> No diff in utilization. You can still use the API elastically spin up new instances, if at a different scale. They both have APIs, but EC2 has hourly billing versus monthly for Linode (they issue service credits pro-rated daily if you don't use a VPS for the entire month, refunds are manual and require a processing fee). EC2 also offers more options in terms of CPU and memory (3+ different CPUs and 1.7-32GB versus 0.5-4GB and single L5520 CPU architecture). They are both elastic, but from a billing perspective, Linode's elasticity isn't too practical.

> I guess, if that sort of thing matters to you. I don't really like relying on third parties for utilities like that. It may matter for your project, if you need automatic-elasticity, more durable off-instance storage, better security, more compute power, more memory. Linode can't provide these features.

> K, but has anybody been making their machines faster? Sure, EC2 has upgraded their m1 hardware the past couple of years, GoGrid is upgrading to Westmere later this year, Storm on Demand has upgraded some of their hardware, Flexiscale has upgraded, and others.

The point is that you are not actually using their machines. You're using virtual machines that have only ever given you a fraction of the machine's total power.