Linode vs Scaleway
Linode and Scaleway both rent plain VMs you set up and run yourself. Linode reaches 33 regions around the world, while Scaleway stays in Europe and adds Windows Server, Arm64 and per-minute GPUs.
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.
Scaleway
Scaleway is a European cloud and AI provider, part of the iliad Group, that rents virtual machines, GPUs, storage and managed services.
Scaleway Instances are KVM virtual machines you pick from fixed shapes, from small shared-vCPU Development Instances to dedicated-vCPU and Arm64 types, running Linux or Windows Server. You get root, SSH, a public IP and security groups, and you install and run your own software next to Scaleway products like managed databases, Kubernetes, object storage and GPU Instances. It is general cloud infrastructure, not an agent sandbox, so this page compares the two where they overlap: giving an agent its own Linux machine.
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 | Scaleway: price rank | boat: price rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software factory 100 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 2,200 sessions of 8 h a month Both give an agent a full Linux VM with root and Docker that you set up yourself, and boat comes with agents, snapshots every minute and free stops built in. | 145th of 367, with limits $1,292 a month | 49th of 367, with limits $322 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 | 90th of 366, with limits $208 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 for short runs: Linode and Scaleway bill each run as at least an hour, and boat's start limits queue big bursts. | 174th of 345, with limits $1,200 a month | 166th of 345, with limits $893 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 Both bill a 10-minute user session as a full hour, and both raise machine counts through support; boat allows 100 to 2,000 sandboxes by plan. | 114th of 361, with limits $1,090 a month | 84th of 361, with limits $738 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 | 176th of 360, with limits $18,254 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 | 55th cheapest of 364 $1,080 a month | 42nd cheapest of 364 $776 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 a full VM, but you run the runner software and the clean-up between jobs yourself, and each job pays at least an hour. | 137th cheapest of 377 $4,320 a month | 82nd cheapest of 377 $777 a month | 4th cheapest of 377 $86 a month |
| 24/7 dev boxes 1 machine 24/7 · 4 vCPU / 8 GB Both fit a classic always-on server, with Scaleway a little lower per month than Linode; a boat machine also keeps its disk with snapshots every minute. | 40th cheapest of 368 $48 a month | 30th cheapest of 368 $41 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 has a desktop built in, so you install one yourself; boat streams a 60fps desktop with Chromium and computer use. | 272nd of 369, with limits $1,440 a month | 94th of 369, with limits $168 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 | 173rd of 367, with limits $126 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 | 149th of 346, with limits $13 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 | 34th of 338, with limits $253 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 | 103rd of 360, with limits $29 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 Linode rents Nvidia GPU instances by the hour and Scaleway rents them by the minute; boat 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 | Scaleway | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| What you get | A general Linux server you set up and run yourself | A general cloud VM you set up and run yourself | A sandbox API for agents, on full VMs |
| Isolation | Every Linode is a full VM with its own kernel | Every Instance is a full KVM VM with its own kernel | Every sandbox is a full VM with its own kernel |
| CPU | Shared CPU plans, or Dedicated CPU plans for more; no comparable measurement | Shared vCPU on Development and Play types, dedicated vCPU on others; no comparable measurement | Dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X (Zen 5) hosts; 26.69 runs/s at 4 vCPU / 8 GB |
| Docker and nested virtualization | Root and Docker; Linode staff say nested virtualization is not supported | Root and Docker on Linux images; nested virtualization is not documented | Docker, root, systemd and /dev/kvm on every machine, documented |
| Stopping | A powered-off Linode is still billed in full; you delete it to stop paying | A console or API power-off stops compute billing, but disks and IPs keep billing; standby bills as running | A stopped sandbox costs nothing and keeps its disk |
| Snapshots | Paid Backups add-on: scheduled backups plus one manual snapshot per Linode | Images and volume snapshots you create yourself; none automatic | Automatic snapshots every minute and on stop |
| Fork | Clone copies all disks to a new Linode; the docs say to power off first | Create an image from the Instance, then boot new Instances from it | Fork a running sandbox in one call (disk, no memory) |
| Reaching the machine | Public IPv4 on any port; HTTPS needs your own certificates or a NodeBalancer | Public IPv4 and IPv6 on any port; HTTPS needs your own proxy, certificates and DNS | HTTPS URLs for up to 50 ports, token-protected; raw TCP; own IP |
| Desktop and coding agents | None built in; you install a desktop and reach it through the Glish console | None built in; you install a desktop, browser and agents yourself | 60fps desktop with Chromium and computer use; Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and more preinstalled |
| Keeping keys out of the machine | No credentials proxy; secrets reach the server through user data or files | Secret Manager stores secrets that the machine fetches, so they end up on it | AI credentials proxy for model providers and any HTTPS API you register |
| Outbound rules | Free Cloud Firewall with outbound rules by protocol, port and IP range | Security groups with outbound rules by protocol, port and IP range; SMTP blocked by default | Open internet on every plan; no provider-side allowlist |
| Operating systems | Linux on x86 | Linux, Windows Server and Arm64 Instances | Linux on x86, with Wine for Windows apps |
| GPUs | Nvidia RTX 4000 Ada, RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell and Quadro RTX 6000, by the hour | Nvidia B300, H100, L4 and L40S, by the minute | None |
| Regions | 33 regions in 15 countries across the Americas, Europe, Asia and Australia | Paris, Amsterdam, Warsaw and Milan | EU only: Germany, Finland, France |
Every feature Battleships tracks (43)
| Feature | Linode | Scaleway | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full VM (own kernel) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Docker inside | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Nested virtualization | No | Not published | 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 | Yes | Yes |
| Live fork (no pause) | No | Yes | 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 | Yes | 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 | Yes | 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 | No | Yes |
| Usage per sandbox (API) | No | No | Yes |
| Audit logs | Yes | Yes | No |
| SSO | Yes | Yes | 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 measurement for Linode or Scaleway: neither was part of the public StarSling benchmark run where boat did 26.69 Node.js build-and-test runs per second at 4 vCPU / 8 GB. Both sell shared and dedicated CPU types, so results would depend on the shape 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 Scaleway 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 | Scaleway, a month | boat, 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 | $14 · 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 | $41 · 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 | $537 · 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 | $734 · Usage account | $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 | $4,892 · Usage account | $2,000 · $2000/mo · with limits |
Linode: Each Linode size has an hourly price, rounded up to the next full hour, and billing runs from create to delete, even while it is powered off. Most plans stop at a monthly cap, but G8 and GPU plans have no cap since July 2026.
Scaleway: Each Instance shape has an hourly price, billed per hour of uptime including startup and standby, so a short job still pays a full hour. Disks and public IPv4 bill on top and keep billing while an Instance is powered off.
Scaleway: 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
Both bill at least a full hour per machine, so 10-minute user sessions and 3-minute jobs cost far more than their run time. Linode raises account limits by support ticket, and its 1,000-job burst runs on shared vCPUs that other tenants can slow, so it does not fit as priced. Scaleway sets quotas per shape, such as 10 DEV1-L or 15 DEV1-M after identity checks, so 50 agents or 300 user sandboxes need a support request first. On boat the limit is 100 to 2,000 sandboxes by plan plus starts per minute, so the 1,000-job burst gets queued and does not fit the $2,000 plan either.
| Scenario | Linode | Scaleway | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| One coding agent, workdays | None that bite | 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 | None that bite |
| Sandboxes for your users | None that bite | None that bite | None that bite |
| 1,000 short jobs at once |
| None that bite |
|
Which one should you use?
Use Linode when
your users are outside Europe, you want a monthly cap on the bill, or you need a long-lived server next to Kubernetes, block storage and firewall rules.
- Regions around the world. Useful if your users are outside Europe: Linodes run in 33 regions across the Americas, Europe, Asia and Australia.
- A monthly cap on most plans. Useful if you want a fixed bill: most Linode plans stop charging at a monthly cap, such as $48 for shared 4 vCPU / 8 GB.
- Short workday use. Useful if one agent works only on workdays and you delete the Linode each night: it comes to $13 a month.
Use Scaleway when
you want to stay in the EU, need Windows Server, Arm64 or per-minute GPUs, or want powered-off machines to stop compute billing.
- Windows and Arm64 machines. Useful if an agent must test on Windows Server or Arm64: Scaleway sells both as ordinary Instances.
- GPUs by the minute. Useful if your agents train or serve models: Scaleway rents Nvidia B300, H100, L4 and L40S Instances billed per minute.
- Power-off stops compute billing. Useful if machines sit idle: a Scaleway Instance powered off from the console or API stops compute billing, while a Linode does not.
Where boat fits
Linode and Scaleway are general clouds, not agent sandboxes. If what you are really running is agents, boat gives each one a full VM in the EU that is ready to work, with coding agents, a desktop, HTTPS ports and snapshots every minute built in.
Nested virtualization on every machine
Agents that run Android emulators, Firecracker or their own VMs need /dev/kvm. Linode staff say it is not supported, and Scaleway does not document it, so you test each shape or move that work elsewhere.
Stops that keep the disk, and fork while running
Agents sit idle between tasks. A powered-off Linode bills in full and a powered-off Scaleway Instance still bills its disks and IP, while copying a busy agent means stopping it or making an image first.
Agents, a desktop and keys handled for you
Both start as an empty server, so you install and supervise every agent, desktop and HTTPS proxy yourself, and any key you place there can be read by the code the agent runs. boat drives agents inside from outside and proxies the keys.
Use boat when you want each agent on its own full VM that is ready to work: /dev/kvm, coding agents, a desktop, HTTPS ports and minute-by-minute snapshots built in, fork while running, and stops that cost nothing. Compare it one to one: boat vs Linode and boat vs Scaleway.
Questions people ask
Is Linode cheaper than Scaleway?
For one coding agent on workdays, Linode is a little lower at $13 a month against $14 on Scaleway. For one agent that never stops, Scaleway comes to $41 against $48 on Linode, and 50 agents in parallel come to $537 on Scaleway against $634 on Linode. boat comes to $20, $26 and $317 for the same three, and Scaleway's prices leave out its disks and public IPv4.
Which is faster, Linode or Scaleway?
There is no comparable measurement for either one. Both sell shared and dedicated CPU types, so speed depends on the shape you pick. boat did 26.69 Node.js build-and-test runs per second at 4 vCPU / 8 GB in the public StarSling benchmark.
Can Linode and Scaleway run Docker and nested VMs?
Both run Docker, since each machine is a full VM with root. Linode staff say nested virtualization is not supported, and Scaleway's docs do not cover it. On boat, Docker, systemd and /dev/kvm are documented on every machine.
Do I pay for a stopped machine?
On Linode, yes: a powered-off Linode is billed until you delete it. On Scaleway, a console or API power-off stops compute billing, but disks and public IPs keep billing, and standby bills as running. On boat, a stopped sandbox costs nothing and keeps its disk.
Where do Linode and Scaleway run?
Linode runs in 33 regions in 15 countries, including Frankfurt, Paris, Amsterdam, London and Milan in Europe. Scaleway runs only in Paris, Amsterdam, Warsaw and Milan. boat runs only in the EU, in Germany, Finland and France.
Which has GPUs?
Both do. Linode rents Nvidia RTX 4000 Ada, RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell and Quadro RTX 6000 instances by the hour, and Scaleway rents B300, H100, L4 and L40S Instances by the minute. boat has no GPUs.
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