Compute Instances are virtual machines that run on Akamai cloud computing's secure and reliable cloud infrastructure. To support a variety of workloads, Compute Instance plans are organized under several basic plan types, each with their own set of resources, unique value propositions, and technical specifications (see Plan Types). Each Compute Instance can run a variety of supported Linux distributions, including the latest versions of Ubuntu, CentOS Stream, Debian, and more.

Availability

Compute Instances are available across all regions.

Plans and pricing

See Plans for the list of available plan types. Note that pricing and plan availability may vary between regions. See our Pricing page for a full list of pricing options.

Technical specifications

Compute Instances deployed to core compute regions meet the following specifications:

• Shared or Dedicated vCPU cores (dependent on the chosen plan)
• 100% SSD (Solid State Disk) storage
• 40 Gbps inbound network bandwidth
• Free inbound network transfer (ingress)
• Metered outbound network transfer (egress) that includes 1 TB - 20 TB of prorated* network transfer allowance
• Dedicated IPv4 and IPv6 addresses (additional addresses available on request)
• Deploy using the many available Linux Distributions, Marketplace Apps, or Community StackScripts
• Direct console access through Lish
• Provisioning and management through Cloud Manager, Linode CLI, or programmatically through the Linode API
• Multi-queue NIC support on plans with 2 or more vCPU cores.

*If a service is not active for the entire month, the amount of network transfer allowance is prorated based on the number of hours the service is active.

Shared CPU plans, Marketplace Apps, or Stackscripts are not supported when Compute Instances are deployed to distributed compute regions.

Services included at no extra cost

The following services are bundled with all Compute Instances deployed to core compute regions:

• Domain management through our DNS Manager
• Seamless firewall management with Cloud Firewalls
• Isolated, private networking with VPCs and VLANs
• Physical placement of your Compute Instances in a data center with Placement Groups
• Metrics and monitoring through Cloud Manager and Longview (free plan)
• Reusable deployment scripts through StackScripts

For the list of services supported Compute Instances in distributed compute regions, see Features and services (distributed compute regions).

Complementary paid services

To help build and manage your applications, consider complementing your Compute Instance with the following compatible services:

• Automated daily and weekly backups with our Backups service
• Add additional storage drives with Block Storage
• Create and store reusable images with Custom Images
• Advanced metrics and monitoring through Longview Pro
• Automated service deployments with LKE (Linode Kubernetes Engine)
• Incident response (and more) with Managed Services
• Enable load balancing and horizontal scaling with NodeBalancers
• Add scalable storage to your application with Object Storage

Support for these services varies by region. For the list of supported services in each core region, see Choose a data center. For the list of supported services in distributed compute regions, see Features and services.

Developer resources

• Linode API provides the ability to programmatically manage the full range of Akamai cloud computing products and services.
  • Linode Instances Endpoint Collection
• Linode CLI is a wrapper around the Linode API that lets you manage your account and Linode resources from the command line. Learn how to use the Linode CLI to create and manage Compute Instances.
• Terraform: Terraform is an Infrastructure-as-code tool that includes management features for various types of Linode resources. Use Linode's official Terraform Provider to provision Linode environments. To learn more about Terraform see our documentation library’s Terraform section.
• Pulumi: Pulumi is a development tool that lets you write computer programs which deploy cloud resources. With Pulumi’s Linode integration, you can manage your Akamai cloud computing resources in several programming languages, like JavaScript, Go, Python, and TypeScript. Pulumi manages your resources in the same way as Linode API or Linode CLI. See Pulumi’s documentation to get started. Getting Started with Pulumi.