Ordinary Linux VMs still called Linodes, from $5 a month, billed hourly up to a monthly cap, with a powered-off server still billed in full and one-click Hermes and OpenClaw apps.
Short answer: One always-on personal agent (2 vCPU / 4 GiB / 20 GiB) costs about $24.00 a month here, the 13th cheapest of the 22 providers that run it as described. The AI model adds about $1.88 a month on top (DeepSeek V4.1 Flash (1017), 30 requests a day at 40k tokens each, median zero-retention price; from $0.46 at the cheapest host). Fits well: An always-on agent on a normal Linux box: 2 vCPU / 4 GiB / 80 GB for $24 a month, or 1 vCPU / 1 GB for $5.
Akamai Cloud sells Linux virtual machines it still calls Linodes: pick a region, a distribution or one-click app, and a fixed size, and the machine is yours to administer over SSH. It is the former Linode cloud, and the plan names, the API host (api.linode.com), the CLI and the console (cloud.linode.com) all still carry the Linode name.
Five CPU families matter to a reader: Shared CPU (1 GB to 192 GB, the cheap general-purpose plans), G6 and G7 Dedicated (reserved cores, 4 GB to 512 GB), G8 Dedicated (newer 1:2 and 1:4 shapes, hourly only) and High Memory (24 GB to 300 GB with few cores). GPU, Accelerated and Kubernetes plans are separate products and are not priced here.
On top of the machine sit the usual cloud extras, most of them free: DNS, Cloud Firewalls, VPC and VLAN networking, placement groups, metrics and StackScripts. Backups, Block Storage, Object Storage and extra IPv4 addresses are paid add-ons.
At a glance
Who it is for
People who want a normal Linux server per agent at a flat monthly price, in a region near them, and who are happy to patch the operating system and the agent themselves. At $24 a month for 2 vCPU / 4 GiB it sits within a dollar of the other big VPS names, and it pairs one-click Hermes and OpenClaw apps with 33 regions.
Isolation
A full KVM virtual machine per Linode with its own kernel, root, disk and IP addresses. Docker runs inside, and the guest kernel is the machine's own. Shared plans share physical cores and should stay under 80% sustained CPU; G6, G7, G8 and High Memory reserve cores. Nested virtualisation is not documented anywhere in the current docs, and there is no GPU on the CPU plans.
Sizes
Fixed shapes only, with no custom CPU or RAM split. Shared CPU: 1-32 vCPU, 1-192 GiB, 25-3,840 GiB of SSD. G6 and G7 Dedicated: 2-56 vCPU, 4-256 GiB orderable, with a 512 GiB row advertised but absent from the live type list. G8 Dedicated: 2-256 vCPU, 4-512 GiB, in 1:2 and 1:4 shapes. High Memory: 2-16 vCPU, 24-300 GiB. Extra disk comes from Block Storage volumes (10 GB-16 TB each), not from the plan. 33 core compute regions at this check, seven of them in Europe and six in the EU.
A personal agent here
About $24.00 a month for one always-on 2 vCPU / 4 GiB machine (Linode 4 GB: 2 vCPU / 4 GiB / 80 GiB), before the AI model. Change the numbers
Our reading of the sourced material on this page, not a provider claim.
Fits well
An always-on agent on a normal Linux box: 2 vCPU / 4 GiB / 80 GB for $24 a month, or 1 vCPU / 1 GB for $5.
A reader who wants a one-click Hermes Agent or OpenClaw deployment and then root on the same machine.
Teams that need a region near their users: 33 core regions, seven of them in Europe (six in the EU), at one flat price.
Anything that needs a real kernel, Docker, arbitrary TCP ports, a static IPv4 or extra Block Storage.
Fits badly
Anything that must pause and resume mid-process: powering off loses memory and keeps billing.
Many short runs: each Linode rounds up to a whole hour, so 1,000 ten-minute tasks cost 1,000 hours.
A reader who wants the provider to run the agent for them: a Linode has no prompt endpoint.
A copy of a running machine: cloning needs the source powered off first.
How it bills
Model
Pay-as-you-go per Linode, with no plan fee and no commitment. Shared, G6, G7 and High Memory plans have an hourly rate and a monthly cap; G8 plans have an hourly rate only.
Meter
Hourly, always rounded up to the nearest hour, up to the monthly cap. Linode 4 GB is $0.036/h and $24 a month, so the cap binds at 666.7 hours.
While stopped
Nothing changes when you power off: data and RAM stay reserved and the meter runs at the full hourly rate until the Linode is deleted. There is no pause and no cheaper stopped state.
Plan fee
None. The monthly figure is a cap on hourly usage, not a subscription: a Linode deleted after 90 hours bills 90 hours.
Minimum
$5 a month for the smallest plan (Nanode 1 GB). A payment method is required at signup; new customers get a $100 credit that expires with the trial.
$24 a month for 2 vCPU / 4 GiB / 80 GB and $48 for 4 vCPU / 8 GiB / 160 GB, with the hourly rate capped at the monthly price.
One-click Hermes Agent and OpenClaw apps in Cloud Manager, deployed in 5-10 minutes with an HTTPS dashboard.
33 core regions, seven European countries among them, at the same flat price (Jakarta and São Paulo excepted).
A real server: own kernel, root, Docker, SSH, a static IPv4 and free inbound traffic.
A 99.99% uptime SLA, a SOC 2 Type 2 report and a published DPA.
Free DNS, firewalls, VPC/VLAN networking, placement groups and metrics; an official CLI, Python and JavaScript clients and a read-only MCP server.
Using it without writing code
Dashboard
Yes. Cloud Manager creates Linodes, volumes, firewalls, domains, images, backups and NodeBalancers, with graphs, alerts, a browser console, a graphical console and a resize flow.
Without code
Partly. Creating the machine and deploying a Quick Deploy App such as Hermes or OpenClaw is all clicking, but adding model keys, pairing WhatsApp or Telegram and running the agent are terminal work.
Signup
Email, Google or GitHub, plus a payment method before any service. New customers get a $100 credit; it expires at the end of the trial and GPU plans are excluded from it.
Docs and support
A large docs site with an llms.txt index, an OpenAPI reference, an official CLI, official Python and JavaScript clients, Terraform and Pulumi providers, a read-only MCP server and a community Q&A.
Tools you can use
Akamai Cloud (Linode) has 7 of the 10 ways to drive a machine that this guide checks, and 1 more with a catch. From its own documentation; how pleasant each one is to use was not tested. Compare every provider
MCP serverWith a catch Official, read-only. The official MCP server is read-only by design, so an assistant can inspect machines, prices and limits but cannot create, start or drive one.
Resize while runningWith a catch A warm resize keeps the Linode up while it migrates but reboots it at the end, so running processes do not survive the change.
Mount outside storageWith a catch Object Storage speaks S3, but there is no native mount: you add s3fs or rclone yourself, and a bucket is not a filesystem the agent can rely on.
Private linkWith a catch Access is limited by source IP in a Cloud Firewall, not by a token or login link, so anyone on an allowed network reaches the port.
Automatic HTTPSWith a catch The platform issues no certificate for a port: the OpenClaw app configures Let's Encrypt, and everything else needs Certbot or Caddy installed on the server.
MCP serverWith a catch The official MCP server is read-only by design, so an assistant can inspect machines, prices and limits but cannot create, start or drive one.
Coding agents preinstalledWith a catch The default images ship no coding agent; Hermes and OpenClaw come as one-click apps, and Claude Code or Codex you install and configure yourself.
Desktop for computer useWith a catch Glish shows a desktop in the browser, but you install the desktop environment and everything on it yourself; nothing is ready for a computer-use agent.
Usage alertsWith a catch Alerts cover CPU, disk and transfer thresholds, not spending: there is no billing alert that warns when the month's cost passes an amount you set.
From the profile's company section: the legal entity, who funds it, and what a buyer can check before signing.
Legal entity
Linode is the contracting party named in the compute SLA and MSA; the same service is marketed as Akamai Cloud (formerly Linode).
“This Service Level Addendum (the “SLA”) is attached to, and incorporates in the entirety, the Master Services Agreement by and between you and Linode (the “MSA”)”akamai.comdocs-confirmed
Brand
The cloud is sold as Akamai Cloud; Linode is the former name and the name still used for plans, the API, the CLI and the console.
Akamai Technologies, Inc. was incorporated in 1998, is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is listed on NASDAQ as AKAM.
“Akamai Technologies, Inc. is publicly traded: (NASDAQ: AKAM)”akamai.comdocs-confirmed
Uptime promise
99.99% monthly uptime for compute plans in general availability, 99% for plans in limited availability, claimed as a pro-rata service credit.
“We guarantee (i) 99.99% monthly uptime for Covered Services in general availability and (ii) 99% monthly uptime for Covered instances in limited availability”akamai.comdocs-confirmed
Certification
A SOC 2 Type 2 report is available to customers on request; the DPA names it as the audit document Akamai supplies.
“Upon request, Akamai shall deliver to Customer relevant compliance documentation from such audit(s) (e.g., Akamai’s then-current SOC 2 Type 2 (or its successor) report)”akamai.comdocs-confirmed
Data protection
A Data Processing Agreement is published and incorporated into the terms; it covers sub-processors, audits and the customer's instructions.
“This Data Processing Agreement (this “DPA”) is incorporated into and made a part of the most recent Terms & Conditions in effect between Akamai and a legal entity that has purchased Services from Akamai”akamai.comdocs-confirmed
Status page
status.linode.com carries per-data-centre status, incident history and email/SMS subscriptions.
“The Linode Status page provides real-time system status and maintenance updates via email.”techdocs.akamai.comdocs-confirmed
Caveats and contradictions
Shown as the research found them. A contradiction means the provider's own pages disagree; an open question means the answer is not published.
01
A powered-off Linode bills in full Open question
Akamai keeps the data and reserves RAM while the machine is off, so stopping changes nothing on the invoice. Workload C therefore costs the full $24 monthly price, not the $3.24 the running hours suggest.
02
Hourly rounding punishes short runs Open question
Usage is rounded up to the nearest hour per service, so a ten-minute task bills a whole hour. Workload A is 1,000 billable hours rather than 167.
03
G8 plans have no monthly cap Open question
Since 1 July 2026 G8 Dedicated Linodes, GPU Linodes and additional IPv4 addresses are billed for actual hours with no monthly price cap. The G8 8x4 at $0.14/h costs $102.20 for 730 hours, against $48 for the shared Linode 8 GB with the same 4 vCPU / 8 GiB.
04
Nested virtualisation is not documented Open question
No current Akamai page says whether a Linode can run KVM or another hypervisor inside it. The only first-party answers are 2018 and 2020 community posts saying it is not supported, which is too old to state as current fact; treat it as unpublished, not as supported.
What users say
Opinion, not research. Read from public Trustpilot and Reddit pages on 30 October 2026. It changes no verdict on this page; everything above comes from Akamai Cloud (Linode)'s own documents.
Trustpilot 2.3 out of 5 from 208 reviews · see the page
Linode's page, which since the Akamai acquisition covers Linode compute and Akamai cloud services.
Long-time users still like the scripting API and stable Linodes, but the recent review pattern is new accounts cancelled by fraud filters minutes after adding a card. Reviewers also blame the Akamai acquisition for a worse console, higher prices and outages measured in hours.
How much to trust this: 208 reviews is a small base for a provider this old, and the page skews to rejected signups. Several reviewers say they were never able to become customers, so their experience is of onboarding, not of running servers.
Complaint
Fraud filters kill new accounts after card details
“only for an automated fraud filter to bin the entire account half an hour later”
List-price illustrations from the calculator, not quotes. Prices checked 30 October 2026.
Bills while switched offA stopped machine is charged like a running one; only deleting it ends the bill.
Billed in whole hoursEach server costs at least an hour, so a ten-minute task pays for sixty.
Shared CPUThe cheapest plans share cores and suit work that does not need sustained CPU; Dedicated CPU plans cost more.
A · 1,000 short tasks
$36.00
Linode 4 GB: 2 vCPU / 4 GiB / 80 GiB (plan: Pay as you go)
Machine time (Linode 4 GB)1,000 runs × 1 h each, rounded up × $0.036$36.00
No plan and no fee: each Linode bills hourly from creation to deletion, up to its own monthly cap.
Shared CPU and G6/G7 plans have an hourly rate and a monthly cap. The cap binds at about 667 hours (for example $48 / $0.072 = 666.7 h), so an always-on machine costs the advertised monthly price.
G8 Dedicated plans have an hourly rate only. Since 1 July 2026 they are billed for actual hours with no monthly cap, so 730 hours on the G8 8x4 is $102.20, not a flat monthly figure.
Usage is rounded up to the nearest hour per service, so a ten-minute Linode bills one hour. The calculator applies that to every task; see abc.md for the alternative reading.
A powered-off Linode is billed in full until it is deleted: data and RAM are still reserved. billedWhileStopped applies the running rate to the 640 stopped hours in workload C.
Disk comes with the plan. A request larger than the plan's disk is priced as Block Storage at $0.10 per GiB a month (10 GB to 16 TB per volume), not as a bigger boot disk.
The Backups service is a paid add-on: $2 a month on the Nanode, $5 a month ($0.008/h) on Linode 4 GB, $10 on Linode 8 GB, up to $240 on the largest plans, with higher rates in Jakarta and São Paulo. It is not in the calculator.
Snapshots and custom images are not in the calculator. An image is stored as Object Storage and stays until deleted; the site's images pricing page was not read for this card.
Outbound transfer overage is $0.005 per GB on the pricing page. Egress is shown on the outbound-network feature, not priced here.
Not in the card: extra IPv4 addresses (billed hourly with no cap since 1 July 2026, price by region), NodeBalancers, Object Storage, Longview Pro, and GPU/Accelerated plans.
B · One always-on box
$48.00
Linode 8 GB: 4 vCPU / 8 GiB / 160 GiB (plan: Pay as you go)
Machine time (Linode 8 GB)730 h × $0.072$52.56
Monthly price cap1 × $48.00 a month−$4.56
No plan and no fee: each Linode bills hourly from creation to deletion, up to its own monthly cap.
Shared CPU and G6/G7 plans have an hourly rate and a monthly cap. The cap binds at about 667 hours (for example $48 / $0.072 = 666.7 h), so an always-on machine costs the advertised monthly price.
G8 Dedicated plans have an hourly rate only. Since 1 July 2026 they are billed for actual hours with no monthly cap, so 730 hours on the G8 8x4 is $102.20, not a flat monthly figure.
Usage is rounded up to the nearest hour per service, so a ten-minute Linode bills one hour. The calculator applies that to every task; see abc.md for the alternative reading.
A powered-off Linode is billed in full until it is deleted: data and RAM are still reserved. billedWhileStopped applies the running rate to the 640 stopped hours in workload C.
Disk comes with the plan. A request larger than the plan's disk is priced as Block Storage at $0.10 per GiB a month (10 GB to 16 TB per volume), not as a bigger boot disk.
The Backups service is a paid add-on: $2 a month on the Nanode, $5 a month ($0.008/h) on Linode 4 GB, $10 on Linode 8 GB, up to $240 on the largest plans, with higher rates in Jakarta and São Paulo. It is not in the calculator.
Snapshots and custom images are not in the calculator. An image is stored as Object Storage and stays until deleted; the site's images pricing page was not read for this card.
Outbound transfer overage is $0.005 per GB on the pricing page. Egress is shown on the outbound-network feature, not priced here.
Not in the card: extra IPv4 addresses (billed hourly with no cap since 1 July 2026, price by region), NodeBalancers, Object Storage, Longview Pro, and GPU/Accelerated plans.
C · Three hours a day
$24.00
Linode 4 GB: 2 vCPU / 4 GiB / 80 GiB (plan: Pay as you go)
Machine time (Linode 4 GB)90 h × $0.036$3.24
Stopped, still billed640 h × $0.036$23.04
Monthly price cap1 × $24.00 a month−$2.28
No plan and no fee: each Linode bills hourly from creation to deletion, up to its own monthly cap.
Shared CPU and G6/G7 plans have an hourly rate and a monthly cap. The cap binds at about 667 hours (for example $48 / $0.072 = 666.7 h), so an always-on machine costs the advertised monthly price.
G8 Dedicated plans have an hourly rate only. Since 1 July 2026 they are billed for actual hours with no monthly cap, so 730 hours on the G8 8x4 is $102.20, not a flat monthly figure.
Usage is rounded up to the nearest hour per service, so a ten-minute Linode bills one hour. The calculator applies that to every task; see abc.md for the alternative reading.
A powered-off Linode is billed in full until it is deleted: data and RAM are still reserved. billedWhileStopped applies the running rate to the 640 stopped hours in workload C.
Disk comes with the plan. A request larger than the plan's disk is priced as Block Storage at $0.10 per GiB a month (10 GB to 16 TB per volume), not as a bigger boot disk.
The Backups service is a paid add-on: $2 a month on the Nanode, $5 a month ($0.008/h) on Linode 4 GB, $10 on Linode 8 GB, up to $240 on the largest plans, with higher rates in Jakarta and São Paulo. It is not in the calculator.
Snapshots and custom images are not in the calculator. An image is stored as Object Storage and stays until deleted; the site's images pricing page was not read for this card.
Outbound transfer overage is $0.005 per GB on the pricing page. Egress is shown on the outbound-network feature, not priced here.
Not in the card: extra IPv4 addresses (billed hourly with no cap since 1 July 2026, price by region), NodeBalancers, Object Storage, Longview Pro, and GPU/Accelerated plans.