Linode vs. Site5 2019

website, and file backup (SVN) for a business that's had between one and three people. There's various businesses I've used to support my small business, but Linode has been one of my favorites for two reasons: (1) they only change in *good* ways; and (2) the tech support is always knowledgeable.
On point (1), a lot of other businesses (payment processors, co-working spaces, etc.) seem to change over time in bad ways. They go out of business, pivot their business model to something more profitable than what I was using them for, increase their rates, the service quality drops . . . it's always something. With Linode, it's just been . . . stability. The only "we're making changes" notifications I get are ones to tell me they've added disk space, memory, the ability to add block storage, or some other nice thing. I always just feel like they are trying to be a better service for existing customers, rather than trying to squeeze more dollars out of them.
On point (2), as an example (and the thing that motivated me to write this review out of gratitude), I recently and suddenly was finding that all of my work emails sent to G suite users were going into their spam folder. Not mailing list bulk emails, but even replies. I read every solution on Stack Exchange I could find, made some changes, but no dice. This is kind of an emergency, because it's hard to operate a business that way. Google just has a form that you can fill out and the response is "we'll look into it, any changes may take two weeks to propogate". Two weeks! I contacted Linode tech support, who looked over my DNS config and noticed it was probably the lack of IPv6 PTR record -- I had IPv4 PTR set up, but hadn't thought of IPv6. Setting up the IPv6 PTR didn't work immediately, but turning off IPv6 for my mailserver did, and all better (presumably the IPv6 PTR record will propagate eventually and I can turn it back on). So that's the sort of top-tier tech support one wants to have.
In ten years of hosting the only downtime or Linode-side tech issue I was aware of was a half-hour DDoS outage a few years ago. The online server-management tools have all been fine and easy enough to use.
Don't ever change, Linode. (Except for the free upgrades).

s really amazing is the service you get through chat. Way over what you would expect for such monthly cost

their answer:
"Due to the global shortage of IPv4 addresses, this would not be an acceptable justification for an additional IP address for your Linode. Along with this, I would like to point out that having your nameservers on the same linode that serves your content will create a single point of failure, which I wouldn't recommend."
Not acceptable? They have to approve if I need it or not? Do they know my business' needs more than I do? That my go well in China where you have to get permission to take a shit. Plain BS. Digital Ocean provides the IPv4 without any questions.
I will never, ever try them again!

re was any complexity involved. Despite this, it was bad from the get go. Communication was very poor. They did not provide any information on credentials to view my account or access cpanel even after it had migrated. I had to open a ticket to do this. Once I finally got access I had found that in migrating from IX, site5 elected to make my primary domain the secondary and secondary the primary. So it was not handled like two separate domains as it had been with IX. No rationale. No communication, they just choose to do this. The secondary domain was not important to me and I was going to let the domain lapse. However, I can't as it it the primary domain.
Not only that, when I brought up they had migrated this over backward, they indicated that the only way to remedy this was to remove both domains entirely and then bring them back in - but in the process I would loose all my email, which I know is nonsense. Then they followed it up with, "Why does it matter? You can currently access your data the way it is set up now." They also neglected to migrate over my ftp settings. I should have bolted right there and then, but I figured I was through the worst of it.
Fast forward two years and all of a sudden site5 starts blocking emails that are relayed from my mx filter. I open a chat. Its clear they have no idea what I am talking about and say they do not support mx filtering services. I mention that they were the ones to actually config my MX records for me as I was still locked out of cpanel and could not do it myself following the migration. I mention that it had worked fine for 2 years. Upon hearing that she then concedes that she needs to escalate and opens a ticket. I review the ticket and of all the information I provided detaling the issue was reduced to, "issues with receiving email."
So, I amend the ticket with all the info I had previously provided in chat. I also specify, as I had in the chat, that since my email was dodgy due to their blocking the ip, that they should communicate using an alt email address or phone number - both provided. They ignored this. I only knew that they had responded via checking in on the ticket. And the response was that I should just 86 the mx filter. No further explanation. It was very clear that they did not bother to read what I had provided, and the only way to contact is via chat or ticket, both of which yield no joy.
Knowing that my mxfilter would log delivery errors, I reached to the mxfilter provider. They confirm that one of their ips is being blocked by my host. Then - and here is the kicker - the host sent my mx filter provider a email indicating that they should not try to resend any of the 165 messages that the host server had rejected. These were clean ham emails, mind you.
So they will make bad decisions about your data on your behalf without informing you at all. They will be slow to respond, and you will have to follow up several times only to have them finally respond the one sentence that resolves nothing and reflects that they did not even bother to read the information provided.
Hence, I am now planning to migrate to a new host as the time to address what should be a straight forward issue now requires more of me that migrating to another host. My advice, if you are looking for a decent host, do yourself a favor and walk right on by site5. That is, unless you are into support that is commensurate with that you'd expect from an airline, Comcast, or ATT. It's like pulling teeth even after to spoon feed them all the detail and leg work to track down their issue.