Here we are, with the final VPS Showdown of 2021. We’ve seen a few changes over the course of the year in terms of product offerings. One of the most notable was the adoption of AMD EPYC processors either a standard or premium offering depending on the provider.
Next year is going to see us venturing into a new LTS release of Ubuntu, which if history will repeat itself, won’t be supported by Lightsail initially, so there’s a solid chance they’ll drop off of the list for at least a few months.
Hopefully Linode will finally make good on beginning to offer managed databases, which were a part of their 2020 roadmap, but hasn’t seen the light of day yet. If y’all are reading this, I’d love to be an early adopter of managed Redis and MongoDB offerings!
DigitalOcean and UpCloud already offers managed databases, so there’s the possibility of starting to include some benchmarks against their offerings in the future. Also, seeing as I do these posts monthly, I’m hoping in the coming few months of starting to offer some more in depth metrics against previous months instead of just showcasing the current numbers.
That all said, this month’s post, like previous ones, features three instances from each provider, all running Ubuntu 20.04, with the metrics 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
8.0.27
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 7501 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
2,164.71
2,399.98
2,133.33
2,894.56
2,396.30
Cache Size (KB)
4,096.00
30,720.00
512.00
512.00
16,384.00
BogoMips
2,862.67
3,200.33
2,799.67
3,859.67
3,196.00
CPU
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
Events per Second
752.83
761.81
1,169.44
1,639.79
746.39
Minimum (ms)
1.28
1.19
0.72
0.58
1.18
Average (ms)
1.38
1.31
0.85
0.61
1.34
Maximum (ms)
4.69
3.47
8.12
1.85
12.61
Memory
Read
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
Ops per Second
3,215,876.71
522,241.93
3,459,358.82
5,461,113.77
3,495,651.40
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)
2.11
0.32
6.73
0.26
6.70
Write
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
Ops per Second
3,479,733.92
522,344.07
3,305,060.81
5,433,132.63
3,388,509.19
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)
0.62
2.06
3.75
0.28
5.39
File I/O
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
Reads per Second
1,379.80
918.95
1,574.94
2,571.53
1,822.55
Writes per Second
919.85
612.64
1,049.97
1,714.32
1,215.03
Fsyncs per Second
2,951.30
1,968.34
3,365.67
5,494.92
3,894.71
Minimum (ms)
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
Average (ms)
0.20
0.29
0.17
0.10
0.14
Maximum (ms)
18.92
17.11
66.86
7.33
10.01
MySQL
Read Only
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
Transactions per Second
4,028.67
4,779.00
4,093.33
8,369.67
3,978.00
Queries per Second
64,458.67
76,464.00
65,493.33
133,914.67
63,648.00
Minimum (ms)
1.85
1.72
1.68
0.94
1.76
Average (ms)
2.62
2.09
2.44
1.20
2.54
Maximum (ms)
30.89
33.47
28.39
7.09
18.64
Write Only
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
Transactions per Second
2,443.00
1,485.67
2,884.00
4,265.00
3,004.67
Queries per Second
14,658.00
8,914.00
17,304.00
25,590.00
18,028.00
Minimum (ms)
1.75
3.49
1.42
1.36
1.47
Average (ms)
4.78
6.84
3.48
2.35
3.50
Maximum (ms)
30.05
35.88
187.67
13.19
25.39
Read Write
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
Transactions per Second
1,110.67
1,059.00
1,455.33
2,486.00
1,397.33
Queries per Second
22,213.33
21,180.00
29,106.67
49,720.00
27,946.67
Minimum (ms)
5.07
5.38
3.84
2.60
4.09
Average (ms)
10.21
9.48
6.99
4.02
7.28
Maximum (ms)
143.24
116.72
53.86
21.08
30.80
Redis
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
PING_INLINE
27,413.32
45,152.03
46,313.38
62,844.97
34,104.54
PING_BULK
27,433.60
45,142.10
44,974.32
61,203.74
32,146.09
SET
29,199.59
45,050.34
47,783.66
65,682.60
34,501.35
GET
30,316.51
45,238.06
44,508.24
62,985.37
34,100.53
INCR
32,017.06
45,047.32
46,118.90
64,336.77
34,523.97
LPUSH
33,263.86
45,589.30
41,296.78
67,393.92
36,376.10
RPUSH
31,813.82
45,447.18
46,320.41
67,861.36
33,170.08
LPOP
31,066.41
45,702.64
35,929.54
67,148.44
34,676.28
RPOP
32,129.10
45,260.27
41,907.64
66,488.61
34,326.31
SADD
31,862.72
45,158.99
43,834.53
64,808.63
32,442.59
HSET
30,534.06
45,277.92
40,859.02
69,695.52
35,702.05
SPOP
30,964.60
44,913.38
40,842.58
62,825.65
34,202.97
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)
20,479.86
26,921.85
19,926.04
31,107.42
22,536.18
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)
8,838.83
12,925.24
6,541.75
11,595.75
9,365.82
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)
6,470.16
9,104.14
4,833.15
8,969.65
6,394.96
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)
5,036.88
7,693.46
4,074.15
7,455.40
5,277.63
MSET (10 keys)
26,684.93
37,610.79
19,020.26
65,713.27
28,022.46
$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
2,494.13
1,998.73
3,728.00
Cache Size (KB)
4,096.00
512.00
16,384.00
BogoMips
3,325.67
2,664.00
4,991.67
CPU
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD
Vultr – High Frequency
Events per Second
959.98
1,301.28
1,469.42
Minimum (ms)
0.95
0.66
0.66
Average (ms)
1.04
0.78
0.68
Maximum (ms)
3.11
7.49
1.99
Memory
Read
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD
Vultr – High Frequency
Ops per Second
4,264,951.16
4,015,325.29
7,048,412.46
Minimum (ms)
0.00
0.00
0.00
Average (ms)
0.00
0.00
0.00
Maximum (ms)
1.18
2.89
0.27
Write
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD
Vultr – High Frequency
Ops per Second
4,487,197.69
3,752,993.85
6,996,616.59
Minimum (ms)
0.00
0.00
0.00
Average (ms)
0.00
0.00
0.00
Maximum (ms)
1.58
2.93
0.28
File I/O
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD
Vultr – High Frequency
Reads per Second
2,021.42
1,651.11
4,899.29
Writes per Second
1,347.62
1,100.72
3,266.17
Fsyncs per Second
4,316.63
3,529.74
10,456.82
Minimum (ms)
0.00
0.00
0.00
Average (ms)
0.13
0.16
0.05
Maximum (ms)
31.36
17.93
4.58
MySQL
Read Only
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD
Vultr – High Frequency
Transactions per Second
5,877.33
5,056.00
9,585.00
Queries per Second
94,037.33
80,896.00
153,360.00
Minimum (ms)
1.19
1.39
0.85
Average (ms)
1.72
1.99
1.04
Maximum (ms)
13.03
11.49
8.75
Write Only
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD
Vultr – High Frequency
Transactions per Second
4,179.00
3,170.00
9,946.33
Queries per Second
25,074.00
19,020.00
59,678.00
Minimum (ms)
0.93
1.18
0.55
Average (ms)
2.51
3.17
1.01
Maximum (ms)
29.95
23.75
8.78
Read Write
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD
Vultr – High Frequency
Transactions per Second
1,934.33
1,450.67
4,157.00
Queries per Second
38,686.67
29,013.33
83,140.00
Minimum (ms)
2.78
3.31
1.61
Average (ms)
5.31
7.32
2.43
Maximum (ms)
23.34
42.10
14.21
Redis
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD
Vultr – High Frequency
PING_INLINE
77,674.92
59,699.88
68,889.65
PING_BULK
75,906.90
59,996.38
65,249.14
SET
78,816.17
56,941.00
68,287.21
GET
73,782.43
58,386.73
66,876.71
INCR
75,471.02
61,701.72
66,875.93
LPUSH
77,672.87
56,595.25
67,717.14
RPUSH
74,067.63
52,204.00
66,945.74
LPOP
67,773.15
53,122.73
66,936.90
RPOP
71,300.93
56,523.82
67,872.95
SADD
71,592.11
62,093.73
68,049.31
HSET
74,590.87
56,209.67
68,087.92
SPOP
68,048.95
62,519.83
67,088.52
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)
39,898.98
22,358.44
47,146.00
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)
14,063.43
10,826.18
19,012.52
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)
9,293.03
7,125.30
12,903.26
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)
7,565.40
5,724.24
10,850.70
MSET (10 keys)
38,517.44
31,838.24
56,692.61
Conclusion
Nothing too surprising this month, with UpCloud holding their own at the five dollar price point, and Vultr doing the same at six dollars. The interesting outlier this month would be that DigitalOcean’s Premium Intel offering performed better for the majority of the Redis benchmarks, but falling short in the other sections.
As always, I advice that you run your own benchmarks and take your own application’s needs into consideration when choosing a provider. It’s also good practice to spin up a few instances and compare them to each other to ensure you’re getting the latest and greatest the provider has to offer.
If you did find this post helpful, it would be much appreciated 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)
Vultr, new accounts also receive $100 in credit (good for only 14 days)
UpCloud, new accounts receive €25 in credit (yes, that’s in Euros)
