it.

Linode is twice as expensive per MB of RAM, but less expensive per CPU or MB of disk space.

Linodes cheapest offer starts with $20, while DO only with $5. It's awesome for experimenting.

Do you have data to back up the CPU claim? With Linode, it really depends who you're sharing a server with. I don't have as much experience with D.O. However, dollar for dollar, I think D.O. is slightly faster.

Yeah. For me it was price and performance, both of which DigitalOcean wins.

I couldn't possibly care less about an admin panel. I'm a Linux guy.

I want cheap speed and reliability. With DO, you get all of them. Sorry Linode, but you're old news now.

I share exactly the same feelings and experience with the person who replied to your comment previously.

I have a server in each and I like them both. However;

- Linode support is second to none. DO is not bad either but much slower and less responsive. You feel the difference when you really need it.

- I had a CC payment issue with DO since the beginning. I mentioned it to the support twice but unsolved as of yet, using paypal.

- You can't assign multiple IPs to your instance in DO. I have 6 IPs in one of my Linodes for SSL reasons. This is more than enough to compensate the price diff, actually Linode is cheaper because of that.

- No built in, easy-to-use load balancer in DO.

- Networking feels much faster and stable on Linode, at all occasions.

- Small things like "no more Amsterdam based droplets due to IP restrictions" when you urgently need a server don't usually happen on Linode.

Things like these pile up in the long run and you can easily justify the price difference. If have a very serious/critical project I'd definitly chose Linode over DO.

Is SNI (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Name_Indication) an option for you?

Well, mainly not, due to some of the target visitor groups using Win XP.

Why would you choose Linode for a serious/critical project ?

Do you not know about their major security incidents ?

Like the disk scrubbing issue?

http://venturebeat.com/2013/12/30/iaas-provider-digitalocean...

I am aware of them and yours is a valid point. I, however, was referring to relying on the infrastructure, expandability, customer support etc. Aside, a fair comparison in terms of security can only be made in the long run as it is natural to think that Linode has been around much longer and it is much bigger meaning it has a greater window of opportunities to be targeted by attacks.

I've got a fair bit running on both DO and Linode. Fairly happy with both but still for anything CPU bound (to me the speed part of that), Linode is substantially outperforming DO still and both leave Rackspace Cloud in the dust.

So for me, on average a $20 Linode has less RAM but performs better for CPU bound tasks than a $20 DO Droplet.