When I first went shopping around for VPS hosting back in early 2006, Linode was high on my list. There were only a few Linux VPS providers back then but I knew Linode has been in the VPS/VDS hosting business for years, way before the flood of HyperVM/OpenVZ hosts that I have observed in the recent months. However I did not go with them in the end (but went with Unixshell instead) because (1) they were a bit more expensive (2) I heard User Mode Linux (virtualisation used by Linode) was not as fast as Xen.
Fast forward 2 years.
A few days past Christmas, Thomas from Linode offered me a VPS account to review, and I emailed back asking for a Linode 360 in their Fremont California rack. 2 hours later my account has been set up, and I was already inside their Linode Platform Manager configuring up my VPS. So far so good.
Update September 2008
If you find this review helpful and wish to sign up with Linode, feel free to use my referral code (if there’s no better discount currently available). Here’s my referral link:
www.linode.com/?r=72fde789e4a286cd99568fddba1aceb2a73aa91c
Or quote the code 72fde789e4a286cd99568fddba1aceb2a73aa91c during sign up. I will get a some credit from Linode ($20), if your account is in good standing for 90 days. Don’t feel obligated to use my code if there’s special discount going on :)