Vultr vs Linode (Akamai Cloud)
SEPT 2026 auditA comparison of Vultr and Linode (Akamai Cloud) built from values read directly from each provider's own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure.
Adoption share
BuiltWith counts — how much more of the web runs Linode (Akamai Cloud) than Vultr, among the sites BuiltWith actually detects. Measured . Source: BuiltWith.
The short answer
Choose Vultr if…
Teams that want cheap virtual machines with generous included transfer — 2 TB a month per account — and overage at a cent per gigabyte. Block storage and managed databases sit alongside.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Choose 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.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Consider something else if…
- Vultr: The $2.50 entry plan is IPv6-only; the equivalent machine with IPv4 starts at $3.50, and stopped instances are still billed.
- 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.
Neither quite fits? Every other option, ranked by iScore: Vultr alternatives · Linode alternatives
15 sourced criteria separate them — see where, with sources, below.
Pick the criteria you care about. The chart counts how many of them lean toward each provider — the same read as scanning the bars below, just totalled for the ones you chose.
Vultr 0
Linode (Akamai Cloud) 0
At a glance.
| Criterion | Vultr | Linode (Akamai Cloud) |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | ||
| Entry paid plan | $2.50/month for vc2-1c-0.5gb-v6: 1 vCPU, 512 MB memory, 10 GB SSD, 512 GB bandwidth, IPv6 only — and available in two of Vultr's 33 regions, Newark and Atlanta. The first plan offered nearly everywhere is vc2-1c-1gb at $5.00, in 31 of them. | $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 | Hourly billing; Cloud Compute is billed up to 672 hours per month, with a one-hour minimum billing unit | Hybrid hourly billing, invoiced monthly, with hourly usage capped at each service's monthly rate |
| Egress over allowance | $0.01 per GB | 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 — bandwidth above the plan quota is charged at an overage rate of $0.01 per GB. | 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. |
| Limits | ||
| Storage (entry plan) | 10 GB SSD on the cheapest paid Cloud Compute plan ($2.50/month, 1 vCPU, 512 MB, IPv6 only). | 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) | 0.5 GB on the cheapest paid Cloud Compute plan ($2.50/month, IPv6 only). The plans API reports it as "ram":512 without naming a unit. | 1 GB on the Nanode 1GB plan, the cheapest Linode at $5.00/month. The types API reports it as "memory": 1024. |
| Included bandwidth | 2 TB of free bandwidth per account per month, plus each running instance's own monthly cap allocated hourly | 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 16 Vultr Block Storage volumes can be attached to the same Cloud Compute instance | 250 Block Storage volumes per account across all regions (default global quota; increases can be requested) |
| Execution | ||
| Managed connection pooling | Supported | Supported |
| Deployment | ||
| Containers | Supported | Supported |
| Infrastructure | ||
| Persistent storage | Supported | Supported |
| Managed databases | Supported | Supported |
| Scales to zero | Not supported | Not supported |
| Autoscaling | Limited | Limited |
| Regions | 33 regions across six continents: 11 in North America, 9 in Europe, 8 in Asia, 2 in Australia, 2 in South America and 1 in Africa. | 33 regions listed by the Linode API v4 /regions endpoint on 2026-09-13 (every entry returned has site_type core) |
| Compliance | ||
| SOC 2 | To maintain a strong security posture, Vultr conducts quarterly penetration testing by certified ethical hackers (CEH/OSCP), real-time vulnerability scanning aligned with the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, and annual SOC 2+ Type II audits. | 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. |
| Encryption at rest | Vultr Block Storage and File Storage provide encryption for data in transit and at rest; OS-level encryption such as LUKS is advised in addition. | 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 | Object Storage supports SSE-C server-side encryption with a customer-provided key; the customer alone manages and safeguards those keys. Object Storage only; no platform key-management service found on the site. | 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 | IAM roles bundle policies for users or groups: assignable roles for permanent access, assumable roles for time-bound elevated sessions. | 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 give instances a secure, isolated private IPv4 network, with auto-assigned or custom subnet ranges and optional custom static routes. | VPC traffic is walled off from the public internet and from other services in the same data center; VPCs cost nothing extra. |
| Dedicated infrastructure | Bare Metal instances offer direct, unvirtualized access to dedicated physical servers; Cloud Compute by contrast runs in a virtualized environment. | Dedicated CPU plans reserve each assigned vCPU core exclusively for your instance, with no contention from neighboring users. |
Where they differ.
Entry paid plan
- Vultr
- $2.50/month for vc2-1c-0.5gb-v6: 1 vCPU, 512 MB memory, 10 GB SSD, 512 GB bandwidth, IPv6 only — and available in two of Vultr's 33 regions, Newark and Atlanta. The first plan offered nearly everywhere is vc2-1c-1gb at $5.00, in 31 of them.
- 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.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- List Plans — Vultr API v2 ↗
“{"id":"vc2-1c-0.5gb-v6","vcpu_count":1,"ram":512,"disk":10,"disk_type":"SSD","disk_count":1,"bandwidth":512,"monthly_cost":2.5,"hourly_cost":0.003,"monthly_cost_preemptible":2.5,"hourly_cost_preemptible":0.003,"invoice_type":"monthly","type":"vc2","locations":["ewr","atl"]”
Read 2026-09-14 · official docs · Report a correction
- List Types — Linode API v4 ↗
“{"id": "g6-nanode-1", "label": "Nanode 1GB", "price": {"hourly": 0.0075, "monthly": 5.0}, "region_prices": [{"id": "id-cgk", "hourly": 0.009, "monthly": 6.0}, {"id": "br-gru", "hourly": 0.0105, "monthly": 7.0}]”
Read 2026-09-14 · official docs · Report a correction
Pricing model
- Vultr
- Hourly billing; Cloud Compute is billed up to 672 hours per month, with a one-hour minimum billing unit
- Linode (Akamai Cloud)
- Hybrid hourly billing, invoiced monthly, with hourly usage capped at each service's monthly rate
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- How Am I Billed for My Servers? | Vultr Docs ↗
“Vultr bills all servers on an hourly basis. The billing model varies slightly based on the product type: GPU Instances: Billed up to 730 hours per month, aligned with the industry-standard monthly cap. All Other Server Types (including Cloud Compute, Optimized Cloud Compute, Bare Metal): Billed up to 672 hours per month.”
Read 2026-09-05 · official docs · Report a correction
- Billing ↗
“Akamai uses a hybrid hourly billing model that's simple and flexible. You can continuously add, modify, and remove services throughout the month. Once the month ends, you receive an invoice for the hourly usage of each service up to the monthly cap.”
Read 2026-09-05 · official docs · Report a correction
Egress over allowance
- Vultr
- $0.01 per GB
- 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.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- What Is the Bandwidth Overage Rate? | Vultr Docs ↗
“Bandwidth usage exceeding your plan's allocated quota is billed at an overage rate of $0.01 per GB.”
Read 2026-09-05 · official docs · Report a correction
- Network Transfer Prices — Linode API v4 ↗
“{"id": "network_transfer", "label": "Network Transfer", "price": {"hourly": 0.005, "monthly": null}, "region_prices": [{"id": "id-cgk", "hourly": 0.015, "monthly": null}, {"id": "br-gru", "hourly": 0.007, "monthly": null}]”
Read 2026-09-15 · official docs · Report a correction
When you exceed a cap
- Vultr
- Billed automatically — bandwidth above the plan quota is charged at an overage rate of $0.01 per GB.
- 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.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- What is the bandwidth overage rate? — Vultr Docs ↗
“Bandwidth usage exceeding your plan's allocated quota is billed at an overage rate of $0.01 per GB.”
Read 2026-09-14 · official docs · Report a correction
- Network transfer usage and costs — Akamai TechDocs ↗
“Any transfer usage that exceeds your monthly allotment is billed based on the service region (see the Pricing page). If no transfer is included, all transfer is billed. Transfer usage is charged at the end of the billing period.”
Read 2026-09-15 · official docs · Report a correction
Storage (entry plan)
10 GB SSD on the cheapest paid Cloud Compute plan ($2.50/month, 1 vCPU, 512 MB, IPv6 only).
25 GB on the Nanode 1GB plan, the cheapest Linode at $5.00/month. The types API reports it as "disk": 25600.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- List Plans — Vultr API v2 ↗
“{"id":"vc2-1c-0.5gb-v6","vcpu_count":1,"ram":512,"disk":10,"disk_type":"SSD","disk_count":1,"bandwidth":512,"monthly_cost":2.5”
Read 2026-09-14 · official docs · Report a correction
- List Types — Linode API v4 ↗
“"memory": 1024, "disk": 25600, "transfer": 1000, "vcpus": 1, "gpus": 0, "network_out": 1000, "class": "nanode", "successor": null, "capabilities": [], "accelerated_devices": 0}”
Read 2026-09-14 · official docs · Report a correction
Memory (entry plan)
0.5 GB on the cheapest paid Cloud Compute plan ($2.50/month, IPv6 only). The plans API reports it as "ram":512 without naming a unit.
1 GB on the Nanode 1GB plan, the cheapest Linode at $5.00/month. The types API reports it as "memory": 1024.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- List Plans — Vultr API v2 ↗
“{"id":"vc2-1c-0.5gb-v6","vcpu_count":1,"ram":512,"disk":10,"disk_type":"SSD","disk_count":1,"bandwidth":512,"monthly_cost":2.5”
Read 2026-09-14 · official docs · Report a correction
- List Types — Linode API v4 ↗
“"memory": 1024, "disk": 25600, "transfer": 1000, "vcpus": 1, "gpus": 0, "network_out": 1000, "class": "nanode", "successor": null, "capabilities": []”
Read 2026-09-14 · official docs · Report a correction
Included bandwidth
- Vultr
- 2 TB of free bandwidth per account per month, plus each running instance's own monthly cap allocated hourly
- Linode (Akamai Cloud)
- 1 TB per month on the Nanode 1GB plan, the cheapest Linode; larger shared-CPU plans include more.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- How Are Bandwidth Caps Calculated? | Vultr Docs ↗
“Free Bandwidth: Vultr provides 2 TB of free bandwidth per account, allocated monthly. This allocation resets at the beginning of each calendar month and does not carry over.”
Read 2026-09-05 · official docs · Report a correction
- List Types — Linode API v4 ↗
“"memory": 1024, "disk": 25600, "transfer": 1000, "vcpus": 1, "gpus": 0, "network_out": 1000, "class": "nanode", "successor": null, "capabilities": [], "accelerated_devices": 0}, {"id": "g6-standard-1", "label": "Linode 2GB"”
Read 2026-09-14 · official docs · Report a correction
File, inode or volume limit
Up to 16 Vultr Block Storage volumes can be attached to the same Cloud Compute instance
250 Block Storage volumes per account across all regions (default global quota; increases can be requested)
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Block Storage | Vultr Docs ↗
“Yes, you can attach up to 16 Vultr Block Storage volumes to the same Vultr Cloud Compute instance.”
Read 2026-09-05 · official docs · Report a correction
- Block Storage quotas — Akamai TechDocs ↗
“Total number of volumes per account across all regions NOTE: Any account with more than 250 volumes deployed prior to September 22, 2026 will receive a 25% buffer to the existing volume”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction
Regions
33 regions across six continents: 11 in North America, 9 in Europe, 8 in Asia, 2 in Australia, 2 in South America and 1 in Africa.
33 regions listed by the Linode API v4 /regions endpoint on 2026-09-13 (every entry returned has site_type core)
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- List Regions — Vultr API v2 ↗
“{"regions":[{"id":"ams","city":"Amsterdam","country":"NL","continent":"Europe" [...] {"id":"yto","city":"Toronto","country":"CA","continent":"North America","options":["ddos_protection","block_storage_storage_opt","load_balancers","kubernetes"],"connectivity":["public_ip","nat_gateway"]}],"meta":{"total":33”
Read 2026-09-14 · official docs · Report a correction
- Linode API v4 - List Regions ↗
“"page": 1, "pages": 1, "results": 33”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction
SOC 2
- Vultr
- To maintain a strong security posture, Vultr conducts quarterly penetration testing by certified ethical hackers (CEH/OSCP), real-time vulnerability scanning aligned with the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, and annual SOC 2+ Type II audits.
- 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.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Vultr Trust Center - Vultr.com ↗
“To maintain a strong security posture, Vultr conducts quarterly penetration testing by certified ethical hackers (CEH/OSCP), real-time vulnerability scanning aligned with the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, and annual SOC 2+ Type II audits.”
Read 2026-09-22 · official site · Report a correction
- Disk encryption | Akamai Cloud TechDocs ↗
“In addition to Akamai's information security compliance with standards such as SOC 2, disk encryption provides further protections by keeping data encrypted”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction
Encryption at rest
- Vultr
- Vultr Block Storage and File Storage provide encryption for data in transit and at rest; OS-level encryption such as LUKS is advised in addition.
- 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.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Security Best Practices for Vultr Block Storage (VBS) and Vultr File System (VFS) ↗
“Vultr provide encryption for data in transit and at rest. This protects against unauthorized reads if storage is compromised. For extra security, apply OS-level encryption on your volume using tools like LUKS for native Linux encryption or VeraCrypt for cross-platform compatibility.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction
- Disk encryption | Akamai Cloud TechDocs ↗
“Disk encryption ensures that your data stored on Linodes is secured. [...] By default, disk encryption is enabled on all Linodes.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction
Customer-managed keys
- Vultr
- Object Storage supports SSE-C server-side encryption with a customer-provided key; the customer alone manages and safeguards those keys. Object Storage only; no platform key-management service found on the site.
- 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.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- How to Use Server Side Encryption (SSE-C) with S3 Object Storage on Vultr ↗
“SSE-C (Server-Side Encryption with Customer-Provided Key) allows users to provide their own encryption key, which the cloud service provider uses to encrypt data on the server side before storing it. [...] When using server-side encryption with customer-provided keys (SSE-C), the customer is solely responsible for managing and safeguarding their encryption keys.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction
- Disk encryption - Akamai Cloud Documentation ↗
“The platform manages the encryption and decryption for you.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction
Role-based access control
- Vultr
- IAM roles bundle policies for users or groups: assignable roles for permanent access, assumable roles for time-bound elevated sessions.
- 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.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- How to Create a Role - Vultr Docs ↗
“Roles contain policies that specify what actions are allowed or denied on which resources. [...] Assignable roles provide permanent access and are attached directly to users or groups. [...] Assumable roles provide temporary, elevated access through time-bound sessions. Assumable roles support IP restrictions and trust-based assumption (by user, group, organization, or OIDC issuer).”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction
- Identity and Access in Akamai Cloud | Akamai Cloud TechDocs ↗
“Identity and Access uses the role-based access control (RBAC) model to authorize operations on entities. [...] each service has a set of fine-grained permissions that control access to a specific service API endpoint. These permissions are then combined into predefined, functional roles that can be assigned to users.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction
Private networking / VPC
- Vultr
- VPC networks give instances a secure, isolated private IPv4 network, with auto-assigned or custom subnet ranges and optional custom static routes.
- 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.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- How to Create a VPC Network - Vultr Docs ↗
“A Vultr Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) network creates a secure and isolated private networking environment for instances to connect and share resources. A VPC network supports IPv4 network addresses to enable communication and data sharing between instances.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction
- VPC | Akamai Cloud TechDocs ↗
“Networking packets sent over a VPC are walled off from the public internet as well as from other services within the same data center that don't belong to the same VPC. [...] VPCs are provided at no additional cost.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction
Dedicated infrastructure
- Vultr
- Bare Metal instances offer direct, unvirtualized access to dedicated physical servers; Cloud Compute by contrast runs in a virtualized environment.
- Linode (Akamai Cloud)
- Dedicated CPU plans reserve each assigned vCPU core exclusively for your instance, with no contention from neighboring users.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Bare Metal - Vultr Docs ↗
“Bare Metal instances offer direct access to dedicated servers without any virtualization layer while Vultr Cloud Compute instances are deployed in a virtualized cloud environment.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction
- Dedicated CPU Linodes | Akamai Cloud TechDocs ↗
“Dedicated CPU Linodes are virtual machines that deliver guaranteed, competition-free CPU resources for consistently high performance. Each vCPU core assigned to your instances is reserved exclusively for your workloads”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction
When these numbers change, hear about it. Sources are re-checked monthly; a repricing goes out as a short note.
Documented by only one.
These criteria are published by one provider and not the other. An absence here means we have not found a source, not that the feature is missing — except where we say we read the other provider's own page on a given date and it does not state it. Those rows lean, and the provider can correct them with a link.
Questions this comparison answers.
Entry paid plan: Vultr or Linode (Akamai Cloud)?
Vultr: $2.50/month for vc2-1c-0.5gb-v6: 1 vCPU, 512 MB memory, 10 GB SSD, 512 GB bandwidth, IPv6 only — and available in two of Vultr's 33 regions, Newark and Atlanta. The first plan offered nearly everywhere is vc2-1c-1gb at $5.00, in 31 of them.
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.
Egress over allowance: Vultr or Linode (Akamai Cloud)?
Vultr: $0.01 per GB
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.
When you exceed a cap: Vultr or Linode (Akamai Cloud)?
Vultr: Billed automatically — bandwidth above the plan quota is charged at an overage rate of $0.01 per GB.
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.
Should I choose Vultr or Linode (Akamai Cloud)?
Pick Vultr if Teams that want cheap virtual machines with generous included transfer — 2 TB a month per account — and overage at a cent per gigabyte. Block storage and managed databases sit alongside.
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.
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