Hello everyone. I just tried to create an account with linode and got the automated cancellation email due to fraud, which left a bad taste in my mouth about the company before I even had the chance to get started.
So I am looking for alternatives that won’t break the bank, have linux options, and are fairly easy to use once you get up and running. I dont need to do anything complex, just host my small hobby projects that I’m hacking away at. I don’t have anything ready now, but I thought that with new years and all that it might be a good time to snag some deals.
Do you guys know of anything that fits? Thanks!
Edit: Decided to go with Oracle’s Always Free option, as at this time being a student (i.e. poor) and just wanting to mess around and learn I can’t justify going with a non-free option when a free on is available. I am however stuck on the part where I need to create my instance. I’m getting the out of capacity error, which after reading up on means there aren’t available resources for my selected region. I can either try again daily to see if at some point they will be available or select a different region (which as far as I can tell means closing and reopening the account which I want to avoid).
I’m pretty happy with Digital Ocean if I need a temporary VPS because I can pay by the minute and the UI is great. Anything that I want to stay alive for more than a month or two, I do on a single 6-core VPS rented long-term from Netcup, a low-cost German provider, deploying with Docker and Traefik.
Netcup seems really interesting, thanks :)
Hetzner is perhaps the cheapest option.
There are reports of issues with creating an account, as Hetzner also has some form of protection against fraud.
That being said I myself never had any issues and been renting a dedicated server for years now. Their cloud is also amazingly cheap (in Europe).
I’ve been using them for at least several months and never had an issue
A vote for netcup.eu Very happy with them after a few years already.
I’ve been using Linode for a decade (or more) now without any issues. I’d encourage you to contact their support about this issue. Assuming you’re on the up-and-up this sounds like a big and in sure they’d be happy to help.
If you decide not to go with Linode though I think Digital Ocean is a good alternative.
You were using Linode. Now you’re using “Akamai Connected Cloud”. Linode was acquired in 2022 and the brand retired in 2023.
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Yes, I’m aware. Still as good at it’s always been
Yes, just as good but at 20% higher cost.
My bill hasn’t changed but maybe I was grandfathered in.
No they didn’t grandfather anybody in, they made the price changes to compute universally back in April of last year. The only plan not changed was the $5 nanode so if that’s all you’re running then that’s probably why your bill didn’t change.
IIRC, they have been bought out in the last decade.
By Akamai, ya. I was devastated when I heard.
Racknerd has VPSs starting at around $10/yr. Been using them to host my email/nextcloud/jellyfin proxies for a while now with no issues or unexpected downtime. They don’t have any of Linode’s advanced features, but they’re pretty hard to beat price-wise.
You can also have a look at contabo as well.
Ton of deals going on right now on lowendtalk
There is also lowendspirit, but in both cases you have to be very careful what you buy - not everything that is advertised there will work as advertised or will work long-term
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where they will double your monthly data limit for free when you comment your order number.
where they use you to spam the forum thread (for giving away something rarely anyone has any use for)
Do you own research while picking on hosts from lowendtalk/spirit/box. Lately, seeing a lot of scams and hosts deadpooling.
That’s odd. I personally like Linode and its intuitive interface.
I never even got to see the interface haha
Akamai Connected Cloud*
It’s no longer Linode.
Its both
It’s not both, it’s Akamai Connected Cloud. The Linode brand has been retired. The vestiges of the Linode brand that are still visible are merely due to Akamai’s sloppy and disordered integration effort. They’ll likely retain the Linode.com domain so as not to break existing API calls, but the switch away from Linode.com as the primary domain, and removal of the name Linode from technical documents and design elements is ongoing.
Vultr has some pretty cheap prices… I like them
Second Vultr. The usability is pretty close to Linode, with more convenient DC locations.
I have noticed some issues with network throughput, though I don’t use mine for high bandwidth applications and I am on the cheapest tier.
I got cancelled too and chose Hetzner instead. Will not do business with a company that can’t get their filters working decently.
I tried them, but got basically the same treatment as OP with Linode. They just closed my account.
Hetzner or linode closed your account?
Sorry, could have formulated it better. Hetzner did. I’m a happy customer of Linode. It seems they all have filters failing in different ways.
Yea i wonder why that is. It seems to be a standard
Hetzner is more affordable, but few locations
But they can ban you on registration too, happened to me and i was angry 😂
I have personally been using OVH for $1.05/month. This offer is only available for their new customers and also is only offered in certain regions as well. I’ve been using it for my personal small projects to host my frontend projects and also as VPN server as well. It is now more than a month since I’ve been using it and haven’t had any issues so far.
Another platform I might suggest is Oracle cloud. They have a free VPS offer FOREVER. If you’re register for the first time and their system gives you an error it’s their “fair usage policy” of some sort where their system might think you’re someone that’s trying to abuse their free offerings(best not to waste time if it doesn’t work the first time). If you do register tho, you might need to do a few research when you’re starting out initially. The platform has lots of options and tools and it might get overwhelming if this is your first time. Nonetheless, I believe it is manageable tho. It just takes a little bit of time to get used to their interface.
+1 for the Oracle solution. I use one for my public IP, and port forward over WireGuard to my home. They claim something like 480Mbps, but it’s nowhere near that, at least for external traffic. But in any event I’ve been using it for a few months with no real complaints.
And yes, I fully appreciate the irony of trying to self-host services to get away from big corporations, but relying on Oracle to do so.
Should be noted that a lot of people had their Oracle accounts revoked for no reason.
People I know had their accounts terminated within 48 hours for ‘inactivity’.
They also require you to constantly use the resources, the percentage gets changed whenever they want.
I just signed up to oracles free cloud service after watching a video where it was said it was always free, but the wording on oracle’s site made it seem like its a trial. Are there two free options?
I assume you’re referring to the two free instance you get with the x86 VMs. And that is correct. As far as I remember, they offer you two VMs with x86 1VCPU and 40GB of block storage minimum or you can create 5 VMs with ARM with CPUs with lots of cores and memory each having 40 GBs of storage(don’t remember the exact use-case). If you want to know what you are getting, please read the doc I have attached for you for always free resources. They offer you free 200GB in total and the bandwidth they offer is 20TB/month with 1Gbps speeds for each VMs (I might be wrong tho. It’s been a while since I’ve used their service). Also, in case you’re wondering why I’m not using a free service like this is, I used one of their servers to pirate copyrighted material. They’ll ban you without warning so read their terms of services and try not to be a fool like I am. https://docs.oracle.com/en-us/iaas/Content/FreeTier/freetier_topic-Always_Free_Resources.htm#resources
Basically when I was registering it had some wording like “start your free trial now” but once I got into the dashboard there was a message that cleared things up. So I have a free trial of what I assume is a higher tier of their service, which upon running out will revert me back to the Always Free tier.
Racknerd. They’re currently running a new year’s promotion. They’re reliable and inexpensive.
Another option is to use the free tier of Oracle cloud.
Yup, ended up going with oracle. Free is good for me, and im totally new to this so it doesnt really make a difference to me if theres a minor interface difference between 2 providers.
Thanks
It’s pretty hard to beat Oracle Cloud’s free tier Hosting.
I ditched Linode after they sold to Akamai and immediately raised prices, then changed names. I shifted everything over to Vultr which is a roughly comparable service, and is a little bit cheaper. It’s not quite as polished as the company formerly known as Linode, but it does it does the job just the same.
