Scaleway vs Linode (Akamai)
Both are alternatives to AWS (EC2 compute). Here's how they stack up — verified facts, no spin.
Scaleway
The EU-sovereign option — French cloud with ARM and bare-metal range.
For teams that want their infrastructure under EU jurisdiction on principle, Scaleway is the credible sovereign pick: instances billed by the hour, ARM options, object storage, and managed Kubernetes — all operated from France. English-language docs are thinner than the US providers'.
Linode (Akamai)
The veteran — two decades of straightforward VPS, now on Akamai's edge.
Linode ran dependable, plainly priced VPS for twenty years before Akamai bought it; plans from $5/mo ($12 for 2 GB) with the reliability record intact. The honest note: product pace has slowed post-acquisition, and the platform extras are thinner than DigitalOcean's.
Side by side
| Scaleway | Linode (Akamai) | |
|---|---|---|
| Sovereignty Score | 60 | 55 |
| Open source | No | No |
| Self-hostable | No | No |
| Local-first | No | No |
| License | Proprietary service | Proprietary service |
| Pricing | Instances billed hourly from a few euros/mo; EU regions | From $5/mo; 2 GB plan $12/mo |
Scaleway edges it on the Sovereignty Score, but the right pick depends on the trade-offs below.
Scaleway
Strengths
- +EU jurisdiction and data sovereignty
- +ARM instances and bare-metal range
- +Hourly billing
Trade-offs
- −EU-centric region map
- −Documentation thinner in English
Linode (Akamai)
Strengths
- +Twenty-year reliability track record
- +Straightforward pricing
- +Akamai's global edge network behind it
Trade-offs
- −Slower product evolution since the acquisition
- −Fewer platform extras than rivals
Facts verified 2026-07-19. Licenses and pricing change — spotted something out of date? That's a correction we want.