# Linode (Akamai Cloud) vs Hostinger VPS

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/compare/linode-vs-hostinger-vps/

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

## At a glance

| Criterion | Linode (Akamai Cloud) | Hostinger VPS |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Free tier | No — Only free offer published is a US$100 credit for new customers, not an ongoing free plan. | No — KVM VPS plans appear only under the 30-day money-back guarantee, not among the free-trial offerings. |
| Kind of free offer | Free credit | No free offer |
| Entry paid plan | $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. | $11.99/month on renewal for KVM 1, on a two-year term. The advertised $6.49 is an introductory rate for the first term only. |
| Pricing model | Hybrid hourly billing, invoiced monthly, with hourly usage capped at each service's monthly rate | Prepaid multi-year terms at a discounted first term, renewing at roughly 1.85x. KVM 1 is $6.49/month on a two-year prepay and $11.99/month on renewal. Milder than the shared-hosting line, where the same structure renews at 3.7x. |
| Egress over allowance | 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. | No per-GB overage price; at the plan monthly bandwidth limit the VPS connection is throttled to 10 Mbps for the rest of the month, resetting at the start of the next month. |
| Storage (entry plan) | 25 GB on the Nanode 1GB plan, the cheapest Linode at $5.00/month. The types API reports it as "disk": 25600. | 50 GB NVMe on KVM 1, the cheapest plan |
| Memory (entry plan) | 1 GB on the Nanode 1GB plan, the cheapest Linode at $5.00/month. The types API reports it as "memory": 1024. | 4 GB RAM on KVM 1, the cheapest plan |
| Included bandwidth | 1 TB per month on the Nanode 1GB plan, the cheapest Linode; larger shared-CPU plans include more. | 4 TB on KVM 1, rising to 8 TB on KVM 2, 16 TB on KVM 4 and 32 TB on KVM 8 |
| Containers | Supported | Supported |
| Persistent storage | Supported | Supported |
| Regions | 33 regions listed by the Linode API v4 /regions endpoint on 2026-09-13 (every entry returned has site_type core) | Data centers in North America, Europe, Asia and South America. Hostinger names the continents on the VPS page rather than listing the locations. |
| SOC 2 | 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. | Not SOC 2 certified; the Trust Center states Hostinger holds ISO/IEC 27001:2022 instead. |
| HIPAA | 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. | Hostinger states its hosting services are not intended to provide a HIPAA-compliant environment. |
| GDPR / data residency | 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. | GDPR Data Processing Addendum published; EU Standard Contractual Clauses apply to Customer Data transferred outside the EEA. |
| Encryption at rest | 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. | DPA security standards include encrypting Personal Data and sensitive data at rest in databases and shared directories. Hostinger-side processing measure; not a statement about customer-managed VPS disks. |
| Customer-managed keys | 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. | Not supported: Hostinger states it does not currently support customer-managed KMS or BYOK and manages key management internally. |
| Role-based access control | 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. | Account Sharing grants a Collaborator or Admin role, scoped to selected services; each role has a different set of permissions. |
| Dedicated infrastructure | Dedicated CPU plans reserve each assigned vCPU core exclusively for your instance, with no contention from neighboring users. | Each KVM VPS is a dedicated, isolated environment on a physical server, with CPU and RAM not shared with other users. |

## Where they differ

### Kind of free offer

- Linode (Akamai Cloud): Free credit ([source](https://www.akamai.com/cloud-computing))
- Hostinger VPS: No free offer ([source](https://www.hostinger.com/support/1583320-are-free-hosting-plans-available-at-hostinger/))
- Lean: none. No documented basis to lean either way on this criterion.

### Entry paid plan

- 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))
- Hostinger VPS: $11.99/month on renewal for KVM 1, on a two-year term. The advertised $6.49 is an introductory rate for the first term only. ([source](https://www.hostinger.com/vps-hosting))
- Lean: 71% Linode (Akamai Cloud) / 29% Hostinger VPS — 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

- 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))
- Hostinger VPS: Prepaid multi-year terms at a discounted first term, renewing at roughly 1.85x. KVM 1 is $6.49/month on a two-year prepay and $11.99/month on renewal. Milder than the shared-hosting line, where the same structure renews at 3.7x. ([source](https://www.hostinger.com/vps-hosting))
- Lean: none. No documented basis to lean either way on this criterion.

### Egress over allowance

- 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))
- Hostinger VPS: No per-GB overage price; at the plan monthly bandwidth limit the VPS connection is throttled to 10 Mbps for the rest of the month, resetting at the start of the next month. ([source](https://www.hostinger.com/support/8789965-what-happens-if-your-vps-bandwidth-resource-limits-are-exceeded/))
- Lean: none. No documented basis to lean either way on this criterion.

### Storage (entry plan)

- 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))
- Hostinger VPS: 50 GB NVMe on KVM 1, the cheapest plan ([source](https://www.hostinger.com/vps-hosting))
- Lean: 35% Linode (Akamai Cloud) / 65% Hostinger VPS — 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)

- 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))
- Hostinger VPS: 4 GB RAM on KVM 1, the cheapest plan ([source](https://www.hostinger.com/vps-hosting))
- Lean: 20% Linode (Akamai Cloud) / 80% Hostinger VPS — 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

- 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))
- Hostinger VPS: 4 TB on KVM 1, rising to 8 TB on KVM 2, 16 TB on KVM 4 and 32 TB on KVM 8 ([source](https://www.hostinger.com/vps-hosting))
- Lean: 20% Linode (Akamai Cloud) / 80% Hostinger VPS — 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.

### Regions

- 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))
- Hostinger VPS: Data centers in North America, Europe, Asia and South America. Hostinger names the continents on the VPS page rather than listing the locations. ([source](https://www.hostinger.com/vps-hosting))
- Lean: none. No documented basis to lean either way on this criterion.

### SOC 2

- 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))
- Hostinger VPS: Not SOC 2 certified; the Trust Center states Hostinger holds ISO/IEC 27001:2022 instead. ([source](https://trust.hostinger.com/api/statuspage/share/9dc9a6f0-bac9-4f51-93b7-d99aaf0aa3b4/public/kb/search?page=1&sortField=lastUpdatedAt&sortDirection=desc&entriesPerPage=500&productIds=default))
- Lean: 82% Linode (Akamai Cloud) / 18% Hostinger VPS — 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.

### HIPAA

- 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))
- Hostinger VPS: Hostinger states its hosting services are not intended to provide a HIPAA-compliant environment. ([source](https://www.hostinger.com/support/1583287-what-security-measures-does-hostinger-use/))
- Lean: 82% Linode (Akamai Cloud) / 18% Hostinger VPS — 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.

### GDPR / data residency

- 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))
- Hostinger VPS: GDPR Data Processing Addendum published; EU Standard Contractual Clauses apply to Customer Data transferred outside the EEA. ([source](https://www.hostinger.com/legal/dpa))
- Lean: neither leads — both document the same answer.

### Encryption at rest

- 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))
- Hostinger VPS: DPA security standards include encrypting Personal Data and sensitive data at rest in databases and shared directories. Hostinger-side processing measure; not a statement about customer-managed VPS disks. ([source](https://www.hostinger.com/legal/dpa))
- Lean: 64% Linode (Akamai Cloud) / 36% Hostinger VPS — 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.

### Customer-managed keys

- 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))
- Hostinger VPS: Not supported: Hostinger states it does not currently support customer-managed KMS or BYOK and manages key management internally. ([source](https://trust.hostinger.com/api/statuspage/share/9dc9a6f0-bac9-4f51-93b7-d99aaf0aa3b4/public/kb/search?page=1&sortField=lastUpdatedAt&sortDirection=desc&entriesPerPage=500&productIds=default))
- Lean: 64% Linode (Akamai Cloud) / 36% Hostinger VPS — 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.

### Role-based access control

- 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))
- Hostinger VPS: Account Sharing grants a Collaborator or Admin role, scoped to selected services; each role has a different set of permissions. ([source](https://www.hostinger.com/support/1583777-how-to-share-access-to-your-account-at-hostinger/))
- Lean: neither leads — both document the same answer.

### Dedicated infrastructure

- 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))
- Hostinger VPS: Each KVM VPS is a dedicated, isolated environment on a physical server, with CPU and RAM not shared with other users. ([source](https://www.hostinger.com/support/8852150-what-is-a-self-managed-vps-at-hostinger/))
- Lean: neither leads — both document the same answer.

## Which should you choose?

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.

Pick Hostinger VPS if Running Docker applications on a cheap KVM server with root access, where 4 GB of RAM at the entry plan matters more than a managed control plane. The one-click catalog covers the usual self-hosted stack.

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.

Consider something else: Hostinger VPS — The advertised price is introductory. Compare the two-year renewal rate, and note that Hostinger publishes continents rather than data centre locations, so you cannot pick a specific region before buying.

## 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.

- When you exceed a cap: 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.
- File, inode or volume limit: Linode (Akamai Cloud): 250 Block Storage volumes per account across all regions (default global quota; increases can be requested)
- Managed connection pooling: Linode (Akamai Cloud): Supported
- Docker deployment: Hostinger VPS: Supported
- Persistent processes: Hostinger VPS: Supported
- Managed databases: Linode (Akamai Cloud): Supported
- Scales to zero: Linode (Akamai Cloud): Not supported
- Autoscaling: Linode (Akamai Cloud): Limited
- Backup retention: Hostinger VPS: Automatic weekly backups included, plus manual snapshots. Hostinger does not state how many weekly backups are kept.
- ISO 27001: Hostinger VPS: ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certified; certificate viewable in the Hostinger Trust Center.
- PCI DSS: Hostinger VPS: Hostinger hosting plans are not designed to meet PCI (Payment Card Industry) compliance standards.
- Private networking / VPC: 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.

## Questions this comparison answers

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

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.
Hostinger VPS: $11.99/month on renewal for KVM 1, on a two-year term. The advertised $6.49 is an introductory rate for the first term only.

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

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.
Hostinger VPS: No per-GB overage price; at the plan monthly bandwidth limit the VPS connection is throttled to 10 Mbps for the rest of the month, resetting at the start of the next month.

**Included bandwidth: Linode (Akamai Cloud) or Hostinger VPS?**

Linode (Akamai Cloud): 1 TB per month on the Nanode 1GB plan, the cheapest Linode; larger shared-CPU plans include more.
Hostinger VPS: 4 TB on KVM 1, rising to 8 TB on KVM 2, 16 TB on KVM 4 and 32 TB on KVM 8

**Should I choose Linode (Akamai Cloud) or Hostinger VPS?**

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.
Pick Hostinger VPS if Running Docker applications on a cheap KVM server with root access, where 4 GB of RAM at the entry plan matters more than a managed control plane. The one-click catalog covers the usual self-hosted stack.
