Digital Ocean may be cheap but I honestly think both Linode and DO are on even footing right now. DO has to be cheap to make up for what they lack in a web UI, IPv6, less CPU cores to work with and just all around lack of established trust (they're super new and I for one am slightly wary). Oh, and their network can use some work too. I can get a bit slow sometimes.

Linode is expensive but they give you lots of control in your account panel, you know they'll be around for a long time, excellent support, IPv6, and on and on. Not that DO is bad though. They've got SSDs which is awesome, they're cheap, free snapshots, and so on.

I'm a happy customer of both services and I don't think one is better than the other. I think both serve different types of customers. For me, personally, Linode is where I go to host my serious projects - the money making ones. Digital Ocean is where I go for a quick, cheap server to mess around with. I have one "main" server on both services but I trust my Linode more. Maybe that'll change as Digital Ocean matures.

If ram were the only thing in consideration, perhaps. I doubt linode want to compete with digital ocean given their prices start at $5 a month. That's not enough to give decent support to any number of people, though I'm sure they promise it. If linode double ram I'll be very happy with the comparison with budget providers (who are great for some people/uses of course).