Disclosure: we may earn a commission or referral reward from CloudCone, Contabo, DigitalOcean (account credit, not cash), Hostwinds, InterServer, RackNerd, VPSDime and Vultr if you sign up through our links. It does not change the price you pay. Every other provider pays us nothing.
Akamai Cloud (Linode) vs Contabo
Akamai Cloud (Linode) starts $1.60 per month cheaper at the entry tier. Akamai Cloud (Linode) lists more regions, which matters if latency to a specific city is your constraint. Contabo is the better pick for home labs, dev boxes and low-traffic apps where memory and disk matter more than sub-millisecond IOPS.
Akamai Cloud (Linode)
$5.00/mo entry
Teams that value platform maturity and stability over the lowest possible invoice.
Contabo
$6.60/mo entry
Home labs, dev boxes and low-traffic apps where memory and disk matter more than sub-millisecond IOPS.
Specification differences
Entry plans compared line by line. Rows marked with a dash are preferences rather than measurable wins, so we do not pick a side on them.
| Attribute | Akamai Cloud (Linode) | Contabo | Better |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry plan price / month | $5.00 | $6.60 | Akamai Cloud (Linode) |
| Entry plan vCPU | 1 | 4 | Contabo |
| Entry plan RAM | 1 GB | 8 GB | Contabo |
| Entry plan storage | 25 GB | 100 GB | Contabo |
| Listed regions | 20 | 9 | Akamai Cloud (Linode) |
| Management model | Unmanaged (you run the OS) | Unmanaged (you run the OS) | |
| Support | Ticket and phone support; paid premium tiers available. | Ticket support included; response times are slower than DigitalOcean or Vultr under peak load. | |
| Billing | Hourly metering, capped at the listed monthly price. | Monthly subscription (1, 3, 6, 12 or 24 months); price displayed excludes VAT. | |
| Free tier | No free tier. Trial credit is offered to new accounts from time to time. | No free tier. |
Same size, side by side
The cheapest plan from each provider that meets each size, so the comparison is between equal servers rather than two entry plans. Prices include a separately-billed IPv4 address where the provider charges for one.
| Size | Akamai Cloud (Linode) | Contabo | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 vCPU / 1 GB | $5.00Nanode 1GB · 1 vCPU · 1 GB · 25 GBEntry shared instance. | $6.60Cloud VPS 4 · 4 vCPU · 8 GB · 100 GBFour cores and 8 GB RAM on a rolling monthly contract. Unlimited traffic under a fair-use policy, 200 Mbps port. | Akamai Cloud (Linode) cheaper by $1.60 |
| 2 vCPU / 4 GB | $24.00Linode 4GB · 2 vCPU · 4 GB · 80 GBMid-tier shared instance. | $6.60Cloud VPS 4 · 4 vCPU · 8 GB · 100 GBFour cores and 8 GB RAM on a rolling monthly contract. Unlimited traffic under a fair-use policy, 200 Mbps port. | Contabo cheaper by $17.40 |
| 4 vCPU / 8 GB | $48.00Linode 8GB · 4 vCPU · 8 GB · 160 GBFour cores with the largest included transfer in the shared range. | $6.60Cloud VPS 4 · 4 vCPU · 8 GB · 100 GBFour cores and 8 GB RAM on a rolling monthly contract. Unlimited traffic under a fair-use policy, 200 Mbps port. | Contabo cheaper by $41.40 |
| 8 vCPU / 16 GB | $192.00Linode 32GB · 8 vCPU · 32 GB · 640 GBEight shared cores and 32GB, with 16TB of transfer included. | $16.80Cloud VPS 8 · 8 vCPU · 24 GB · 300 GBEight cores, 24 GB RAM and 300 GB SSD. Unlimited traffic under a fair-use policy at 600 Mbps. | Contabo cheaper by $175.20 |
Every provider at these sizes, ranked: 1 GB RAM · 4 GB RAM · 8 GB RAM · 16 GB RAM
Where each one wins and loses
Akamai Cloud (Linode)
Linode predates most of the budget cloud market and was acquired by Akamai, which folded it into a much larger edge network. The instance shapes and flat pricing remain close to DigitalOcean, and the platform is mature and stable. It is the safe, unexciting choice in this list.
Strengths
- Mature platform with a long operational track record
- Flat pricing and instance shapes broadly comparable to DigitalOcean
- Backed by Akamai edge infrastructure
Weaknesses
- Unmanaged, same operational burden as its peers
- Product direction now set by a much larger parent company
- Smaller developer community than DigitalOcean
Support: Ticket and phone support; paid premium tiers available.
Billing: Hourly metering, capped at the listed monthly price.
Free tier: No free tier. Trial credit is offered to new accounts from time to time.
Contabo
Contabo prices its Cloud VPS range on a plan-per-month basis rather than by-the-hour, and the resulting month-to-month prices are the lowest we track at most memory sizes from 8 GB up. The trade-off is upfront: the storage is SSD rather than NVMe, minimum contract is one month, and the effective monthly price falls further only if you pre-pay 24 months.
Strengths
- Cheapest RAM-per-dollar in this list at every tier from 8 GB up
- Unlimited traffic on every plan, subject to a fair-use policy that allows throttling
- One-month minimum contract; longer terms cut the effective monthly cost further
- Adequate US, EU and APAC datacentre coverage for a budget provider
Weaknesses
- SSD storage on Core VPS, not NVMe — cheaper providers now match the spec, this one does not
- Reputation for setup queues on new accounts, especially outside the EU
- Public bandwidth is capped at 200–800 Mbps depending on the plan
- Historically underinvested control panel; API surface is thinner than DigitalOcean’s
Support: Ticket support included; response times are slower than DigitalOcean or Vultr under peak load.
Billing: Monthly subscription (1, 3, 6, 12 or 24 months); price displayed excludes VAT.
Free tier: No free tier.
The full cost stack
What a server costs beyond its sticker price, shown for 2 vCPU / 4 GB. Only figures read from each provider's own documentation appear; a gap says “not captured yet”.
| Item | Akamai Cloud (Linode) | Contabo |
|---|---|---|
| Plan (2 vCPU / 4 GB) | $24.00 | $6.60 |
| Automatic backups | not captured yet | not captured yet |
| Outbound traffic beyond the allowance | not captured yet | not captured yet |
| Smallest managed load balancer | not captured yet | not captured yet |
Sources: none captured yet for this pair.
Price changes we have logged
No tracked price change for either provider yet.
Full record at the change log.
Every plan
The complete plan ladders, with the date and source of every price, are on each provider's page: Akamai Cloud (Linode) and Contabo.
All figures are the providers' own published list prices in USD, on-demand monthly. The index was last refreshed 2026-10-14, and every row shows the date its own price was read. Nothing here is live or negotiated pricing. Where a provider bills a public IPv4 address on top, it is added to the monthly price, the ranking and every cost per vCPU or per GB, and the row shows the parts: the server, any disk priced apart, and the IPv4 charge. Some prices exclude VAT or need a commitment; the plan notes say which. Check the provider's pricing page before you commit.
Related comparisons
Where both sell
Akamai Cloud (Linode) and Contabo both have data centres in these places. Each page ranks every provider there at the price charged in that location.
Akamai Cloud (Linode) vs Contabo — frequently asked
Every answer is computed from this pair's own prices and costs.
- Which is cheaper for 1 vCPU / 1 GB, Akamai Cloud (Linode) or Contabo?
- Akamai Cloud (Linode) Nanode 1GB at $5.00/mo, which is $1.60 (24%) less than Contabo Cloud VPS 4 at $6.60/mo.
- How many datacentre locations do Akamai Cloud (Linode) and Contabo have?
- Akamai Cloud (Linode) lists 20 and Contabo lists 9.