Likelihood to Recommend Heroku is very well suited for startups looking to get a server stack up and running quickly. There is little to no overhead when managing your instances. However, you'll need a background in basic DevOps or system management to make sure everything is set up correctly. In addition, it's easy to accidentally go crazy on pricing. Make sure you're only creating the server instances you need to run the base application and set up an auto-scaler plugin to handle peaks.
Read full review Linode does a super job if you want to run a custom application or install your own Linux software. We installed WordPress and a radio station. They both ran smoothly. It is easy to upgrade the CPU and RAM without destroying your server. Hard drive space could have more options. We could also monitor the speed and storage.
Read full review Pros Heroku has a very simple deployment model, making it easy to get your application up-and-running with minimal effort. We can focus on our efforts the unique aspects of our application. The robust add-on marketplace makes it easy to try out new approaches with minimal effort and investment -- and when we settle on a solution, we can easily scale it. Heroku's support is quite good -- their staff is quite technical and willing to get into the weeds to diagnose even complicated problems. Read full review It's super easy-to-use - set up a complete virtual environment in a few minutes. Linode is the ONLY service I know that will let you DOWNSIZE a VM - super useful. The price is right - spin up any size server and add additional block storage if needed. Object memory is cheap and integrates very well with S3 CLIs and applications. I've been very happy with the knowledgeable and friendly customer service. The more recent additions of a firewall and Kubernetes is a welcome plus. The load balancer ("Load Balancer") service is easy to spin up and configure. Read full review Cons Large price jumps between certain resource tiers (2x Dyno for $50 per month versus Performance Dyno for $250). Free Postgres next jumps to $50 per month. Marketing/Branding to non-technical stakeholders. As the years pass, I've had to fight more to convince stakeholders on the value of Heroku over AWS. Improve Buildpack documentation. This is one area where Heroku's documentation is fairly confusing. Read full review Some of the documentation requires some hand-holding to get started. It does explain how to do things, but sometimes finding the answer takes work. Some of the settings are not obvious, or in locations that are not completely clear without experience. Read full review Likelihood to Renew Heroku is easy to use, services a ton of functions for you out of the box, and provides a means to get a software product off the ground and managed quickly and easily. The tools provide allows a small to medium size org to move very quickly. The CLI tools provided make managing an entire technical infrastructure simple.
Read full review I've been with them a long time. They provide me with the capabilities I need coupled with knowledgeable support that's not pay-for-extra. However, if I move to a non-Linux OS, the level of support by necessity will drop off. I can still ask questions about the infrastructure but I my ability to ask about OS features will decrease.
Read full review Usability Easy to use web based console and easy to use command line tools; deployment is done directly from a GIT repository. What more could you ask for? The one thing that keeps me from giving it a 10 is that custom build packs are almost incomprehensible. We used one for a while because we needed cairo graphics processing. Fortunately, I was able to figure out a different way to do what we needed so that we could get off the custom build pack.
Read full review It's pretty easy for me, but I preferred their old interface before it was called 'cloud' (not a computer science term.) The new interface looks easier but I had to ask for help for things I used to be able to find myself. If someone was new to it--without having used their old interface--it might be easier for them than it originally was for me.
Read full review Reliability and Availability Heroku availability correlates pretty strongly to AWS US EAST availability. We had a couple of times where there was a Heroku-specific issue but not for the last 7-8 months.
Read full review There is very little planned downtime. Whenever planned downtime is necessary I'm always given lots of advanced notice and an explanation that I can pass along to my users that they'll understand. I really appreciate that Linode appreciates my commitment to reliable service to my users. It shows that they believe they've been successful when I'm successful.
Read full review Performance The only issue that I ever have is that about 1 out of 20 deployments (git push) will hang and need to be cancelled and done again.
Read full review Linode is an infrastructure provider issues related to performance are really on me. Linode provides a capable infrastructure and allows me to tailor performance of the services I provide to my customers to my specific situation. Linode allows me to implement "tweaks" that, from experience, I know will do the job with little risk without a whole bunch of static from idiot support 'droids who just get in the way ("this isn't supported at the present time").
Read full review Support Rating I've used it for many years without facing any major problem. It's not hard at all to get used to it, it's documentation is outstanding and simple. We are close to 2020 and I don't think most of the existing companies or startups should still face old problems such as wasting time deploying code and calculate computing resources.
Read full review I've asked many levels of questions. From noob how-to-setup-my-server questions to ask for more IP addresses and help in getting them set up. They always respond swiftly and relevantly. Compared to other providers, you have to bounce a couple of times with different levels of support actually to land on someone who _understands_ your problem. Other providers, even if they are actively having downtime, their support will respond hours later. Not Linode/Akamai. They are always there for you. They promise this, and they do deliver.
Read full review Online Training We got kick started with an initial walkthrough along with some free credits. The initial walkthrough helped us to understand Linode's ecosystem and start our hands on with Linode. We tried out some apps from Marketplace initially with the free credits, which not only helped us understand Linode better, but also those apps. We had implemented many such apps to our customers with Linode
Read full review Implementation Rating Be ready to pay a bit more than expected in the beginning if you're migrating from a big server. The application is probably not ready for the change and you have to keep improving it with time.
It's also important to consider that you can't save anything to the disc as it will be lost when your application restarts, so you have to think about using something like S3.
Read full review We're a small organization. The implementation of our Linode solution was trivial. Once I justified a cloud server to my bosses over a co-location -- the co-lo wasn't as fast as our linode server in load tests -- it was a matter of moving one Linux implementation to another. Trivial.
Read full review Alternatives Considered Heroku is the more expensive option for hosting compared to some of the cloud platforms we investigated, but it's worth it for us because of the plug-and-play nature of Heroku deployment. We can be up and running in a few minutes and know with precision how much it will cost us each month to run the application, unlike
Amazon Web Services where you have to go to great pains to configure it correctly or else you might end up with a shocking monthly bill. Overall, spending the time to configure
Amazon Web Services or one of its competitors is likely the more affordable and powerful choice, because you have control over so many specifics of the configuration. But it also requires the burden of continuing to maintain and update your AWS instance, whereas with Heroku they take care of security fixes and platform upgrades. It's a great service and we are happy to pay the extra cost for the value-adds Heroku provides.
Read full review We switched to Linode from
Namecheap due to poor uptime, and never had any issues with stability ever again after switching. We also cut our costs in half by switching. We compared Linode to
DigitalOcean and
Vultr , with the primary factor that caused us to go with Linode initially being their documentation. After using Linode for 3 years, their amazing support is another reason why we wouldn't consider anyone else at this point.
Read full review Scalability Although I use only a fraction of their product offerings, the total set makes scalability an easy goal to shoot for. As I said, I have a few customers that use the services my Linode provides...and I like it that way. However, should I need to scale up, I can...without incurring any more cost than I need to.
Read full review Return on Investment It has been critical in seamlessly operating our platform with runs all of our programs. It has been impressive with its ability to scale quickly which results in the growth of our work. It allows for tracking of different features which allows for quick problem solving which saves us time. Emily Cooper Director, Illinois Science & Technology Coalition
Read full review With the partnership of Linode, Configr is today the best performance hosting solution in Brazil. With Linode, Configr can provide a PaaS solution without the cost of taking care of all the infrastructure issues such as IaaS. Linode allowed Configr to be one of the biggest hosting companies in Brazil. Read full review ScreenShots Akamai Cloud Computing Screenshots