Josh Sherman
Why not check out the latest comparison?
New month, new batch of benchmarks!
An FYI for the folks that send me requests to include different providers, I want you to know that you are heard I’m feeling like I’ve optimized my workflow enough that adding in a new provider or two soon wouldn’t take much additional time, so be on the look out in the coming months for more providers :)
Also, here’s my usual disclaimer. The following benchmarks are an average of benchmarks on three server instances, at the $5 price point, for each of the providers. I’ve chosen data centers nearest the New York area as possible, all running Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.
This month I’ve added in bolding of the metrics that are the best, either lowest, for things like time taken, or highest, for things like operations per second. I think it will help with discerning things at a glance.
Overview
| DigitalOcean | Lightsail | Linode | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Location | New York 1 | Virginia, Zone A | Newark, NJ | New York (NJ) |
| RAM | 1 GB | 1 GB | 1 GB | 1 GB |
| CPU | 1 Core | 1 Core | 1 Core | 1 Core |
| SSD | 25 GB | 40 GB | 25 GB | 25 GB |
| Transfer | 1 TB | 2 TB | 1 TB | 1 TB |
CPU Info
| DigitalOcean | Lightsail | Linode | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CPU MHz | 2200.00 | 2398.71 | 2499.99 | 2398.15 |
| Cache Size (KB) | 30720.00 | 30720.00 | 16384.00 | 16384.00 |
| BogoMips | 2933.00 | 3200.33 | 3333.00 | 3196.00 |
CPU
| DigitalOcean | Lightsail | Linode | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Events per Second | 824.89 | 863.65 | 706.25 | 748.54 |
| Minimum (ms) | 1.17 | 1.05 | 1.18 | 1.24 |
| Average (ms) | 1.21 | 1.16 | 1.44 | 1.34 |
| Maximum (ms) | 1.80 | 3.87 | 12.78 | 7.03 |
Memory (Read)
| DigitalOcean | Lightsail | Linode | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ops per Second | 3419509.73 | 824231.64 | 697902.98 | 3258869.36 |
| Minimum (ms) | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Average (ms) | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Maximum (ms) | 0.30 | 1.41 | 2.52 | 8.99 |
Memory (Write)
| DigitalOcean | Lightsail | Linode | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ops per Second | 3387521.30 | 824928.49 | 662037.26 | 3261505.75 |
| Minimum (ms) | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Average (ms) | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Maximum (ms) | 0.19 | 0.36 | 13.25 | 4.24 |
File I/O
| DigitalOcean | Lightsail | Linode | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 1561.10 | 1210.87 | 1153.16 | 1847.46 |
| Writes per Second | 1040.70 | 807.22 | 768.76 | 1231.64 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 3326.29 | 2577.36 | 2454.87 | 3937.64 |
| Minimum (ms) | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Average (ms) | 0.19 | 0.22 | 0.24 | 0.15 |
| Maximum (ms) | 42.58 | 9.73 | 22.78 | 12.94 |
MySQL
| DigitalOcean | Lightsail | Linode | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Transactions per Second | 2867.33 | 2178.33 | 1898.00 | 2533.00 |
| Queries per Second | 57346.67 | 43566.67 | 37960.00 | 50660.00 |
| Minimum (ms) | 2.02 | 2.44 | 2.38 | 2.37 |
| Average (ms) | 3.51 | 4.61 | 5.86 | 4.20 |
| Maximum (ms) | 69.09 | 35.12 | 33.20 | 32.15 |
Speed Test
| DigitalOcean | Lightsail | Linode | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Distance (km) | 2435.00 | 2090.30 | 2374.01 | 2395.89 |
| Latency (ms) | 47.169 | 44.544 | 51.444 | 47.006 |
| Download (Mbit/s) | 1319.01 | 231.77 | 265.21 | 288.73 |
| Upload (Mbit/s) | 503.26 | 270.95 | 339.71 | 502.83 |
Apache Benchmark (against nginx on the servers)
| DigitalOcean | Lightsail | Linode | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Requests per Second | 306.19 | 288.72 | 299.48 | 259.32 |
| Time per Request (ms) (mean) | 1633.27 | 1732.31 | 1674.07 | 1992.21 |
| Transfer Rate (Kbyte/sec) | 256.86 | 242.20 | 251.22 | 217.54 |
Conclusion
Looking at the raw numbers, Amazon Lightsail has more to offer than the rest in regard to storage and transfer allotments, but DigitalOcean outperformed in nearly every single other category.
Obviously YMMV and you should take your application’s system requirements into consideration when making a hosting decision.
While not featured in these benchmarks, it’s worth noting that Linode has recently released a dedicated CPU plan. DigitalOcean is also moving more into the managed services space with a managed PostgreSQL database as well.
As always, if these posts have helped you decide on a VPS hosting provider, it’d be greatly appreciated if you signed up using one of my referral links below.
- 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!
