Josh Sherman
HEADS-UP:
A ton has changed since this post was originally published!
Why not check out the latest comparison?
Why not check out the latest comparison?
It’s that time again! Been extremely busy on my end, so it’s more of the same at the moment in terms of what’s covered.
Something notable that I had missed last month is that UpCloud is now offering managed database hosting along with their VPS and other products (block and object storage). In terms of product offering, UpCloud seems to be positioning themselves similarly to DigitalOcean. Hopefully Linode will drop their managed database offering soon as well!
At the moment, I’m not doing any sort of benchmarks of managed databases, or storage options, but as more providers are offering them, it’s only a matter of time before I try to work them in.
As always, for this post I spun up 3 server instances with each of the providers for each of the price points / server instance types. Each instance is in or around the New York area, running Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, and the results are 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 | 8.0.26 | 8.0.26 | 8.0.26 | 8.0.26 | 8.0.26 |
| 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 | Yes | No |
| 2FA/MFA | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| One-click Apps | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Custom Images | Yes | No | Yes | 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 - Instance #1 | AMD EPYC 7601 32-Core Processor |
| Linode - Instance #2 | AMD EPYC 7601 32-Core Processor |
| Linode - Instance #3 | AMD EPYC 7542 32-Core Processor |
| UpCloud - All Instances | AMD EPYC 7542 32-Core Processor |
| Vultr - Instance #1 | Intel Core Processor (Haswell, no TSX, IBRS) |
| Vultr - Instance #2 | Intel Core Processor (Broadwell, no TSX, IBRS) |
| Vultr - Instance #3 | Intel Core Processor (Broadwell, no TSX, IBRS) |
| DigitalOcean | Lightsail | Linode | UpCloud | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CPU MHz | 2,164.71 | 2,400.04 | 2,433.32 | 2,894.56 | 2,400.01 |
| Cache Size (KB) | 4,096.00 | 30,720.00 | 512.00 | 512.00 | 16,384.00 |
| BogoMips | 3,129.33 | 3,200.33 | 3,399.67 | 3,859.67 | 3,200.00 |
CPU
| DigitalOcean | Lightsail | Linode | UpCloud | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Events per Second | 747.89 | 757.23 | 1,387.23 | 1,633.55 | 678.68 |
| Minimum (ms) | 1.28 | 1.26 | 0.69 | 0.58 | 1.24 |
| Average (ms) | 1.41 | 1.32 | 0.73 | 0.61 | 1.48 |
| Maximum (ms) | 5.38 | 15.85 | 5.58 | 2.19 | 14.78 |
Memory
Read
| DigitalOcean | Lightsail | Linode | UpCloud | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ops per Second | 3,380,952.96 | 524,143.88 | 4,225,085.70 | 5,424,861.11 | 3,183,969.58 |
| 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) | 2.86 | 1.67 | 5.08 | 0.24 | 8.49 |
Write
| DigitalOcean | Lightsail | Linode | UpCloud | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ops per Second | 3,285,602.14 | 523,789.84 | 4,128,127.17 | 5,440,134.12 | 2,922,177.40 |
| 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) | 0.50 | 1.63 | 5.22 | 1.53 | 9.20 |
File I/O
| DigitalOcean | Lightsail | Linode | UpCloud | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 1,314.50 | 886.07 | 2,456.45 | 2,603.93 | 1,220.54 |
| Writes per Second | 876.31 | 590.70 | 1,637.61 | 1,735.94 | 813.68 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 2,807.43 | 1,898.01 | 5,250.37 | 5,560.02 | 2,611.70 |
| Minimum (ms) | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Average (ms) | 0.22 | 0.30 | 0.13 | 0.10 | 0.23 |
| Maximum (ms) | 46.46 | 11.37 | 40.37 | 4.90 | 21.40 |
MySQL
Read Only
| DigitalOcean | Lightsail | Linode | UpCloud | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Transactions per Second | 3,763.00 | 4,835.00 | 5,439.00 | 8,785.00 | 3,346.67 |
| Queries per Second | 60,208.00 | 77,360.00 | 87,024.00 | 140,560.00 | 53,546.67 |
| Minimum (ms) | 1.96 | 1.78 | 1.54 | 0.92 | 1.82 |
| Average (ms) | 2.92 | 2.07 | 2.14 | 1.14 | 3.07 |
| Maximum (ms) | 15.89 | 31.22 | 20.88 | 6.15 | 31.22 |
Write Only
| DigitalOcean | Lightsail | Linode | UpCloud | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Transactions per Second | 2,442.67 | 1,515.00 | 4,498.67 | 3,938.33 | 2,007.67 |
| Queries per Second | 14,656.00 | 9,090.00 | 26,992.00 | 23,630.00 | 12,046.00 |
| Minimum (ms) | 1.74 | 3.44 | 1.19 | 1.38 | 1.76 |
| Average (ms) | 4.78 | 6.60 | 2.79 | 2.54 | 5.33 |
| Maximum (ms) | 44.63 | 43.49 | 79.63 | 14.16 | 40.89 |
Read Write
| DigitalOcean | Lightsail | Linode | UpCloud | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Transactions per Second | 1,081.33 | 1,072.33 | 1,950.00 | 2,550.67 | 1,168.33 |
| Queries per Second | 21,626.67 | 21,446.67 | 39,000.00 | 51,013.33 | 23,366.67 |
| Minimum (ms) | 4.85 | 5.54 | 3.51 | 2.49 | 4.44 |
| Average (ms) | 10.25 | 9.34 | 6.30 | 3.92 | 8.67 |
| Maximum (ms) | 148.45 | 95.48 | 43.69 | 19.25 | 46.86 |
Redis
| DigitalOcean | Lightsail | Linode | UpCloud | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 33,889.92 | 45,641.61 | 65,578.49 | 97,093.48 | 24,918.57 |
| PING_BULK | 30,180.68 | 45,762.20 | 59,109.29 | 91,254.88 | 26,119.91 |
| SET | 33,428.57 | 45,968.17 | 63,904.73 | 97,923.86 | 29,481.21 |
| GET | 31,707.36 | 45,699.96 | 62,604.12 | 95,743.29 | 30,559.63 |
| INCR | 33,380.57 | 45,817.69 | 63,740.64 | 98,196.74 | 29,976.92 |
| LPUSH | 34,098.85 | 46,154.53 | 51,301.34 | 92,984.65 | 32,165.27 |
| RPUSH | 33,994.59 | 45,394.09 | 58,265.23 | 94,169.08 | 26,538.46 |
| LPOP | 30,228.60 | 46,037.01 | 57,973.10 | 94,178.12 | 28,646.03 |
| RPOP | 31,716.22 | 45,931.48 | 60,829.32 | 96,495.35 | 30,499.68 |
| SADD | 31,847.63 | 45,779.54 | 65,301.82 | 98,947.01 | 30,171.54 |
| HSET | 33,427.71 | 46,108.02 | 58,450.81 | 90,688.01 | 31,115.74 |
| SPOP | 31,280.50 | 45,902.48 | 62,553.73 | 92,627.36 | 29,736.13 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 19,692.46 | 29,476.16 | 25,105.66 | 37,220.57 | 16,533.61 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 8,288.01 | 12,952.61 | 8,815.29 | 11,423.61 | 8,113.43 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 6,366.42 | 7,355.17 | 6,352.32 | 9,007.23 | 5,682.81 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 4,954.29 | 7,647.08 | 5,236.89 | 7,399.72 | 4,442.71 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 25,143.52 | 37,807.54 | 29,731.07 | 48,960.45 | 19,897.51 |
$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 | 8.0.26 | 8.0.26 | 8.0.26 |
| 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 | 2,494.13 | 1,999.98 | 3,696.03 |
| Cache Size (KB) | 4,096.00 | 512.00 | 16,384.00 |
| BogoMips | 3,325.67 | 2,666.33 | 4,928.00 |
CPU
| DigitalOcean - Premium Intel | DigitalOcean - Premium AMD | Vultr - High Frequency | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Events per Second | 1,014.71 | 1,389.73 | 1,190.38 |
| Minimum (ms) | 0.95 | 0.64 | 0.82 |
| Average (ms) | 0.98 | 0.72 | 0.84 |
| Maximum (ms) | 1.98 | 2.00 | 3.23 |
Memory
Read
| DigitalOcean - Premium Intel | DigitalOcean - Premium AMD | Vultr - High Frequency | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ops per Second | 4,637,948.26 | 4,373,115.32 | 5,666,726.41 |
| Minimum (ms) | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Average (ms) | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Maximum (ms) | 1.49 | 1.48 | 0.18 |
Write
| DigitalOcean - Premium Intel | DigitalOcean - Premium AMD | Vultr - High Frequency | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ops per Second | 4,556,453.67 | 4,424,005.85 | 5,676,311.45 |
| Minimum (ms) | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Average (ms) | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Maximum (ms) | 0.33 | 1.57 | 0.19 |
File I/O
| DigitalOcean - Premium Intel | DigitalOcean - Premium AMD | Vultr - High Frequency | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 2,064.73 | 1,814.94 | 4,630.33 |
| Writes per Second | 1,376.49 | 1,209.94 | 3,086.87 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 4,407.83 | 3,877.79 | 9,883.13 |
| Minimum (ms) | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Average (ms) | 0.13 | 0.14 | 0.06 |
| Maximum (ms) | 17.79 | 10.26 | 3.30 |
MySQL
Read Only
| DigitalOcean - Premium Intel | DigitalOcean - Premium AMD | Vultr - High Frequency | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Transactions per Second | 6,759.33 | 5,603.67 | 8,230.33 |
| Queries per Second | 108,149.33 | 89,658.67 | 131,685.33 |
| Minimum (ms) | 1.19 | 1.34 | 1.05 |
| Average (ms) | 1.48 | 1.80 | 1.21 |
| Maximum (ms) | 10.74 | 10.00 | 9.02 |
Write Only
| DigitalOcean - Premium Intel | DigitalOcean - Premium AMD | Vultr - High Frequency | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Transactions per Second | 4,199.67 | 3,989.33 | 9,051.00 |
| Queries per Second | 25,198.00 | 23,936.00 | 54,306.00 |
| Minimum (ms) | 0.92 | 0.97 | 0.64 |
| Average (ms) | 2.41 | 2.52 | 1.11 |
| Maximum (ms) | 35.52 | 28.35 | 8.00 |
Read Write
| DigitalOcean - Premium Intel | DigitalOcean - Premium AMD | Vultr - High Frequency | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Transactions per Second | 1,895.00 | 1,779.00 | 3,629.00 |
| Queries per Second | 37,900.00 | 35,580.00 | 72,580.00 |
| Minimum (ms) | 2.78 | 3.07 | 1.95 |
| Average (ms) | 5.29 | 5.65 | 2.76 |
| Maximum (ms) | 28.40 | 24.40 | 15.23 |
Redis
| DigitalOcean - Premium Intel | DigitalOcean - Premium AMD | Vultr - High Frequency | |
|---|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 48,896.24 | 72,865.45 | 58,318.89 |
| PING_BULK | 48,205.10 | 69,670.99 | 57,219.60 |
| SET | 49,447.03 | 69,459.65 | 57,952.57 |
| GET | 48,881.95 | 74,505.11 | 56,980.32 |
| INCR | 49,535.29 | 75,156.46 | 58,164.65 |
| LPUSH | 50,238.27 | 62,164.98 | 59,562.19 |
| RPUSH | 49,056.47 | 65,504.12 | 59,419.26 |
| LPOP | 46,836.13 | 66,430.65 | 59,727.67 |
| RPOP | 46,094.68 | 68,510.71 | 59,457.98 |
| SADD | 47,890.99 | 77,081.70 | 58,298.11 |
| HSET | 50,070.68 | 64,864.00 | 60,661.98 |
| SPOP | 48,165.59 | 71,700.96 | 57,158.15 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 32,096.40 | 32,816.66 | 39,683.80 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 13,309.17 | 12,245.98 | 16,478.80 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 9,487.99 | 8,171.39 | 11,110.74 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 7,876.34 | 6,697.81 | 9,281.92 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 40,195.91 | 38,049.76 | 48,248.26 |
Conclusion
Fairly consistent with previous months, with UpCloud dominating most of the benchmarks for the standard (five dollar) instances and Vultr doing the same for the premium (six dollar) instances.
Obviously these benchmarks are my own and YMMV so you should factor in your application’s needs and even run your own benchmarks before choosing a provider. Also, I still recommend spinning up a few instances with a provider to ensure you get the latest and greatest CPU offering they have. Seems like this isn’t usually the case these days, but I personally wouldn’t risk it.
If you found these benchmarks helpful and they helped you to find a new hosting home, please use 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!
