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VPS Showdown - November 2021 - DigitalOcean vs. Lightsail vs. Linode vs. UpCloud vs. Vultr
Even though the year is drawing to a close, these showdowns continue. Nothing
very exciting this month other than it seems Linode took their firewall
offering out of beta and Vultr did the same with their Kubernetes offering.
DigitalOcean continues to lead the pack in terms of their "managed" offerings,
which further establishes them as a viable alternative to Amazon Web Services.
Obviously AWS continues to offer a more robust set of services, but for most
simple web applications, DigitalOcean's offering is more than enough.
As always, I've spun up three instances with each provider at each price point,
all running Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, and averaged the results 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
8.0.27
8.0.27
8.0.27
8.0.27
8.0.27
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
Yes
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
Yes
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 - All Instances
Intel Core Processor (Broadwell, no TSX, IBRS)
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
CPU MHz
2,361.10
2,400.04
2,433.32
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
3,399.67
3,859.67
3,192.33
CPU
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
Events per Second
778.61
759.93
1,458.83
1,651.09
763.50
Minimum (ms)
1.03
1.20
0.61
0.58
1.16
Average (ms)
1.31
1.32
0.69
0.60
1.31
Maximum (ms)
10.77
2.85
4.50
2.63
8.92
Memory
Read
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
Ops per Second
3,635,931.09
515,538.39
4,486,590.82
5,536,808.39
3,366,483.38
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)
5.51
3.61
3.82
0.24
4.91
Write
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
Ops per Second
3,336,627.22
476,663.32
4,577,295.34
5,508,318.77
3,497,682.42
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)
7.59
4.73
3.63
0.32
4.05
File I/O
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
Reads per Second
1,234.47
987.66
3,139.53
2,527.03
1,968.19
Writes per Second
822.95
658.44
2,092.98
1,684.67
1,312.11
Fsyncs per Second
2,640.79
2,110.21
6,708.73
5,399.07
4,206.21
Minimum (ms)
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
Average (ms)
0.22
0.27
0.11
0.10
0.13
Maximum (ms)
24.41
32.45
98.54
7.84
10.79
MySQL
Read Only
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
Transactions per Second
3,898.67
4,892.00
6,618.33
8,703.67
4,593.33
Queries per Second
62,378.67
78,272.00
105,893.33
139,258.67
73,493.33
Minimum (ms)
1.48
1.73
1.19
0.94
1.72
Average (ms)
2.73
2.04
1.59
1.15
2.18
Maximum (ms)
22.04
49.40
13.23
6.29
14.07
Write Only
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
Transactions per Second
1,850.67
1,695.67
5,695.00
4,287.00
3,918.33
Queries per Second
11,104.00
10,174.00
34,170.00
25,722.00
23,510.00
Minimum (ms)
1.72
3.23
0.94
1.35
1.31
Average (ms)
5.74
5.92
1.96
2.33
2.56
Maximum (ms)
41.82
68.29
22.24
12.71
50.81
Read Write
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
Transactions per Second
1,021.33
943.00
2,537.00
2,540.33
1,717.67
Queries per Second
20,426.67
18,860.00
50,740.00
50,806.67
34,353.33
Minimum (ms)
4.05
5.45
2.53
2.53
3.74
Average (ms)
10.21
10.62
4.28
3.94
5.82
Maximum (ms)
50.02
120.64
75.98
22.07
56.66
Redis
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
PING_INLINE
34,183.47
45,310.46
73,768.25
64,079.40
34,934.43
PING_BULK
30,096.64
44,735.72
67,141.86
62,297.49
33,315.97
SET
31,590.30
44,832.94
70,607.45
65,727.20
35,383.60
GET
29,560.45
45,283.45
69,172.74
64,232.22
34,759.18
INCR
32,370.08
45,269.47
71,007.45
64,980.95
35,141.70
LPUSH
33,949.60
45,565.02
64,240.50
69,819.43
37,234.32
RPUSH
33,282.57
45,538.15
69,544.17
69,306.74
36,966.82
LPOP
35,367.88
44,957.92
64,428.42
69,113.51
36,446.35
RPOP
34,300.57
44,992.75
68,790.26
69,087.62
35,922.36
SADD
33,229.31
44,984.91
71,573.09
64,881.62
34,423.75
HSET
30,613.74
44,876.11
67,138.92
69,416.00
35,532.81
SPOP
26,546.50
44,202.19
69,363.07
64,133.55
33,055.40
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)
19,513.52
29,345.66
29,513.05
31,593.00
23,981.88
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)
8,360.97
12,922.26
9,773.04
11,767.82
9,883.92
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)
5,596.35
9,244.85
7,057.01
9,150.14
6,997.74
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)
4,757.96
7,566.60
5,885.80
7,598.84
5,625.59
MSET (10 keys)
27,078.88
36,647.03
35,084.87
64,111.08
28,372.51
$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
8.0.27
8.0.27
8.0.27
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
Yes
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
2,494.14
1,997.47
3,696.00
Cache Size (KB)
4,096.00
512.00
16,384.00
BogoMips
3,325.67
2,664.00
4,927.67
CPU
DigitalOcean - Premium Intel
DigitalOcean - Premium AMD
Vultr - High Frequency
Events per Second
757.00
1,261.40
1,405.59
Minimum (ms)
0.99
0.66
0.70
Average (ms)
1.33
0.80
0.72
Maximum (ms)
5.38
10.39
2.29
Memory
Read
DigitalOcean - Premium Intel
DigitalOcean - Premium AMD
Vultr - High Frequency
Ops per Second
3,562,920.33
3,851,656.60
6,741,491.95
Minimum (ms)
0.00
0.00
0.00
Average (ms)
0.00
0.00
0.00
Maximum (ms)
6.00
0.73
0.24
Write
DigitalOcean - Premium Intel
DigitalOcean - Premium AMD
Vultr - High Frequency
Ops per Second
3,588,588.29
3,960,193.77
6,707,211.45
Minimum (ms)
0.00
0.00
0.00
Average (ms)
0.00
0.00
0.00
Maximum (ms)
4.59
5.11
0.15
File I/O
DigitalOcean - Premium Intel
DigitalOcean - Premium AMD
Vultr - High Frequency
Reads per Second
1,252.92
1,624.49
4,759.90
Writes per Second
835.27
1,082.97
3,173.24
Fsyncs per Second
2,682.74
3,467.31
10,166.68
Minimum (ms)
0.00
0.00
0.00
Average (ms)
0.21
0.17
0.05
Maximum (ms)
20.04
13.72
3.30
MySQL
Read Only
DigitalOcean - Premium Intel
DigitalOcean - Premium AMD
Vultr - High Frequency
Transactions per Second
4,287.67
4,348.67
9,247.33
Queries per Second
68,602.67
69,578.67
147,957.33
Minimum (ms)
1.41
1.47
0.91
Average (ms)
2.35
2.32
1.09
Maximum (ms)
16.90
14.85
8.38
Write Only
DigitalOcean - Premium Intel
DigitalOcean - Premium AMD
Vultr - High Frequency
Transactions per Second
1,997.33
3,148.00
9,778.67
Queries per Second
11,984.00
18,888.00
58,672.00
Minimum (ms)
1.62
1.20
0.58
Average (ms)
5.38
3.40
1.04
Maximum (ms)
49.57
24.91
11.65
Read Write
DigitalOcean - Premium Intel
DigitalOcean - Premium AMD
Vultr - High Frequency
Transactions per Second
926.67
1,522.33
4,015.33
Queries per Second
18,533.33
30,446.67
80,306.67
Minimum (ms)
4.41
3.27
1.71
Average (ms)
11.01
6.81
2.53
Maximum (ms)
60.29
40.78
19.68
Redis
DigitalOcean - Premium Intel
DigitalOcean - Premium AMD
Vultr - High Frequency
PING_INLINE
38,065.81
48,813.01
66,199.32
PING_BULK
38,318.74
50,539.81
63,580.83
SET
54,302.40
55,497.01
65,959.47
GET
52,878.01
60,476.05
64,555.75
INCR
53,784.35
55,406.82
64,435.33
LPUSH
54,273.16
47,525.66
66,403.51
RPUSH
55,552.43
48,341.00
66,866.10
LPOP
47,352.36
53,176.23
66,336.54
RPOP
47,139.16
56,980.49
65,369.15
SADD
49,573.90
64,504.96
65,126.92
HSET
54,788.46
54,079.69
66,240.23
SPOP
51,476.10
56,339.69
64,765.84
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)
20,550.18
25,655.40
43,496.16
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)
9,132.44
10,645.23
18,982.86
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)
6,078.93
6,853.55
13,019.66
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)
5,253.30
5,300.32
10,968.73
MSET (10 keys)
22,593.18
31,421.08
59,111.71
Conclusion
Pretty consistent with previous months, the notable exception being Linode and
UpCloud battling with their Redis metric, all while Lightsail actually snuck in
to take a few commands for themselves.
As always, I recommend taking your own application's needs into consideration
and even running your own benchmarks when making a decision on a new hosting
provider. I also recommend spinning up multiple instances to help ensure that
you're getting the latest and greatest system specs from the provider.
If you happened to have found these benchmarks helpful, and they helped you make
a decision on a new hosting provider, please 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)
