Josh Sherman
Why not check out the latest comparison?
This month I’m switching it up and comparing servers on the west coast, specifically in or around the San Francisco area.
Also, I’m going back to only comparing 5 buck instances in the hope that it will free up a bit more time in the future so I can add in some new providers!
Even though I’m switching it up, the servers are still running Ubuntu 16.04 LTS x64 and I’m spinning up 3 instances of each and averaging the results.
Overview
| DigitalOcean | Linode | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Location | San Francisco 2 | Fremont, CA | Silicon Valley |
| RAM | 1 GB | 1 GB | 1 GB |
| CPU | 1 Core | 1 Core | 1 Core |
| SSD | 25 GB | 20 GB | 25 GB |
| Transfer | 1 TB | 1 TB | 1 TB |
CPU Info
| DigitalOcean | Linode | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|
| MHz | 2066.66 | 2799.99 | 2394.45 |
| BogoMips | 4133.32 | 5602.31 | 4788.90 |
CPU
| DigitalOcean | Linode | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time [sec] | 13.21 | 11.78 | 13.14 |
| Min [ms] | 1.26 | 1.16 | 1.12 |
| Avg [ms] | 1.32 | 1.18 | 1.31 |
| Max [ms] | 3.63 | 1.74 | 9.04 |
Memory (Read)
| DigitalOcean | Linode | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time [sec] | 51.66 | 42.55 | 53.70 |
| Min [ms] | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Min [ms] | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Avg [ms] | 4.05 | 3.57 | 10.26 |
| Transfer [MB/sec] | 1988.72 | 2406.55 | 1907. 08 |
Memory (Write)
| DigitalOcean | Linode | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time [sec] | 51.92 | 42.61 | 53.65 |
| Min [ms] | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Min [ms] | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Avg [ms] | 0.41 | 2.24 | 6.94 |
| Transfer [MB/sec] | 1978.28 | 2403.42 | 1910.28 |
File I/O
| DigitalOcean | Linode | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time [sec] | 1.54 | 2.89 | 4.17 |
| Min [ms] | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.01 |
| Min [ms] | 0.05 | 0.14 | 0.22 |
| Avg [ms] | 1.86 | 7.61 | 8.50 |
| Transfer [MB/sec] | 101.73 | 54.15 | 38.18 |
MySQL
| DigitalOcean | Linode | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time [sec] | 39.92 | 28.25 | 53.33 |
| Min [ms] | 2.69 | 2.17 | 2.36 |
| Min [ms] | 3.98 | 2.82 | 5.32 |
| Avg [ms] | 22.95 | 16.18 | 33.51 |
| Transactions [req/sec] | 253.60 | 354.06 | 193.76 |
| Read/write [req/sec] | 4818.44 | 6727.14 | 3681.49 |
| Other ops [req/sec] | 507.20 | 708.12 | 387.53 |
Speed Test
| DigitalOcean | Linode | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Distance [km] | 2366.36 | 2371.43 | 2357.86 |
| Latency [ms] | 55.85 | 85.33 | 69.10 |
| Download [Mbit/sec] | 1264.16 | 422.69 | 721.97 |
| Upload [Mbit/sec] | 480.86 | 510.90 | 275.21 |
Apache Benchmark
| DigitalOcean | Linode | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time [sec] | 5.00 | 8.06 | 5.61 |
| Requests per sec (mean) | 2336.32 | 1242.58 | 1916.56 |
| Time per request [ms] (mean) | 499.87 | 805.68 | 560.90 |
| Transfer rate [Kbyte/sec] | 26498.25 | 13968.27 | 21657.89 |
Conclusion
The big take away from this comparison for me is that DigitalOcean is really starting to close the gap even though Linode still seems to out perform in most categories.
Additionally, Vultr touts having the fastest network, but DigitalOcean absolutely crushed in both the speed test and Apache benchmarks. Not entirely sure if it’s a testament to their west coast data center or if DigitalOcean has improved their network since my last cross provider comparison.
As always, you need to pick the provider that is going to work best for your app / needs and hopefully these metrics will help you make that decision. If so, be a dear and sign up with one (or all!) of my referral codes below. Pretty please :)
Also, if you’re curious about what commands I am running to generate these metrics and/or want to run them on your server(s) or against a VPS provider I didn’t cover this month, [grab the script][bench]!
- DigitalOcean, new accounts receive $100 in credit (good for 60 days).
- Linode, new accounts receive $100 in credit (good for 60 days).
- UpCloud, new accounts receive $25 in credit.
- Vultr, new accounts receive $100 in credit (good for 30 days).
Or if you’re feeling really generous, show off your favorite tech stack by picking up a shirt!
