When comparing Linode vs Vultr, the Slant community recommends Linode for most people. In the question“What are the best VPS providers?” Linode is ranked 2nd while Vultr is ranked 3rd. The most important reason people chose Linode is:
Linode's support is amazing. Tickets are usually answered within minutes, if there's a network or hardware issue it's usually resolved before anyone even notices.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Excellent support
Linode's support is amazing. Tickets are usually answered within minutes, if there's a network or hardware issue it's usually resolved before anyone even notices.
Pro Gives you the chance to fix problems without relying on support
If you mess things up in your Linode instance, for example with the filesystem or boot configuration, Linode allows you to run a recovery ISO so you can try and fix things yourself without relying on Linode's support team.
Pro Speed
Their VPSs are very fast.
Pro Allows you to do things that usually can only be done if you have access to the hardware
Linode allows you to create memory partitions and copy or move them around. Furthermore, it even lets you reboot your instance with smaller RAM in order to simulate how your application would act if your Linode instance gets downgraded.
Pro Comprehensive, well documented API
The API gives access to nodes, nodebalancers, stackscripts, DNS, and accounts.
Pro Provides SDKs for several languages
SDKs are available for Python, Perl, PHP, Ruby, Java, and Node.js.
Pro Stack scripts
Stack scripts gives you the chance to build a completely custom Linode stack with multiple custom features and options all run automatically and set up.
Pro New Cloud Beta user interface
A new user interface is under development which will still keep the same level of power Linode offers but with a cleaner interface. Showing forward thinking and continued improvement.
Pro Great performance
Vultr consistently has great results in benchmarks compared to other VPS providers. It's true that VPS benchmarks are famous for not being very credible because they depend on a myriad of outside variables (most notably instances hosted on the same hardware and distance from the data-center). But still, Vultr scores consistently high in several different benchmarks such as CPU performance and MySQL compilation times.
Pro Wide geographic coverage
Vultr boasts more than a dozen datacenters across the world, ensuring maximal geographic coverage and the chance to increase loading speed wherever your largest demographics may be in the world.
Pro Your own IP Space (BGP AS)
You can announce your own BGP space across all of Vultr's datacenters worldwide.
Pro Custom ISO support
Pro Bitcoin payment support
Vultr supports Bitcoin payment. If you want to be extra careful about security and the security of your credit card/bank account/paypal account you can pay with Bitcoins.
Pro Quick-deploy apps
Vultr offers stock "apps", such as LEMP, Wordpress, Mincraft, Webmin, ownCloud, etc, that can be deployed instantly.
Pro Daily automatic backup
Vultr is capable of running daily backups with two most recent backups stored. Time of backup can be changed.
Cons
Con Backups have become unreliable
I've been a Linode customer for 10+ years, but over the past 3+ years their backups have become unreliable, which is unacceptable for a paid extra to the service. I've had multiple issues with backups failing, and restoring from a backup has caused my VPS to fail to deliver website content for reasons neither I nor Linode support could figure out. In the end, I just had to rebuild the server from scratch with a personal backup.
Con Not really suitable if you have a very heavy CPU application
They'll cap your usage if you go above 80% for a sustained period - even on very large expensive boxes (if you use Load Balancers offered, this can be mitigated).
Con For more advanced users
Can be an issue for those not used to setting up their own server. Managed services are really expensive if help is needed.
Con No self-help migrating option
If you want to migrate to another hosting solution from Linode, you can't do it by yourself. You have to open a support ticket.
Con Treats customer as a liability
Many malpractices in the name of machine abuse. Their machines get abused with just 10% steady cpu utilization.
Con New hardware
Compare to DO hardware are old.
Con Sub-par documentation
While Vultr does offer documentation, it's not of a very high quality. Not everything is covered and it's more aimed at advanced users. So it wouldn't be a good choice for a beginner.
Con No billing-support on sunday
Added 30 dollars of funds to a new account on a Sunday, however Vultr did not allow me to deploy because of a insufficient funds message. Added support ticket, received the answer that billing related issues are only resolved on workdays.