# DigitalOcean vs Linode (Akamai Cloud)

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/compare/digitalocean-vs-linode/

Every value below is read from DigitalOcean's and Linode (Akamai Cloud)'s own documentation. See https://inetgeek.com/methodology/ for how.

## At a glance

| Criterion | DigitalOcean | Linode (Akamai Cloud) |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Free tier | Yes — App Platform static sites only: up to three static-site-only apps, 1 GiB outbound data each | No — Only free offer published is a US$100 credit for new customers, not an ongoing free plan. |
| Kind of free offer | Free tier | Free credit |
| Entry paid plan | $4.00 | $5.00/month for g6-nanode-1, the Nanode 1GB shared-CPU plan. Two regions are priced above it: $6.00 in Jakarta and $7.00 in São Paulo. |
| Pricing model | billed per second with a minimum charge of 60 seconds or $0.01, whichever is higher | Hybrid hourly billing, invoiced monthly, with hourly usage capped at each service's monthly rate |
| Egress over allowance | $0.01 per GiB (Droplets); inbound transfer is free and allowances pool across the team. | 0.005 for Network Transfer, with regional overrides of 0.015 in Jakarta and 0.007 in São Paulo, and 0.01 for Distributed Network Transfer. Published in Linode's API rather than in documentation: the techdocs page carried these as per-GB rates until it was edited on 14 September 2026 to remove them and point at a pricing page that refuses this checker. The API's price field is named "hourly", which transfer is not billed by, so no unit is asserted here. |
| When you exceed a cap | Billed automatically — outbound transfer beyond the pooled plan allowance is charged at $0.01 per GiB; inbound transfer is free | Billed automatically and by region: transfer over the monthly allotment is charged at the service region's rate, all transfer is billed where no allowance is included, and the charge lands at the end of the billing period. The rates themselves left this page on 14 September 2026 — see egress_overage_price for where they are now. |
| Storage (entry plan) | 10 GiB SSD on the cheapest Basic Droplet (Regular CPU, 512 MiB / 1 vCPU, $4.00/mo). | 25 GB on the Nanode 1GB plan, the cheapest Linode at $5.00/month. The types API reports it as "disk": 25600. |
| Memory (entry plan) | 512 MiB on the cheapest Basic Droplet (Regular CPU, 1 vCPU, $4.00/mo). | 1 GB on the Nanode 1GB plan, the cheapest Linode at $5.00/month. The types API reports it as "memory": 1024. |
| Included bandwidth | 500 GiB of included outbound transfer on the cheapest Basic Droplet ($4.00/mo, 512 MiB / 1 vCPU). | 1 TB per month on the Nanode 1GB plan, the cheapest Linode; larger shared-CPU plans include more. |
| File, inode or volume limit | Up to 5000 Block Storage volumes per account | 250 Block Storage volumes per account across all regions (default global quota; increases can be requested) |
| Managed connection pooling | Supported | Supported |
| Containers | Supported | Supported |
| Persistent storage | Supported | Supported |
| Managed databases | Supported | Supported |
| Scales to zero | Not supported | Not supported |
| Autoscaling | Supported — App Platform autoscales on CPU or on request metrics; containers are added and removed by workload. | Limited |
| Regions | Thirteen regions holding 16 datacenters: New York City (NYC1, NYC2, NYC3), Amsterdam (AMS3), San Francisco (SFO2, SFO3), Singapore, London, Frankfurt, Toronto, Bangalore, Sydney, Atlanta, Richmond, Kansas City and Memphis. | 33 regions listed by the Linode API v4 /regions endpoint on 2026-09-13 (every entry returned has site_type core) |
| SOC 2 | SOC 2 Type II and SOC 3 Type II certifications issued by independent auditor Schellman & Company; reports via the Security Reports & Certifications Center. | Akamai cites its information security compliance with standards such as SOC 2 in the Akamai Cloud disk encryption documentation. Stated in passing in product docs; Akamai's Trust Center requires requesting access to see reports. |
| HIPAA | Annual third-party HIPAA/HITECH attestation; BAA offered through sales; ePHI allowed only on listed HIPAA Eligible products such as Droplets, Kubernetes, Spaces. | Akamai lists Compute (Dedicated/Shared CPU, High Memory, GPU, LKE), Storage, NodeBalancers and Cloud Manager among the services in scope for HIPAA/HITECH. Read from a failover copy of the compliance-programs page on 13 September 2026. As of 15 September both that copy and www.akamai.com/legal/compliance answer 403 to this checker, so neither can be re-read. |
| GDPR / data residency | Customer selects the datacenter location at account creation; EU/UK residency available via the Amsterdam, Frankfurt and London datacenters. | Workloads can be placed in specific geographies, across core and distributed sites, to meet data residency and regulatory requirements. Page describes region placement for residency; it does not mention GDPR. |
| Encryption at rest | Volumes block storage is encrypted with LUKS; the storage cluster is fully encrypted at rest and snapshots inherit that encryption. | Local disk encryption is enabled by default on all Linodes, with the platform managing encryption and decryption. Same page notes backups are not encrypted even when taken from an encrypted disk. |
| Customer-managed keys | Spaces object storage supports SSE-C (server-side encryption with customer-provided keys); bucket-level encryption settings are not supported. Spaces object storage only; read from the Spaces S3-compatible API reference. | Platform-managed only; docs state the platform manages disk and Block Storage volume encryption and decryption, and document no customer-supplied key option. No mention of BYOK, KMS, SSE-C or customer-managed keys in any of the 394 Akamai Cloud guides. |
| Role-based access control | Teams have six predefined roles, plus custom roles containing only the permissions you choose. | Identity and Access uses an RBAC model: fine-grained per-endpoint permissions combined into predefined roles assigned to users. Natively enabled for Linodes, Cloud Firewall, NodeBalancer, Volume, Image and VPC. |
| Private networking / VPC | VPC networks are private interfaces inaccessible from the public internet; traffic within a VPC or between peered VPCs in the same datacenter is free. | VPC traffic is walled off from the public internet and from other services in the same data center; VPCs cost nothing extra. |
| Dedicated infrastructure | Four of the five bundled Droplet plans use dedicated CPUs with guaranteed full hyper-thread access; only the Basic plan shares hyper-threads. | Dedicated CPU plans reserve each assigned vCPU core exclusively for your instance, with no contention from neighboring users. |

## Where they differ

### Free tier

- DigitalOcean: Yes — App Platform static sites only: up to three static-site-only apps, 1 GiB outbound data each ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/app-platform/details/pricing/))
- Linode (Akamai Cloud): No — Only free offer published is a US$100 credit for new customers, not an ongoing free plan. ([source](https://www.akamai.com/cloud-computing))
- Lean: 78% DigitalOcean / 22% Linode (Akamai Cloud) — whether it is offered at all. inetGeek's own reading, computed from the two values above by the rules at https://inetgeek.com/methodology/, not a provider claim.

### Kind of free offer

- DigitalOcean: Free tier ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/app-platform/details/pricing/))
- Linode (Akamai Cloud): Free credit ([source](https://www.akamai.com/cloud-computing))
- Lean: none. No documented basis to lean either way on this criterion.

### Entry paid plan

- DigitalOcean: $4.00 ([source](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets))
- Linode (Akamai Cloud): $5.00/month for g6-nanode-1, the Nanode 1GB shared-CPU plan. Two regions are priced above it: $6.00 in Jakarta and $7.00 in São Paulo. ([source](https://api.linode.com/v4/linode/types?page_size=200))
- Lean: 56% DigitalOcean / 44% Linode (Akamai Cloud) — inversely proportional to the documented price. inetGeek's own reading, computed from the two values above by the rules at https://inetgeek.com/methodology/, not a provider claim.

### Pricing model

- DigitalOcean: billed per second with a minimum charge of 60 seconds or $0.01, whichever is higher ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/details/pricing/))
- Linode (Akamai Cloud): Hybrid hourly billing, invoiced monthly, with hourly usage capped at each service's monthly rate ([source](https://techdocs.akamai.com/cloud-computing/docs/understanding-how-billing-works))
- Lean: none. No documented basis to lean either way on this criterion.

### Egress over allowance

- DigitalOcean: $0.01 per GiB (Droplets); inbound transfer is free and allowances pool across the team. ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/billing/bandwidth/))
- Linode (Akamai Cloud): 0.005 for Network Transfer, with regional overrides of 0.015 in Jakarta and 0.007 in São Paulo, and 0.01 for Distributed Network Transfer. Published in Linode's API rather than in documentation: the techdocs page carried these as per-GB rates until it was edited on 14 September 2026 to remove them and point at a pricing page that refuses this checker. The API's price field is named "hourly", which transfer is not billed by, so no unit is asserted here. ([source](https://api.linode.com/v4/network-transfer/prices))
- Lean: none. No documented basis to lean either way on this criterion.

### When you exceed a cap

- DigitalOcean: Billed automatically — outbound transfer beyond the pooled plan allowance is charged at $0.01 per GiB; inbound transfer is free ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/details/pricing/))
- Linode (Akamai Cloud): Billed automatically and by region: transfer over the monthly allotment is charged at the service region's rate, all transfer is billed where no allowance is included, and the charge lands at the end of the billing period. The rates themselves left this page on 14 September 2026 — see egress_overage_price for where they are now. ([source](https://techdocs.akamai.com/cloud-computing/docs/network-transfer-usage-and-costs))
- Lean: neither leads — both document the same answer.

### Storage (entry plan)

- DigitalOcean: 10 GiB SSD on the cheapest Basic Droplet (Regular CPU, 512 MiB / 1 vCPU, $4.00/mo). ([source](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets))
- Linode (Akamai Cloud): 25 GB on the Nanode 1GB plan, the cheapest Linode at $5.00/month. The types API reports it as "disk": 25600. ([source](https://api.linode.com/v4/linode/types?page_size=200))
- Lean: 29% DigitalOcean / 71% Linode (Akamai Cloud) — proportional to the documented capacity. inetGeek's own reading, computed from the two values above by the rules at https://inetgeek.com/methodology/, not a provider claim.

### Memory (entry plan)

- DigitalOcean: 512 MiB on the cheapest Basic Droplet (Regular CPU, 1 vCPU, $4.00/mo). ([source](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets))
- Linode (Akamai Cloud): 1 GB on the Nanode 1GB plan, the cheapest Linode at $5.00/month. The types API reports it as "memory": 1024. ([source](https://api.linode.com/v4/linode/types?page_size=200))
- Lean: 33% DigitalOcean / 67% Linode (Akamai Cloud) — proportional to the documented capacity. inetGeek's own reading, computed from the two values above by the rules at https://inetgeek.com/methodology/, not a provider claim.

### Included bandwidth

- DigitalOcean: 500 GiB of included outbound transfer on the cheapest Basic Droplet ($4.00/mo, 512 MiB / 1 vCPU). ([source](https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets))
- Linode (Akamai Cloud): 1 TB per month on the Nanode 1GB plan, the cheapest Linode; larger shared-CPU plans include more. ([source](https://api.linode.com/v4/linode/types?page_size=200))
- Lean: 35% DigitalOcean / 65% Linode (Akamai Cloud) — proportional to the documented capacity. inetGeek's own reading, computed from the two values above by the rules at https://inetgeek.com/methodology/, not a provider claim.

### File, inode or volume limit

- DigitalOcean: Up to 5000 Block Storage volumes per account ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/volumes/details/limits/))
- Linode (Akamai Cloud): 250 Block Storage volumes per account across all regions (default global quota; increases can be requested) ([source](https://techdocs.akamai.com/cloud-computing/docs/block-storage-quotas))
- Lean: 95% DigitalOcean / 5% Linode (Akamai Cloud) — proportional to the documented capacity. inetGeek's own reading, computed from the two values above by the rules at https://inetgeek.com/methodology/, not a provider claim.

### Autoscaling

- DigitalOcean: Supported — App Platform autoscales on CPU or on request metrics; containers are added and removed by workload. ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/app-platform/how-to/scale-app/))
- Linode (Akamai Cloud): Limited ([source](https://techdocs.akamai.com/cloud-computing/docs/manage-nodes-and-node-pools))
- Lean: 64% DigitalOcean / 36% Linode (Akamai Cloud) — documented support level. inetGeek's own reading, computed from the two values above by the rules at https://inetgeek.com/methodology/, not a provider claim.

### Regions

- DigitalOcean: Thirteen regions holding 16 datacenters: New York City (NYC1, NYC2, NYC3), Amsterdam (AMS3), San Francisco (SFO2, SFO3), Singapore, London, Frankfurt, Toronto, Bangalore, Sydney, Atlanta, Richmond, Kansas City and Memphis. ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/platform/regional-availability/))
- Linode (Akamai Cloud): 33 regions listed by the Linode API v4 /regions endpoint on 2026-09-13 (every entry returned has site_type core) ([source](https://api.linode.com/v4/regions))
- Lean: 28% DigitalOcean / 72% Linode (Akamai Cloud) — proportional to the documented capacity. inetGeek's own reading, computed from the two values above by the rules at https://inetgeek.com/methodology/, not a provider claim.

### SOC 2

- DigitalOcean: SOC 2 Type II and SOC 3 Type II certifications issued by independent auditor Schellman & Company; reports via the Security Reports & Certifications Center. ([source](https://www.digitalocean.com/trust/certification-reports))
- Linode (Akamai Cloud): Akamai cites its information security compliance with standards such as SOC 2 in the Akamai Cloud disk encryption documentation. Stated in passing in product docs; Akamai's Trust Center requires requesting access to see reports. ([source](https://techdocs.akamai.com/cloud-computing/docs/local-disk-encryption))
- Lean: neither leads — both document the same answer.

### HIPAA

- DigitalOcean: Annual third-party HIPAA/HITECH attestation; BAA offered through sales; ePHI allowed only on listed HIPAA Eligible products such as Droplets, Kubernetes, Spaces. ([source](https://www.digitalocean.com/trust/hipaa-at-do))
- Linode (Akamai Cloud): Akamai lists Compute (Dedicated/Shared CPU, High Memory, GPU, LKE), Storage, NodeBalancers and Cloud Manager among the services in scope for HIPAA/HITECH. Read from a failover copy of the compliance-programs page on 13 September 2026. As of 15 September both that copy and www.akamai.com/legal/compliance answer 403 to this checker, so neither can be re-read. ([source](https://www.akamai.com/x-failover/legal/compliance.html))
- Lean: neither leads — both document the same answer.

### GDPR / data residency

- DigitalOcean: Customer selects the datacenter location at account creation; EU/UK residency available via the Amsterdam, Frankfurt and London datacenters. ([source](https://www.digitalocean.com/trust/gdpr-at-do))
- Linode (Akamai Cloud): Workloads can be placed in specific geographies, across core and distributed sites, to meet data residency and regulatory requirements. Page describes region placement for residency; it does not mention GDPR. ([source](https://www.akamai.com/why-akamai/global-infrastructure))
- Lean: 64% DigitalOcean / 36% Linode (Akamai Cloud) — documented support level. inetGeek's own reading, computed from the two values above by the rules at https://inetgeek.com/methodology/, not a provider claim.

### Encryption at rest

- DigitalOcean: Volumes block storage is encrypted with LUKS; the storage cluster is fully encrypted at rest and snapshots inherit that encryption. ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/volumes/details/features/))
- Linode (Akamai Cloud): Local disk encryption is enabled by default on all Linodes, with the platform managing encryption and decryption. Same page notes backups are not encrypted even when taken from an encrypted disk. ([source](https://techdocs.akamai.com/cloud-computing/docs/local-disk-encryption))
- Lean: neither leads — both document the same answer.

### Customer-managed keys

- DigitalOcean: Spaces object storage supports SSE-C (server-side encryption with customer-provided keys); bucket-level encryption settings are not supported. Spaces object storage only; read from the Spaces S3-compatible API reference. ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/spaces/reference/s3-compatibility/))
- Linode (Akamai Cloud): Platform-managed only; docs state the platform manages disk and Block Storage volume encryption and decryption, and document no customer-supplied key option. No mention of BYOK, KMS, SSE-C or customer-managed keys in any of the 394 Akamai Cloud guides. ([source](https://techdocs.akamai.com/cloud-computing/docs/local-disk-encryption.md))
- Lean: neither leads — both document the same answer.

### Role-based access control

- DigitalOcean: Teams have six predefined roles, plus custom roles containing only the permissions you choose. ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/platform/teams/roles/))
- Linode (Akamai Cloud): Identity and Access uses an RBAC model: fine-grained per-endpoint permissions combined into predefined roles assigned to users. Natively enabled for Linodes, Cloud Firewall, NodeBalancer, Volume, Image and VPC. ([source](https://techdocs.akamai.com/cloud-computing/docs/identity-and-access-cm))
- Lean: neither leads — both document the same answer.

### Private networking / VPC

- DigitalOcean: VPC networks are private interfaces inaccessible from the public internet; traffic within a VPC or between peered VPCs in the same datacenter is free. ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/networking/vpc/details/pricing/))
- Linode (Akamai Cloud): VPC traffic is walled off from the public internet and from other services in the same data center; VPCs cost nothing extra. ([source](https://techdocs.akamai.com/cloud-computing/docs/vpc))
- Lean: neither leads — both document the same answer.

### Dedicated infrastructure

- DigitalOcean: Four of the five bundled Droplet plans use dedicated CPUs with guaranteed full hyper-thread access; only the Basic plan shares hyper-threads. ([source](https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/concepts/choosing-a-plan/))
- Linode (Akamai Cloud): Dedicated CPU plans reserve each assigned vCPU core exclusively for your instance, with no contention from neighboring users. ([source](https://techdocs.akamai.com/cloud-computing/docs/dedicated-cpu-compute-instances))
- Lean: neither leads — both document the same answer.

## Which should you choose?

Pick DigitalOcean if Teams that want plain Linux virtual machines with predictable per-second billing from $4 a month, and the option of managed databases beside them. App Platform adds Git and Docker deploys on top.

Pick Linode (Akamai Cloud) if Akamai Cloud virtual machines from $5 a month in North America, with 1 TB of transfer included and egress at half a cent per gigabyte in core data centres.

Consider something else: DigitalOcean — You want a platform that manages the runtime for you rather than a server you administer.

Consider something else: Linode (Akamai Cloud) — Pricing varies by region, so the North American rate is not what you will pay everywhere, and stopped instances continue to bill.

## Documented by only one

One side documents these and the other does not. An absence is a missing source, not a stated "no" — except where a line says the other page was READ on a date and does not mention it, which is a sourced observation and the only one-sided case this site leans on.

- Startup credit program: DigitalOcean: DigitalOcean Startups (formerly Hatch): credits (amount varies, up to $10,000/month) for 12 months, plus 15 months of free Standard Tier support. Requires ≤$10M raised and a registered business account; service-based startups are not eligible.
- Sites or apps included: DigitalOcean: No more than 10 Droplets can be created at the same time through the Control Panel or the API
- Max request duration: DigitalOcean: The maximum timeout is 15 minutes. This includes initialization and function execution.
- Git deployment: DigitalOcean: Supported
- Docker deployment: DigitalOcean: Supported
- Scheduled jobs: DigitalOcean: Supported
- Persistent processes: DigitalOcean: Supported
- Edge network: DigitalOcean: Limited
- Uptime SLA: DigitalOcean: 99.99% monthly uptime per individual Droplet, with a 100% service credit for any month below it. Instance-level, and the same for every customer.
- Support on entry paid plan: DigitalOcean: Free ticket-based support for everyone, 24/7. Paid plans buy speed and channels rather than infrastructure: Developer $24/month, Standard $99/month with live chat, Premium $999/month with a dedicated Slack channel and video calls.
- Response time commitment: DigitalOcean: Under 8 hours on Developer ($24/month), the cheapest paid support plan. Free is under 24 hours, Standard under 2 hours and Premium under 30 minutes. Not severity-based.
- ISO 27001: DigitalOcean: Listed only for DigitalOcean's colocated data center facilities, not as a DigitalOcean corporate certification; certificates via the Certifications Center.
- PCI DSS: DigitalOcean: PCI-DSS SAQ-A validation under a Zero-Footprint data policy; DigitalOcean does not store, process or transmit cardholder data in its admin environment.

## Questions this comparison answers

**Entry paid plan: DigitalOcean or Linode (Akamai Cloud)?**

DigitalOcean: $4.00
Linode (Akamai Cloud): $5.00/month for g6-nanode-1, the Nanode 1GB shared-CPU plan. Two regions are priced above it: $6.00 in Jakarta and $7.00 in São Paulo.

**Free tier: DigitalOcean or Linode (Akamai Cloud)?**

DigitalOcean: Yes — App Platform static sites only: up to three static-site-only apps, 1 GiB outbound data each
Linode (Akamai Cloud): No — Only free offer published is a US$100 credit for new customers, not an ongoing free plan.

**Egress over allowance: DigitalOcean or Linode (Akamai Cloud)?**

DigitalOcean: $0.01 per GiB (Droplets); inbound transfer is free and allowances pool across the team.
Linode (Akamai Cloud): 0.005 for Network Transfer, with regional overrides of 0.015 in Jakarta and 0.007 in São Paulo, and 0.01 for Distributed Network Transfer. Published in Linode's API rather than in documentation: the techdocs page carried these as per-GB rates until it was edited on 14 September 2026 to remove them and point at a pricing page that refuses this checker. The API's price field is named "hourly", which transfer is not billed by, so no unit is asserted here.

**Should I choose DigitalOcean or Linode (Akamai Cloud)?**

Pick DigitalOcean if Teams that want plain Linux virtual machines with predictable per-second billing from $4 a month, and the option of managed databases beside them. App Platform adds Git and Docker deploys on top.
Pick Linode (Akamai Cloud) if Akamai Cloud virtual machines from $5 a month in North America, with 1 TB of transfer included and egress at half a cent per gigabyte in core data centres.