VPS Showdown – August 2021 – DigitalOcean vs. Lightsail vs. Linode vs. UpCloud vs. Vultr

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.

Josh Sherman - The Man, The Myth, The Avatar

About Josh

Husband. Father. Pug dad. Musician. Founder of Holiday API, Head of Engineering and Emoji Specialist at Mailshake, and author of the best damn Lorem Ipsum Library for PHP.


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