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?
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.
- 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!
