Linode vs Contabo
Linode, now Akamai Cloud, rents Linux VMs by the hour next to Kubernetes, block storage, load balancers and firewalls. Contabo rents KVM servers by the month, for a flat rent that is very low if the server runs all month.
The companies and products
Linode
Linode is a general-purpose cloud, now sold as Akamai Cloud, and a Linode is one of its Linux virtual machines.
A Linode is a Linux VM you rent by size, with root, a public IP, local disk and, on older plans, a monthly transfer allowance. You pick a distribution, then install and run your own software on it, next to Akamai Cloud products like Kubernetes, block storage, NodeBalancers, VPCs and cloud firewalls. It is a server host, not an agent sandbox, so this page compares the two where they overlap: giving an agent its own Linux machine.
Contabo
Contabo is a German hosting company, founded in Munich in 2003, that rents VPS, dedicated-core VDS, GPU and dedicated servers by the month.
A Contabo Cloud VPS is a KVM virtual machine with shared vCPU cores, a fixed RAM allocation, a static IPv4 and root access, which you order, pay for and then manage yourself. It is a VPS host, not a sandbox product: there is no per-second billing, no agent tooling and no managed HTTPS in front of the server. It fits people who want one cheap server that runs all month in a region of their choice.
Which use cases each one fits
For each use case, Battleships prices every sandbox provider on the same workload and sorts them from the cheapest monthly bill up. “55th cheapest of 364” means 54 of the other 363 providers run that workload, with every feature it needs, for less. “With limits” means the provider runs it but misses something, so it is listed after every full match. Open a use case for its whole ranking and what each provider misses.
| Use case and its workload | Linode: price rank | Contabo: price rank | bochka: price rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software factory 100 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 2,200 sessions of 8 h a month A software factory starts and stops machines all day; Linode bills each one by the rounded-up hour and Contabo by the month, while bochka bills per second and ships coding agents. | 145th of 367, with limits $1,292 a month | 79th of 367, with limits $660 a month | 3rd cheapest of 367 $634 a month |
| Always-on AI employees 50 machines 24/7 · 2 vCPU / 4 GB | 164th of 366, with limits $1,200 a month | 95th of 366, with limits $330 a month | 5th cheapest of 366 $657 a month |
| Code interpreter bursts 100 at once · 1 vCPU / 2 GB · 200,000 sessions of 1 min a month All three are a compromise: Linode bills every short run as an hour, Contabo as a month, and bochka's start limits queue big bursts. | 174th of 345, with limits $1,200 a month | 159th of 345, with limits $660 a month | 186th of 345, with limits $2,000 a month |
| Sandboxes for your users 300 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 30,000 sessions of 23 min a month Linode bills each 10-minute user session as a full hour, and Contabo would need 300 servers rented for the month with no published account limit, so bochka fits this best. | 114th of 361, with limits $1,090 a month | 153rd of 361, with limits $1,980 a month | Cheapest of 361 $209 a month |
| RL rollouts 1,000 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 1,000,000 sessions of 3 min a month | 186th of 360, with limits $24,000 a month | 108th of 360, with limits $6,600 a month | 34th of 360, with limits $2,000 a month |
| Agent evals 250 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 15,000 sessions of 20 min a month Linode fits evals on hourly VMs, Contabo is a compromise because every machine is a month's rent, and bochka adds fork and per-second billing. | 55th cheapest of 364 $1,080 a month | 177th of 364, with limits $1,650 a month | 10th cheapest of 364 $200 a month |
| CI runners 40 at once · 8 vCPU / 16 GB · 6,000 sessions of 12 min a month Both run Docker builds on full VMs where you run the runner software yourself; bochka bills only while a job runs. | 137th cheapest of 377 $4,320 a month | 133rd cheapest of 377 $2,980 a month | 4th cheapest of 377 $86 a month |
| 24/7 dev boxes 1 machine 24/7 · 4 vCPU / 8 GB For one box that runs all month, Contabo ranks 1st on its flat rent, Linode ranks 40th, and bochka sits between them while keeping its disk with snapshots every minute. | 40th cheapest of 368 $48 a month | Cheapest of 368 $6.6 a month | 18th cheapest of 368 $26 a month |
| Computer-use agents 50 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 20,000 sessions of 15 min a month Neither ships a desktop: Linode gives a Glish console and Contabo a VNC console, while bochka streams a 60fps desktop with Chromium for computer use. | 272nd of 369, with limits $1,440 a month | 140th of 369, with limits $330 a month | 6th cheapest of 369 $200 a month |
| Browser-use agents 50 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 30,000 sessions of 10 min a month | 311th of 367, with limits $1,080 a month | 232nd of 367, with limits $330 a month | 7th cheapest of 367 $200 a month |
| Scraping & bots (startup scale) 50 at once · 1 vCPU / 2 GB · 100,000 sessions of 3 min a month | 190th of 346, with limits $108 a month | 258th of 346, with limits $330 a month | 6th cheapest of 346 $90 a month |
| Mass scraping & bots (undetectable) 1,000 at once · 1 vCPU / 2 GB · 3,000,000 sessions of 2 min a month | 89th of 338, with limits $2,160 a month | 184th of 338, with limits $6,600 a month | 71st of 338, with limits $1,800 a month |
| Parallel red teaming 200 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 5,000 sessions of 30 min a month | 189th of 360, with limits $182 a month | 321st of 360, with limits $1,320 a month | 2nd cheapest of 360 $200 a month |
| GPU eval jobs 10 at once · 8 vCPU / 32 GB · 500 sessions of 30 min a month Only Linode has a priced GPU option here; Contabo's RTX PRO 6000 GPU VPS is not priced in this table, and bochka has no GPUs. | 78th of 98, with limits $1,500 a month | Can't run it | Can't run it |
| macOS agents 5 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 1,000 sessions of 20 min a month | Can't run it | Can't run it | Can't run it |
Key features
| Feature | Linode | Contabo | bochka |
|---|---|---|---|
| What you get | A Linux VM in a full cloud with Kubernetes, block storage, NodeBalancers and VPCs | A monthly-rented VPS or VDS server you set up yourself | Sandbox VMs for agents, started and stopped from an API |
| Isolation | Full VM with its own kernel, isolated at the hypervisor | KVM VM with its own kernel | Full VM with its own kernel on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X hosts |
| CPU | Shared CPU plans, or Dedicated CPU plans for a higher price | Cloud VPS shares vCPU cores; Cloud VDS has dedicated cores | Dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X (Zen 5) hosts; 26.69 runs/s at 4 vCPU / 8 GB |
| Billing | Hourly, rounded up to the full hour, with a monthly cap on most plans; billed while powered off | Monthly rent with a minimum first term of one month; listed prices assume 24 months | Monthly plan from $20 spent per second on running sandboxes; a stopped sandbox costs nothing |
| Getting a new machine | Create one from the API or console; boot time is not published | Order and pay, then a few minutes of provisioning; orders can need identity checks | A new sandbox from the API in seconds |
| Docker and nested virtualization | Root and Docker; nested virtualization not supported | Root and Docker; nested virtualization only on the Cloud VDS line | Docker, root, systemd and /dev/kvm on every machine |
| Saved state | Paid Backups add-on: scheduled backups plus one manual snapshot | 1 to 5 manual snapshots included by plan, kept 30 days; none on Cloud VDS | Automatic snapshots every minute and on stop |
| Copying a machine | Clone copies all disks to a new Linode; power off first to avoid corruption | No fork or clone; custom images upload as ISO or QCOW2 | Fork a running sandbox in one call (disk, no memory) |
| Desktop and computer use | No desktop; you install one and reach it through the Glish console | Headless server; a VNC console for setup and rescue | 60fps desktop and Chromium, computer use and browser control |
| Coding agents | None; StackScripts and Marketplace apps install general software | None built in; 1-Click images for apps like n8n, Ollama and OpenClaw | Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and more preinstalled, driven from outside by API |
| Keeping keys out of the machine | No credentials proxy; secrets go in user data or files you place | No credentials proxy; secrets live inside the server | AI credentials proxy for model providers and any HTTPS API you register |
| Reaching the machine | Public IPv4 on any port; HTTPS needs your own certificates or a NodeBalancer | Static IPv4 and /64 IPv6, all ports; domains and TLS are yours to set up | HTTPS URLs with TLS for up to 50 ports, token-protected; raw TCP; own IP |
| Outbound rules | Free Cloud Firewall with outbound rules by protocol, port and IP range | No provider-side outbound allowlist | Open internet on every plan; no provider-side allowlist |
| GPUs, Windows and regions | Nvidia GPUs by the hour; 33 regions in 15 countries; no Windows | RTX PRO 6000 GPU VPS; Windows Server add-on; 11 locations worldwide | No GPUs, no Windows guests; EU only: Germany, Finland, France |
Every feature Battleships tracks (43)
| Feature | Linode | Contabo | bochka |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full VM (own kernel) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Docker inside | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Nested virtualization | No | No | Yes |
| Root | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Systemd | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Desktop GUI | No | No | Yes |
| Browser | No | No | Yes |
| Computer-use API | No | No | Yes |
| SSH | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Persistent disk | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Pause/resume | No | No | Yes |
| Automatic snapshots | No | No | Yes |
| Fork/clone | Yes | No | Yes |
| Live fork (no pause) | No | No | Yes |
| Memory fork | No | No | No |
| Custom image (Docker or snapshot) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| ≥24 h sessions | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Idle auto-stop | No | No | No |
| Wake on request | No | No | No |
| HTTPS preview URLs | No | No | Yes |
| Raw TCP inbound | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Public IPv4 | Yes | Yes | No |
| Egress allowlist | Yes | No | No |
| Secret proxy | No | No | Yes |
| Secret proxy for any API | No | No | Yes |
| Preinstalled agents | No | No | Yes |
| Agent harness API | No | No | Yes |
| MCP server | No | No | No |
| GPU | Yes | Yes | No |
| Windows | No | Yes | No |
| Arm64 | No | No | No |
| Self-hosting | No | No | No |
| BYOC | No | No | No |
| Open source | No | No | No |
| Scoped API keys | Yes | Not published | Yes |
| Spend limits | No | Not published | Yes |
| Usage per sandbox (API) | No | No | Yes |
| Audit logs | Yes | Not published | No |
| SSO | Yes | No | No |
| SOC 2 | Yes | No | No |
| HIPAA | Yes | No | No |
| EU data residency | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Zero data retention | Not published | Not published | Yes |
Performance
There is no comparable CPU measurement for Linode or Contabo: neither was in the public StarSling hpc-sandbox-benchmarks run. bochka did 26.69 Node.js build-and-test runs per second there at 4 vCPU / 8 GB. Both Linode and Contabo sell shared and dedicated CPU lines, so their results would depend on the plan you pick.
Node.js build-and-test loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, higher is better. Measured with the open hpc-sandbox-benchmarks suite. Linode and Contabo have no published run in this suite yet, so there is no like-for-like number to compare.
Pricing in five scenarios
Each bill is priced from the providers' public price lists by the open Battleships engine, with the cheapest plan that runs the scenario.
| Scenario | Linode, a month | Contabo, a month | bochka, a month |
|---|---|---|---|
| One coding agent, workdays 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, 8 hours a day, 22 days a month, files kept between days | $13 · Usage account | $7 · Usage account | $20 · $20/mo |
| One agent that never stops 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, running 24/7 all month | $48 · Usage account | $7 · Usage account | $26 · $20/mo |
| 50 agents in parallel 50 machines of 4 vCPU / 8 GB at once, 8-hour sessions, 1,100 sessions a month, Docker inside | $634 · Usage account | $330 · Usage account | $317 · $20/mo × 3 seats |
| Sandboxes for your users 2 vCPU / 4 GB, 30,000 sessions of 10 minutes a month, up to 300 at once | $1,080 · Usage account | $1,980 · Usage account · with limits | $200 · $100/mo × 2 seats |
| 1,000 short jobs at once 2 vCPU / 4 GB, 1,000 at once, 3 minutes each, 200,000 jobs a month | $7,200 · Usage account · with limits | $6,600 · Usage account · with limits | $2,000 · $2000/mo · with limits |
Linode: Each Linode size has an hourly price, rounded up to the next full hour, billed from create to delete, including while powered off. Most plans stop at a monthly cap, but G8 and GPU plans have no cap since July 2026.
Contabo: Contabo charges a flat monthly rent per server, busy or idle, with a minimum first term of one month and lower rates for longer terms. Snapshot slots are included, while extra regions, backups and some images cost more.
Contabo: You pick a monthly plan from $20, and all of it becomes usage credit spent per second on running sandboxes. A stopped sandbox costs nothing and keeps its disk.
Limits in those scenarios
Linode rounds every instance up to a full hour, so a 10-minute user session or a 3-minute job is billed as an hour, and a new account raises its machine limits by support ticket. Contabo publishes no limit on how many servers one account can run, and each server is a month's rent, so 300 user sandboxes do not fit as priced. For 1,000 short jobs at once, both use shared vCPUs that other tenants can slow, and bochka's start limits queue the burst, so none of the three fits it.
| Scenario | Linode | Contabo | bochka |
|---|---|---|---|
| One coding agent, workdays | None that bite |
| None that bite |
| One agent that never stops | None that bite | None that bite | None that bite |
| 50 agents in parallel | None that bite |
| None that bite |
| Sandboxes for your users | None that bite |
| None that bite |
| 1,000 short jobs at once |
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Which one should you use?
Use Linode when
you want hourly billing, GPUs, regions around the world, or a server that sits next to Kubernetes, block storage and firewall rules in one cloud.
- Pay by the hour. Useful for machines that live days, not months: a Linode is billed by the hour and stops costing once you delete it.
- A whole cloud around the server. Useful if the machine must sit in a VPC next to Kubernetes, block storage, NodeBalancers and outbound firewall rules.
- More regions and hourly GPUs. Useful for users far from Europe or model work: 33 regions in 15 countries and Nvidia GPU instances by the hour.
Use Contabo when
you want one cheap server that runs all month, Windows Server, or nested virtualization on a dedicated-core VDS.
- One server that runs all month. Useful for one always-on box: a flat monthly rent buys a 4 vCPU / 8 GB VPS with a static IPv4.
- Snapshots included and nested virtualization on VDS. Useful if you want snapshot slots in the price, or /dev/kvm on the dedicated-core Cloud VDS line.
- Windows Server. Useful if you need a Windows machine: Contabo offers Windows Server 2016 to 2025 as a licensed add-on.
Where bochka fits
Linode and Contabo both rent plain servers that you set up and run yourself. If what you are really running is agents that start, stop and copy machines all day, bochka gives each one a full VM from an API in seconds, saved every minute, with coding agents and a desktop ready.
A disk saved every minute, and free stops
A powered-off Linode is still billed and its backups are a paid add-on, and a Contabo server is rented for the month with a few manual snapshot slots. On bochka, a stopped sandbox costs nothing and its disk is saved every minute.
Fork a running machine and /dev/kvm everywhere
Linode tells you to power off before a clone and has no nested virtualization; Contabo has no clone and puts /dev/kvm only on Cloud VDS. bochka forks a running sandbox in one call and every machine has /dev/kvm, Docker and systemd.
Agents, a desktop and keys handled
Both start as empty servers, so you install and watch each agent and desktop, and API keys sit on a disk the agent can read. bochka preinstalls coding agents you drive from outside, streams a 60fps desktop and keeps keys out with its credentials proxy.
Use bochka when agents start, stop and fork machines all day: each sandbox is a full VM from an API in seconds, saved every minute, with /dev/kvm, a desktop and coding agents you drive from outside. Compare it one to one: bochka vs Linode and bochka vs Contabo.
Questions people ask
Is Linode cheaper than Contabo?
Usually not for a server that runs all month: one 4 vCPU / 8 GB agent that never stops comes to $7 on Contabo against $48 on Linode, and $26 on bochka. For 50 agents in parallel it is $330 on Contabo against $634 on Linode, and $317 on bochka. For 300 short user sandboxes, Linode comes to $1,080 a month while Contabo does not fit, and bochka comes to $200.
Which is faster, Linode or Contabo?
We have no comparable CPU measurement for either one. Both sell shared vCPU plans that other tenants can slow under heavy load, plus dedicated CPU plans for more money. bochka was measured at 26.69 runs per second at 4 vCPU / 8 GB.
Does Contabo bill by the hour like Linode?
No. Contabo rents servers by the month with a minimum first term of one month, and its listed prices assume a 24-month term. Linode bills by the hour, rounded up, and keeps billing a powered-off Linode until you delete it.
Can Linode or Contabo run Docker and nested VMs?
Both give you root, so you can install Docker. Linode does not support nested virtualization, and Contabo supports it only on its Cloud VDS line, not on any VPS plan. Every bochka sandbox has Docker, systemd and /dev/kvm.
Can I run Claude Code on Linode or Contabo?
Yes, on either one you install it yourself, run it over SSH and keep your API key on the server. bochka preinstalls Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and others, drives them from outside by API, and keeps real keys out of the sandbox.
Where do Linode, Contabo and bochka run?
Linode has 33 regions in 15 countries, and Contabo has 11 locations in the EU, the UK, the US, Singapore, Japan, India and Australia. bochka runs only in the EU, in Germany, Finland and France, with EU data residency.
Try bochka
Install the CLI, then run bochka new.
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