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?
September, the last month of summer (in the northern hemisphere at least) but not the end of comparing a few VPS providers.
Didn’t see a lot happening this month side from Vultr starting a beta period for their Kubernetes offering in a few of their data centers.
As always, I’ve spun up 3 server instances with each hosting provider at the $5 and $6 price points. Each instance is running the latest LTS release of Ubuntu, which is 20.04 and the results are averaged together 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 | in beta |
| 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 7542 32-Core Processor |
| Linode - Instance #2 | AMD EPYC 7601 32-Core Processor |
| Linode - Instance #3 | AMD EPYC 7601 32-Core Processor |
| UpCloud - All Instances | AMD EPYC 7542 32-Core Processor |
| Vultr - All Instances | Intel Core Processor (Broadwell, no TSX, IBRS) |
| DigitalOcean | Lightsail | Linode | UpCloud | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CPU MHz | 2,427.60 | 2,400.02 | 2,433.33 | 2,894.56 | 2,394.45 |
| Cache Size (KB) | 4,096.00 | 30,720.00 | 512.00 | 512.00 | 16,384.00 |
| BogoMips | 3,192.67 | 3,200.00 | 3,400.00 | 3,859.67 | 3,192.33 |
CPU
| DigitalOcean | Lightsail | Linode | UpCloud | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Events per Second | 762.38 | 763.38 | 1,394.24 | 1,576.50 | 754.03 |
| Minimum (ms) | 0.98 | 1.24 | 0.69 | 0.60 | 1.20 |
| Average (ms) | 1.31 | 1.31 | 0.73 | 0.63 | 1.33 |
| Maximum (ms) | 16.22 | 3.01 | 6.85 | 2.68 | 7.36 |
Memory
Read
| DigitalOcean | Lightsail | Linode | UpCloud | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ops per Second | 3,126,203.89 | 521,635.28 | 4,247,168.48 | 5,231,790.34 | 3,436,816.76 |
| 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) | 10.89 | 0.86 | 4.00 | 0.27 | 5.58 |
Write
| DigitalOcean | Lightsail | Linode | UpCloud | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ops per Second | 3,528,506.24 | 522,720.63 | 4,284,244.71 | 5,280,279.05 | 3,449,905.92 |
| 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) | 12.93 | 1.56 | 3.69 | 0.22 | 3.55 |
File I/O
| DigitalOcean | Lightsail | Linode | UpCloud | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 900.45 | 982.65 | 2,555.77 | 2,490.68 | 2,063.20 |
| Writes per Second | 600.29 | 655.05 | 1,703.84 | 1,660.45 | 1,375.42 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 1,926.61 | 2,100.49 | 5,456.69 | 5,319.05 | 4,409.66 |
| Minimum (ms) | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Average (ms) | 0.32 | 0.28 | 0.10 | 0.10 | 0.13 |
| Maximum (ms) | 37.46 | 9.80 | 42.03 | 8.53 | 6.78 |
MySQL
Read Only
| DigitalOcean | Lightsail | Linode | UpCloud | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Transactions per Second | 3,424.00 | 4,913.67 | 5,425.67 | 8,393.33 | 4,382.33 |
| Queries per Second | 54,784.00 | 78,618.67 | 86,810.67 | 134,293.33 | 70,117.33 |
| Minimum (ms) | 1.65 | 1.80 | 1.54 | 0.94 | 1.76 |
| Average (ms) | 2.96 | 2.03 | 1.95 | 1.19 | 2.28 |
| Maximum (ms) | 24.93 | 28.29 | 16.48 | 7.55 | 12.36 |
Write Only
| DigitalOcean | Lightsail | Linode | UpCloud | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Transactions per Second | 1,048.33 | 1,523.00 | 4,695.33 | 3,970.00 | 3,544.67 |
| Queries per Second | 6,290.00 | 9,138.00 | 28,172.00 | 23,820.00 | 21,268.00 |
| Minimum (ms) | 2.96 | 3.55 | 1.07 | 1.42 | 1.41 |
| Average (ms) | 12.80 | 6.73 | 2.18 | 2.52 | 2.83 |
| Maximum (ms) | 81.10 | 34.31 | 18.79 | 21.26 | 45.68 |
Read Write
| DigitalOcean | Lightsail | Linode | UpCloud | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Transactions per Second | 735.00 | 1,036.67 | 2,063.33 | 2,427.00 | 1,611.00 |
| Queries per Second | 14,700.00 | 20,733.33 | 41,266.67 | 48,540.00 | 32,220.00 |
| Minimum (ms) | 5.60 | 5.62 | 3.05 | 2.59 | 3.67 |
| Average (ms) | 16.23 | 9.70 | 5.05 | 4.12 | 6.21 |
| Maximum (ms) | 73.10 | 101.56 | 90.94 | 18.99 | 64.13 |
Redis
| DigitalOcean | Lightsail | Linode | UpCloud | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 24,120.27 | 45,290.89 | 64,847.26 | 93,551.28 | 34,272.25 |
| PING_BULK | 27,935.07 | 44,642.26 | 62,826.55 | 87,422.45 | 32,751.32 |
| SET | 33,053.22 | 45,328.63 | 65,614.84 | 95,117.56 | 34,395.96 |
| GET | 34,398.17 | 45,291.33 | 64,100.25 | 91,192.85 | 34,190.12 |
| INCR | 33,263.04 | 45,155.20 | 66,341.53 | 94,313.16 | 34,459.01 |
| LPUSH | 27,333.62 | 44,745.31 | 60,580.65 | 91,324.56 | 36,204.34 |
| RPUSH | 29,411.77 | 45,462.44 | 63,123.73 | 92,511.09 | 35,904.58 |
| LPOP | 27,530.10 | 45,552.84 | 58,860.41 | 90,445.95 | 36,016.79 |
| RPOP | 31,323.99 | 45,338.20 | 63,639.91 | 91,396.99 | 36,429.76 |
| SADD | 34,350.20 | 45,340.26 | 66,661.56 | 92,157.07 | 34,308.94 |
| HSET | 35,960.97 | 45,734.41 | 60,542.59 | 87,574.51 | 36,116.51 |
| SPOP | 31,899.27 | 45,477.00 | 65,440.96 | 88,427.35 | 33,820.08 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 17,537.10 | 29,551.94 | 29,812.96 | 35,466.92 | 24,262.88 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 8,304.86 | 12,979.97 | 9,288.30 | 11,276.50 | 9,571.95 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 5,650.23 | 9,367.33 | 6,581.66 | 8,717.97 | 6,887.86 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 4,614.42 | 7,686.11 | 5,439.41 | 7,232.19 | 5,407.14 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 22,109.65 | 37,629.72 | 31,494.06 | 47,337.89 | 27,591.91 |
$6 VPS Showdown - DigitalOcean - Premium Intel vs. DigitalOcean - Premium AMD vs. Vultr - High Frequency”
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 | in beta |
| 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 | 3,695.98 |
| 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 | 898.58 | 1,134.16 | 1,498.35 |
| Minimum (ms) | 0.95 | 0.71 | 0.64 |
| Average (ms) | 1.11 | 0.88 | 0.67 |
| Maximum (ms) | 9.53 | 10.32 | 1.54 |
Memory
Read
| DigitalOcean - Premium Intel | DigitalOcean - Premium AMD | Vultr - High Frequency | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ops per Second | 4,482,226.91 | 3,863,109.97 | 7,174,553.33 |
| Minimum (ms) | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Average (ms) | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Maximum (ms) | 2.71 | 1.48 | 1.41 |
Write
| DigitalOcean - Premium Intel | DigitalOcean - Premium AMD | Vultr - High Frequency | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ops per Second | 3,977,203.30 | 3,497,975.34 | 7,077,034.39 |
| Minimum (ms) | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Average (ms) | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Maximum (ms) | 1.59 | 1.12 | 0.89 |
File I/O
| DigitalOcean - Premium Intel | DigitalOcean - Premium AMD | Vultr - High Frequency | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 1,988.91 | 1,652.98 | 4,976.50 |
| Writes per Second | 1,325.94 | 1,101.99 | 3,317.62 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 4,245.88 | 3,533.48 | 10,619.53 |
| Minimum (ms) | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Average (ms) | 0.13 | 0.16 | 0.05 |
| Maximum (ms) | 9.69 | 9.10 | 3.80 |
MySQL
Read Only
| DigitalOcean - Premium Intel | DigitalOcean - Premium AMD | Vultr - High Frequency | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Transactions per Second | 5,864.33 | 4,554.00 | 9,689.00 |
| Queries per Second | 93,829.33 | 72,864.00 | 155,024.00 |
| Minimum (ms) | 1.24 | 1.52 | 0.84 |
| Average (ms) | 1.71 | 2.20 | 1.03 |
| Maximum (ms) | 13.13 | 13.08 | 8.01 |
Write Only
| DigitalOcean - Premium Intel | DigitalOcean - Premium AMD | Vultr - High Frequency | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Transactions per Second | 3,788.67 | 2,584.00 | 10,420.00 |
| Queries per Second | 22,732.00 | 15,504.00 | 62,520.00 |
| Minimum (ms) | 1.13 | 1.27 | 0.52 |
| Average (ms) | 3.23 | 4.20 | 0.96 |
| Maximum (ms) | 22.06 | 48.04 | 7.47 |
Read Write
| DigitalOcean - Premium Intel | DigitalOcean - Premium AMD | Vultr - High Frequency | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Transactions per Second | 1,713.67 | 1,253.33 | 4,212.67 |
| Queries per Second | 34,273.33 | 25,066.67 | 84,253.33 |
| Minimum (ms) | 3.08 | 3.43 | 1.56 |
| Average (ms) | 6.35 | 7.99 | 2.38 |
| Maximum (ms) | 79.48 | 32.53 | 12.80 |
Redis
| DigitalOcean - Premium Intel | DigitalOcean - Premium AMD | Vultr - High Frequency | |
|---|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 41,152.38 | 53,978.23 | 66,163.62 |
| PING_BULK | 37,593.80 | 47,748.33 | 65,414.03 |
| SET | 34,638.31 | 48,269.21 | 68,067.47 |
| GET | 35,143.67 | 49,846.30 | 66,609.51 |
| INCR | 38,917.70 | 55,458.75 | 67,061.53 |
| LPUSH | 46,210.70 | 50,557.36 | 67,813.09 |
| RPUSH | 45,764.20 | 54,590.20 | 68,479.84 |
| LPOP | 46,172.16 | 52,435.34 | 69,347.20 |
| RPOP | 43,926.69 | 53,915.06 | 69,170.74 |
| SADD | 42,107.03 | 61,182.41 | 66,788.07 |
| HSET | 38,383.23 | 51,736.85 | 68,698.43 |
| SPOP | 39,681.99 | 53,296.11 | 66,179.35 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 28,090.44 | 21,041.94 | 46,949.33 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 12,067.86 | 10,367.47 | 19,508.87 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 7,796.09 | 6,293.58 | 13,521.40 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 6,829.99 | 5,285.48 | 11,202.15 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 37,682.25 | 26,258.38 | 60,672.51 |
Conclusion
Fairly consistent with recently month. Would say the shocker this month would be Lightsail seizing a few of the Redis metrics from UpCloud at the lower price point.
It’s also been very apparent that the AMD processors that both Linode and UpCloud are using are performing amazingly well for these benchmarks, yet the premium AMD offering from DigitalOcean still falls short to Vultr’s Intel offering.
As always, I’d like you remind y’all that these are just benchmarks and you should always factor in your own application’s needs when choosing a provider. In fact, it’s a good idea to run your own benchmarks and also, spin up a few instances before moving in, as you may end up getting an instance on sub-par hardware.
If you’ve found these benchmarks helpful when choosing your new hosting provider, I’d be greatly appreciative if you used one of my referral links:
- 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!
