Linode Unveils $10/Month Linux Cloud Hosting Plan with SSD Storage

In celebration of its 11th anniversary, cloud host Linode has slashed its prices. Users can now purchase hosting plans on Linux-powered servers with SSD storage starting at $10 per month.

The offering was made possible through a $45 million upgrade of Linode’s infrastructure back in April 2014, which brought SSD storage to the company’s servers, as well as Intel (INTC) Xeon E5 2680v2 Ivy Bridge processors, more RAM and higher network throughput.

The company said the new pricing option—which it is touting as an edge over the competition, especially Amazon’s (AMZ) AWS and Rackspace (RAX)—was the result of market demand. “A $10-per-month plan has been a top request from our customers for the past few years, so after the market’s overwhelmingly positive response to our performance upgrades, we felt the time was right to roll out the new plan,” said Linode COO Tom Asaro in a statement.

It’s not really possible to make a direct price comparison between Linode’s high-performance hosting options and the general cloud plans from AWS and Rackspace. But the offering from Linode certainly opens new opportunities for admins who want Linux-based servers on high-end hardware.

It’s also an indication of Linode’s belief (which is probably on the money) that in the cloud hosting market today, customers are primarily interested in getting the most bang for their buck, regardless of who provides it. Previously, Linode’s business strategy centered on offering hosting with frills tailored for Linux-centric admins who wanted things like CLI management tools. Now, Linux is no longer at the center of Linode’s value proposition (although the company continues to run its servers on Linux), which has shifted to providing high-performance computing and storage infrastructure at a low cost.