Every category where a model named Linode Kubernetes Engine for a mid-market B2B company. Share is first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts; rank is within every product named in that category.

Category	Function	Share	Rank	Negative rate	Labels	Quadrant
Managed Kubernetes platforms	Cloud and infrastructure	10%	4 of 48	5%	21	accepted challenger

Movement

This is the first edition on this tier, so no move can be computed for Linode Kubernetes Engine yet. From the next edition this section shows, per buyer segment, whether its share moved by more than the measured noise floor.

By model

How each model treated Linode Kubernetes Engine across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Twelve models, six prompts per category.

Model	First choice	Alternative	Mention	Negative	Labels
Claude Haiku 4.5	1	0	0	0	1
GPT-5.4 mini	0	0	1	0	1
Gemini 3.5 Flash	1	0	1	0	2
Perplexity Sonar	0	0	0	0	0
Grok 4.1 Fast	1	2	1	0	4
Mistral Small	1	0	1	0	2
DeepSeek V4 Flash	0	1	1	0	2
Llama 4 Maverick	1	1	0	0	2
Qwen 3.7 Flash	0	2	0	0	2
Kimi K2	0	1	1	1	3
GLM 4.7 FlashX	0	1	0	0	1
MiniMax M2.5	1	0	0	0	1

By framing

Which of the six questions produced the naming. By model says how often; this says asked what. The first-choice count on the right carries the marks of the models that produced it.

FramingLabels by classFirst choices

Direct12 labels5

Paraphrase3 labelsNone

Comparative12 labels3not counted in share

Budget-constrained16 labels3

Scale-constrained3 labelsNone

Negative17 labels4not counted in share

First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative63 labels in all, every segment counted; 8 of the 15 first choices count toward share, since the comparative and negative framings do not. The bar is one segment per label class, to scale within the framing.

What the models said for it

Verbatim evidence the judge attached to positive labels.

“Linode LKE: A cost-effective option with transparent pricing, starting at $30/month for a 3-node cluster.” Llama 4 Maverick · Managed Kubernetes · direct prompt · first choice

“DigitalOcean Kubernetes (DOKS) and Linode Kubernetes Engine (LKE) are the best choices” Mistral Small · Managed Kubernetes · direct prompt · first choice

“Simple, cheap (free control plane standard), fast setup. Rare complaints; good for startups.” Grok 4.1 Fast · Managed Kubernetes · negative prompt · first choice

“Go with Linode (LKE) or DigitalOcean (DOKS) if you want predictable, low-cost pricing” Gemini 3.5 Flash · Managed Kubernetes · budget prompt · first choice

And against it

Verbatim evidence attached to negative labels. A warning on a product with few labels is a warning; on a product with many, it is one voice among them.

“Acceptable for simple workloads or cost-sensitive scenarios, but expect to build more yourself.” Kimi K2 · Managed Kubernetes · negative prompt · soft negative

Named alongside

The products named in the same answers as Linode Kubernetes Engine, over the 63 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and Linode Kubernetes Engine was named but was not.

ProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head

DigitalOcean Kubernetes58 of 6323Not in the top three

Google Kubernetes Engine54 of 6312Not in the top three

Azure Kubernetes Service52 of 637Not in the top three

Amazon EKS51 of 635Not in the top three

Civo31 of 635Not in the top three

Vultr Kubernetes Engine22 of 630Not in the top three

Red Hat OpenShift19 of 632Not in the top three

Scaleway Kapsule18 of 630Not in the top three

Rancher17 of 630Not in the top three

VMware Tanzu10 of 630Not in the top three

A head-to-head page exists where both products are in a category's top three. The other rows are the same fact without a page behind them, so they link to the product instead.

What carried it into the answer

The sites and pages cited by the answers that named Linode Kubernetes Engine. A fact about retrieval, not a lever on the model.

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list, four of the twelve in this edition, so these counts come from 51 of the 63 answers that named Linode Kubernetes Engine and are not a share of its labels.

Domains cited

medium.com45

spot.rackspace.com41

blog.railway.com35

dev.to27

digitalocean.com25

northflank.com24

reddit.com19

lucaberton.com17

portainer.io16

squareops.com11

260 of the 260 domain citations in answers naming Linode Kubernetes Engine came from somebody else's page.

Pages cited

spot.rackspace.com/blog/kubernetes-managed-services41

blog.railway.com/p/best-managed-kubernetes-hosting-202635

medium.com/@elliotgraebert/comparing-the-top-eight-managed-kubernetes-providers-2ae396623928

dev.to/dev_tips/comparing-the-top-10-managed-kubernetes-providers-2025-edition-12h825

medium.com/@BuildShift/15-managed-kubernetes-platforms-ranked-for-developers-2025-9c82acad24

medium.com/@devlinktips/15-managed-kubernetes-platforms-ranked-for-developers-2025-9c82aca21

northflank.com/blog/best-managed-kubernetes-platforms16

lucaberton.com/blog/eks-vs-gke-vs-aks-202615

Pages are listed as the models cited them.

Names read as Linode Kubernetes Engine

What the judge wrote, as written, with how often. The vendor table decides that these count as Linode Kubernetes Engine; a claim can dispute any of them.

Linode Kubernetes Engine (LKE) 5Linode LKE 3Linode LKE (Akamai) 2Linode/Akamai 2Akamai (Linode) LKE 1Akamai Linode 1Linode 1Linode (Akamai) LKE 1Linode (LKE) 1Linode / Akamai Kubernetes Engine (LKE) 1Linode Kubernetes Engine (LKE) by Akamai 1Linode/Akamai (LKE) 1

Is this your product?

Claim this page

Claiming is free and changes nothing in the data. A claimed page shows a verified contact who is told when each edition publishes and when Linode Kubernetes Engine's standing changes by more than the noise floor; the right to propose corrections to the vendor table, meaning names the judge wrote that should or should not read as Linode Kubernetes Engine, applied by version and listed in the change log; and a one-line description supplied by the vendor and marked as such.

It does not get any change to labels, shares or verdicts, any preview, or any say over which quotes appear. A verification link goes to your work email; an address at linode.com is approved on the spot, any other address is reviewed by hand.

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