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Akamai Cloud (Linode) vs UpCloud
UpCloud starts $1.50 per month cheaper at the entry tier. Akamai Cloud (Linode) lists more regions, which matters if latency to a specific city is your constraint. Akamai Cloud (Linode) is the better pick for teams that value platform maturity and stability over the lowest possible invoice.
Akamai Cloud (Linode)
$5.00/mo entry
Teams that value platform maturity and stability over the lowest possible invoice.
UpCloud
$3.50/mo entry
Workloads that need consistent IOPS or heavy egress without a bandwidth-priced surprise at month end.
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) | UpCloud | Better |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry plan price / month | $5.00 | $3.50 | UpCloud |
| Entry plan vCPU | 1 | 1 | |
| Entry plan RAM | 1 GB | 1 GB | |
| Entry plan storage | 25 GB | 10 GB | Akamai Cloud (Linode) |
| Listed regions | 20 | 15 | 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 on all plans; the same team backs the paid Managed Databases product. | |
| Billing | Hourly metering, capped at the listed monthly price. | Hourly, capped at 28 days (672 hours) per calendar month. Prices are published in euros and US dollars. | |
| Free tier | No free tier. Trial credit is offered to new accounts from time to time. | 30-day free trial available for new accounts; no permanent 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) | UpCloud | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 vCPU / 1 GB | $5.00Nanode 1GB · 1 vCPU · 1 GB · 25 GBEntry shared instance. | $3.50Starter 1GB · 1 vCPU · 1 GB · 10 GBEntry Starter plan, with a per-customer purchase limit. Zero-cost egress under the Fair Transfer Policy. | UpCloud cheaper by $1.50 |
| 2 vCPU / 4 GB | $24.00Linode 4GB · 2 vCPU · 4 GB · 80 GBMid-tier shared instance. | $14.00Starter 4GB / 2 vCPU · 2 vCPU · 4 GB · 30 GBThe tier that reads as a direct swap for the DigitalOcean 4GB Droplet. | UpCloud cheaper by $10.00 |
| 4 vCPU / 8 GB | $48.00Linode 8GB · 4 vCPU · 8 GB · 160 GBFour cores with the largest included transfer in the shared range. | $24.00Starter 8GB / 4 vCPU · 4 vCPU · 8 GB · 40 GBFour cores at 8 GB. | UpCloud cheaper by $24.00 |
| 8 vCPU / 16 GB | $192.00Linode 32GB · 8 vCPU · 32 GB · 640 GBEight shared cores and 32GB, with 16TB of transfer included. | no plan this size | — |
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.
UpCloud
UpCloud is a Finnish independent cloud that competes on storage performance and transfer terms rather than headline price. Its MaxIOPS storage tier and zero-cost egress policy make it a natural upgrade from a budget host if you have hit an IOPS ceiling or a fair-use letter about egress. It publishes a global US dollar price for every plan as well as a euro price; we list the dollar price, read daily from UpCloud’s own price calculator.
Strengths
- Zero-cost egress across every product, subject to a Fair Transfer Policy
- MaxIOPS storage tier reaches up to 100k IOPS, unusual at this price band
- Fixed-price Starter plans as an on-ramp; billed by the hour, up to a 28-day monthly cap
- 99.99% SLA on Starter and 99.999% on Cloud Native and above
Weaknesses
- Helsinki costs more than the other zones for the older General Purpose, High CPU and High Memory plans
- The 1GB Starter is limited to five concurrent deployments per customer
- Region map is smaller than DigitalOcean’s despite the premium positioning
- Ecosystem is smaller: fewer marketplace images and community tutorials than the big names
Support: Ticket support included on all plans; the same team backs the paid Managed Databases product.
Billing: Hourly, capped at 28 days (672 hours) per calendar month. Prices are published in euros and US dollars.
Free tier: 30-day free trial available for new accounts; no permanent 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) | UpCloud |
|---|---|---|
| Plan (2 vCPU / 4 GB) | $24.00 | $14.00 |
| 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 UpCloud.
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.
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Where both sell
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Akamai Cloud (Linode) vs UpCloud — 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 UpCloud?
- UpCloud Starter 1GB at $3.50/mo, which is $1.50 (30%) less than Akamai Cloud (Linode) Nanode 1GB at $5.00/mo.
- How many datacentre locations do Akamai Cloud (Linode) and UpCloud have?
- Akamai Cloud (Linode) lists 20 and UpCloud lists 15.