This post is old news – Get fresh benchmarks at VPS Showdown (daily updates!)
in VPS Showdown
VPS Showdown - June 2021 - DigitalOcean vs. Lightsail vs. Linode vs. UpCloud vs. Vultr
Have had some requests for some comparisons of different plans (like the
dedicated CPU offerings) and different price points, but considering it's the
last month of the quarter, I figured I would just stay the course and stick to
the same comparisons as I've done the past few months. Next month though,
probably going to venture into those higher price points.
As with previous months, I've spun up 3 instances of the different servers with
each provider in or around the New York / Newark area. All instances are running
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, and the results have been averaged where applicable.
$5 VPS Showdown - DigitalOcean vs. Lightsail vs. Linode vs. UpCloud vs. Vultr
Overview
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
Location
New York 1
Virginia, Zone A
Newark, NJ
US-NYC1
New York (NJ)
Distro
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
Kernel
5.4.0
5.4.0
5.4.0
5.4.0
5.4.0
MySQL
8.0.25
8.0.25
8.0.25
8.0.25
8.0.25
Redis
5.0.7
5.0.7
5.0.7
5.0.7
5.0.7
Base Price
$5/month
$5/month
$5/month
$5/month
$5/month
Hourly Price
$0.007/hour
$0.007/hour
$0.0075/hour
$0.007/hour
$0.007/hour
RAM
1 GB
1 GB
1 GB
1 GB
1 GB
CPU
1 Core
1 Core
1 Core
1 Core
1 Core
Storage
25 GB
40 GB
25 GB
25 GB
25 GB
Storage Type
SSD
SSD
SSD
SSD
SSD
Transfer
1 TB
2 TB
1 TB
1 TB
1 TB
Transfer Overage
$0.01/GB
$0.09/GB
$0.01/GB
$0.01/GB
$0.01/GB
Backups
$1/month
$2/month
$2/month
$1/month
$1/month
DNS
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Firewall
Yes
Yes
in beta
Yes
Yes
Load Balancer
$10/month
$18/month
$10/month
No
$10/month
Block Storage
$0.1/GB
$0.1/GB
$0.1/GB
$0.223/GB
$0.1/GB
Object Storage
$5/month
$0.023/GB
$5/month
$5/month
$5/month
Managed Databases
Yes
Yes
No
No
No
2FA/MFA
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
One-click Apps
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
Yes
Custom Images
Yes
No
No
Yes
Yes
Kubernetes
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
No
Container Registry
Yes
Yes
No
No
No
CPU Info
Model Name
DigitalOcean - All Instances
DO-Regular
Lightsail - All Instances
Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2676 v3 @ 2.40GHz
Linode - All Instances
AMD EPYC 7601 32-Core Processor
UpCloud - All Instances
AMD EPYC 7542 32-Core Processor
Vultr - All Instances
Intel Xeon Processor (Cascadelake)
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
CPU MHz
1,799.30
2,400.07
2,199.99
2,894.56
2,992.97
Cache Size (KB)
4,096.00
30,720.00
512.00
512.00
16,384.00
BogoMips
2,398.33
3,200.33
2,933.00
3,859.67
3,990.33
CPU
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
Events per Second
579.50
765.17
1,282.51
1,644.29
1,159.35
Minimum (ms)
1.66
1.24
0.74
0.58
0.83
Average (ms)
1.72
1.31
0.78
0.61
0.86
Maximum (ms)
3.43
1.97
7.46
1.50
3.07
Memory
Read
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
Ops per Second
3,028,796.46
528,470.08
3,855,375.89
5,313,943.65
5,225,973.84
Minimum (ms)
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
Average (ms)
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
Maximum (ms)
1.77
0.83
4.58
0.21
3.20
Write
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
Ops per Second
3,051,791.86
527,556.99
3,791,851.61
5,362,736.68
5,350,339.20
Minimum (ms)
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
Average (ms)
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
Maximum (ms)
0.45
1.44
4.66
2.48
0.69
File I/O
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
Reads per Second
1,557.14
733.52
1,746.47
2,590.50
4,491.28
Writes per Second
1,038.08
489.00
1,164.29
1,726.96
2,994.14
Fsyncs per Second
3,331.27
1,571.30
3,734.90
5,532.60
9,584.67
Minimum (ms)
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
Average (ms)
0.20
0.39
0.15
0.10
0.06
Maximum (ms)
6.71
25.04
18.21
136.05
4.45
MySQL
Read Only
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
Transactions per Second
3,621.67
4,836.00
4,471.33
8,655.33
7,433.67
Queries per Second
57,946.67
77,376.00
71,541.33
138,485.33
118,938.67
Minimum (ms)
2.33
1.73
1.73
0.90
1.12
Average (ms)
2.76
2.08
2.23
1.15
1.35
Maximum (ms)
16.87
94.36
17.01
7.20
8.78
Write Only
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
Transactions per Second
2,433.33
1,289.33
3,321.67
4,055.33
9,340.00
Queries per Second
14,600.00
7,736.00
19,930.00
24,332.00
56,040.00
Minimum (ms)
2.38
3.99
1.30
1.36
0.64
Average (ms)
5.05
7.85
3.09
2.46
1.07
Maximum (ms)
22.36
53.49
37.00
67.87
9.93
Read Write
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
Transactions per Second
1,110.00
961.00
1,559.67
2,433.00
3,517.67
Queries per Second
22,200.00
19,220.00
31,193.33
48,660.00
70,353.33
Minimum (ms)
6.19
5.86
3.70
2.53
1.93
Average (ms)
10.17
10.55
6.42
4.11
2.84
Maximum (ms)
37.61
153.69
37.23
18.52
13.85
Redis
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
PING_INLINE
31,321.81
45,279.26
53,038.87
91,612.89
54,399.38
PING_BULK
31,388.09
45,579.10
48,817.15
85,102.33
54,122.74
SET
31,746.21
45,676.67
54,116.46
93,236.28
53,711.57
GET
31,212.82
45,404.39
49,745.06
91,722.67
54,161.61
INCR
31,028.71
45,615.99
52,427.04
93,392.34
52,833.81
LPUSH
32,804.12
46,144.24
50,364.47
94,858.82
54,919.74
RPUSH
32,215.59
45,649.88
53,942.99
96,094.63
55,508.63
LPOP
31,792.49
45,779.14
51,078.38
95,333.75
56,160.31
RPOP
31,961.26
45,785.96
53,176.69
95,541.77
55,650.24
SADD
31,447.43
45,781.99
52,482.62
93,387.17
54,817.13
HSET
33,573.78
45,402.24
50,972.40
95,423.15
55,487.93
SPOP
31,178.13
45,168.32
51,004.89
90,492.90
53,441.03
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)
21,667.77
29,715.84
25,226.33
32,915.21
35,981.83
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)
8,752.40
13,050.86
8,052.69
12,226.61
14,981.38
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)
6,225.06
9,497.50
5,757.70
9,049.19
11,589.24
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)
4,692.28
7,725.40
4,715.61
7,205.90
9,426.26
MSET (10 keys)
24,675.52
37,482.70
25,601.50
47,373.31
48,912.94
$6 VPS Showdown - DigitalOcean - Premium Intel vs. DigitalOcean - Premium AMD vs. Vultr - High Frequency6 VPS Showdown
Overview
DigitalOcean - Premium Intel
DigitalOcean - Premium AMD
Vultr - High Frequency
Location
New York 1
New York 1
New York (NJ)
Distro
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
Kernel
5.4.0
5.4.0
5.4.0
MySQL
8.0.23
8.0.23
8.0.23
Redis
5.0.7
5.0.7
5.0.7
Base Price
$6/month
$6/month
$6/month
Hourly Price
$0.009/hour
$0.009/hour
$0.009/hour
RAM
1 GB
1 GB
1 GB
CPU
1 Core
1 Core
1 Core
Storage
25 GB
25 GB
25 GB
Storage Type
NVMe
NVMe
NVMe
Transfer
1 TB
1 TB
1 TB
Transfer Overage
$0.01/GB
$0.01/GB
$0.01/GB
Backups
$1.2/month
$1.2/month
$1.2/month
DNS
Yes
Yes
Yes
Firewall
Yes
Yes
Yes
Load Balancer
$10/month
$10/month
$10/month
Block Storage
$0.1/GB
$0.1/GB
$0.1/GB
Object Storage
$5/month
$5/month
$5/month
Managed Databases
Yes
Yes
No
2FA/MFA
Yes
Yes
Yes
One-click Apps
Yes
Yes
Yes
Custom Images
Yes
Yes
Yes
Kubernetes
Yes
Yes
No
Container Registry
Yes
Yes
No
CPU Info
Model Name
DigitalOcean - Premium Intel - All Instances
DO-Premium-Intel
DigitalOcean - Premium AMD - All Instances
DO-Premium-AMD
Vultr - High Frequency - All Instances
Intel Core Processor (Skylake, IBRS)
DigitalOcean - Premium Intel
DigitalOcean - Premium AMD
Vultr - High Frequency
CPU MHz
2,494.11
2,000.00
3,800.02
Cache Size (KB)
4,096.00
512.00
16,384.00
BogoMips
3,325.67
2,666.33
5,135.67
CPU
DigitalOcean - Premium Intel
DigitalOcean - Premium AMD
Vultr - High Frequency
Events per Second
703.82
1,304.16
1,201.75
Minimum (ms)
1.00
0.69
0.80
Average (ms)
1.42
0.77
0.83
Maximum (ms)
12.55
3.10
1.74
Memory
Read
DigitalOcean - Premium Intel
DigitalOcean - Premium AMD
Vultr - High Frequency
Ops per Second
3,040,001.26
4,150,398.70
5,640,276.75
Minimum (ms)
0.00
0.00
0.00
Average (ms)
0.00
0.00
0.00
Maximum (ms)
9.83
0.43
0.35
Write
DigitalOcean - Premium Intel
DigitalOcean - Premium AMD
Vultr - High Frequency
Ops per Second
3,015,517.11
4,149,695.06
5,713,067.62
Minimum (ms)
0.00
0.00
0.00
Average (ms)
0.00
0.00
0.00
Maximum (ms)
7.27
1.60
0.32
File I/O
DigitalOcean - Premium Intel
DigitalOcean - Premium AMD
Vultr - High Frequency
Reads per Second
904.49
1,781.14
4,364.67
Writes per Second
602.99
1,187.43
2,909.78
Fsyncs per Second
1,930.94
3,803.58
9,316.09
Minimum (ms)
0.00
0.00
0.00
Average (ms)
0.31
0.15
0.06
Maximum (ms)
106.09
11.52
4.41
MySQL
Read Only
DigitalOcean - Premium Intel
DigitalOcean - Premium AMD
Vultr - High Frequency
Transactions per Second
3,406.00
5,740.33
8,126.67
Queries per Second
54,496.00
91,845.33
130,026.67
Minimum (ms)
1.89
1.36
1.01
Average (ms)
2.93
1.75
1.23
Maximum (ms)
27.19
10.97
7.90
Write Only
DigitalOcean - Premium Intel
DigitalOcean - Premium AMD
Vultr - High Frequency
Transactions per Second
1,019.00
4,211.67
8,680.00
Queries per Second
6,114.00
25,270.00
52,080.00
Minimum (ms)
2.34
0.99
0.66
Average (ms)
10.03
2.37
1.16
Maximum (ms)
56.10
17.24
9.28
Read Write
DigitalOcean - Premium Intel
DigitalOcean - Premium AMD
Vultr - High Frequency
Transactions per Second
754.67
2,004.67
3,499.33
Queries per Second
15,093.33
40,093.33
69,986.67
Minimum (ms)
5.25
2.81
1.94
Average (ms)
13.44
5.03
2.87
Maximum (ms)
65.62
24.73
17.20
Redis
DigitalOcean - Premium Intel
DigitalOcean - Premium AMD
Vultr - High Frequency
PING_INLINE
27,926.22
74,406.33
55,053.49
PING_BULK
26,319.03
69,982.68
53,894.11
SET
26,923.84
76,226.10
55,691.13
GET
27,076.41
74,713.18
55,566.06
INCR
26,662.02
75,894.22
55,948.75
LPUSH
27,441.24
67,680.69
57,828.93
RPUSH
27,875.79
69,406.69
57,446.24
LPOP
28,045.12
69,109.52
57,619.54
RPOP
27,042.15
67,764.32
57,746.11
SADD
27,292.80
72,691.74
56,198.25
HSET
26,637.65
66,209.80
57,122.93
SPOP
27,099.96
74,334.34
54,609.27
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)
15,903.82
32,205.84
38,706.26
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)
7,182.29
12,373.71
16,072.82
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)
5,145.26
8,235.09
11,018.43
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)
4,161.05
6,591.25
8,825.60
MSET (10 keys)
19,609.74
37,835.20
48,745.51
Conclusion
This month is interesting as it really felt like the results were a bit more all
of the place than they have been in recent months. As always, these results are
just my findings, and it's always good to do your own exploration, and factor in
the needs of your website or application into the decision of which VPS provider
you should go with.
That said, if you did find this post helpful and you are going to pull the
trigger on a new hosting provider, it would be fantastic if you'd use one of my
referral links below!
If you have found these posts informative and helpful in searching for a new
hosting provider, please consider using one of the links below when signing up:
DigitalOcean, new accounts receive $200 in credit (good for 60 days)
Linode, new accounts receive $100 in credit (also good for 60 days)
UpCloud, new accounts receive €25 in credit (yes, that’s in Euros)
Vultr, new accounts also receive $100 in credit (good for only 14 days)
