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VPS Showdown - February 2022 - DigitalOcean vs. Lightsail vs. Linode vs. UpCloud vs. Vultr

Around this time last year, we were dealing with one of the worst winter storms in Texas history. While it's still pretty cold, we've been extremely fortunate this year. Hopefully everybody reading this is staying warm (or cool, if you're south of the equator), safe and healthy!

Similar to previous months, I've spun up 3 instances for each provider and price point, and averaged the results. Each instance is running Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and the instances are located in or around the New York / Newark area.

$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 8.0.28 8.0.28 8.0.28 8.0.28 8.0.28
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 MongoDB, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Redis MySQL, PostgreSQL Coming soon! MySQL, PostgreSQL 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
Container Hosting 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 - All Instances 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 2,262.76 2,399.96 2,200.00 2,894.56 2,394.45
Cache Size (KB) 4,096.00 30,720.00 512.00 512.00 16,384.00
BogoMips 2,862.67 3,200.33 2,933.00 3,859.67 3,192.33

CPU

DigitalOcean Lightsail Linode UpCloud Vultr
Events per Second 809.89 761.95 1,183.70 1,653.57 735.56
Minimum (ms) 1.19 1.18 0.72 0.58 1.19
Average (ms) 1.33 1.31 0.85 0.60 1.36
Maximum (ms) 4.36 3.84 14.28 1.99 12.73

Memory

Read

DigitalOcean Lightsail Linode UpCloud Vultr
Ops per Second 3,676,475.97 519,388.80 3,485,494.61 5,547,788.28 3,491,659.39
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) 0.66 3.17 6.91 0.35 5.21

Write

DigitalOcean Lightsail Linode UpCloud Vultr
Ops per Second 3,542,295.23 516,874.57 3,425,233.77 5,528,269.17 3,497,107.46
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) 1.81 3.65 8.86 0.21 2.88

File I/O

DigitalOcean Lightsail Linode UpCloud Vultr
Reads per Second 1,580.94 1,096.34 1,628.80 2,646.56 1,883.78
Writes per Second 1,053.95 730.88 1,085.82 1,764.36 1,255.84
Fsyncs per Second 3,376.90 2,345.25 3,485.45 5,651.32 4,024.20
Minimum (ms) 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Average (ms) 0.17 0.24 0.17 0.10 0.14
Maximum (ms) 21.97 15.06 19.29 9.13 40.27

MySQL

Read Only

DigitalOcean Lightsail Linode UpCloud Vultr
Transactions per Second 3,953.33 4,337.33 3,812.33 8,558.00 4,103.67
Queries per Second 63,253.33 69,397.33 60,997.33 136,928.00 65,658.67
Minimum (ms) 1.68 1.79 1.82 0.98 1.72
Average (ms) 2.69 2.31 2.75 1.17 2.43
Maximum (ms) 15.87 43.46 24.24 9.32 42.64

Write Only

DigitalOcean Lightsail Linode UpCloud Vultr
Transactions per Second 2,568.00 1,575.67 2,341.33 4,441.00 3,528.67
Queries per Second 15,408.00 9,454.00 14,048.00 26,646.00 21,172.00
Minimum (ms) 1.50 3.38 2.03 1.36 1.38
Average (ms) 4.12 6.35 9.12 2.26 2.83
Maximum (ms) 25.72 28.94 66.12 10.77 27.63

Read Write

DigitalOcean Lightsail Linode UpCloud Vultr
Transactions per Second 1,213.00 1,057.00 1,158.33 2,611.00 1,547.67
Queries per Second 24,260.00 21,140.00 23,166.67 52,220.00 30,953.33
Minimum (ms) 4.25 5.65 4.55 2.51 3.85
Average (ms) 8.47 9.47 12.53 3.83 6.46
Maximum (ms) 36.10 63.97 77.41 21.87 27.40

Redis

DigitalOcean Lightsail Linode UpCloud Vultr
PING_INLINE 33,276.22 44,806.69 41,268.75 64,786.97 33,465.18
PING_BULK 32,128.47 44,715.52 35,886.14 63,043.38 31,520.03
SET 34,881.98 45,017.66 41,629.49 66,740.57 32,975.78
GET 34,613.16 44,632.27 42,911.76 64,812.30 31,273.95
INCR 33,184.64 44,746.79 42,759.52 66,416.26 33,810.25
LPUSH 34,775.85 45,068.42 39,153.62 71,446.96 35,286.42
RPUSH 35,515.61 45,075.16 42,062.81 70,824.05 34,321.93
LPOP 34,176.90 44,961.24 35,860.44 70,772.57 35,226.83
RPOP 34,724.16 45,128.02 42,430.96 69,492.86 35,340.79
SADD 34,579.84 45,147.45 41,085.00 66,637.49 34,088.14
HSET 34,343.46 45,597.86 35,030.60 71,616.29 35,623.37
SPOP 30,395.42 44,818.13 38,195.41 64,588.72 32,650.43
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) 21,206.89 28,870.36 20,479.95 31,868.34 23,665.00
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) 8,444.16 12,739.08 6,941.59 11,881.30 9,757.82
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) 6,624.45 8,848.21 4,990.94 9,187.12 6,907.44
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) 5,435.08 7,284.39 4,222.10 7,630.33 5,415.60
MSET (10 keys) 26,511.89 35,563.03 19,443.59 66,862.79 26,796.69

$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 8.0.28 8.0.28 8.0.28
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 MongoDB, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Redis MongoDB, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Redis 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
Container Hosting 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 1,998.75 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 946.68 1,315.08 1,409.65
Minimum (ms) 0.95 0.68 0.70
Average (ms) 1.06 0.76 0.72
Maximum (ms) 2.40 2.15 3.64

Memory

Read

DigitalOcean - Premium Intel DigitalOcean - Premium AMD Vultr - High Frequency
Ops per Second 4,090,590.83 3,367,202.08 6,759,442.49
Minimum (ms) 0.00 0.00 0.00
Average (ms) 0.00 0.00 0.00
Maximum (ms) 1.74 2.06 0.20

Write

DigitalOcean - Premium Intel DigitalOcean - Premium AMD Vultr - High Frequency
Ops per Second 4,187,877.32 4,046,853.87 6,736,479.78
Minimum (ms) 0.00 0.00 0.00
Average (ms) 0.00 0.00 0.00
Maximum (ms) 1.92 0.44 4.80

File I/O

DigitalOcean - Premium Intel DigitalOcean - Premium AMD Vultr - High Frequency
Reads per Second 1,597.73 1,277.65 4,690.99
Writes per Second 1,065.16 851.77 3,127.34
Fsyncs per Second 3,416.92 2,729.02 10,013.87
Minimum (ms) 0.00 0.00 0.00
Average (ms) 0.17 0.20 0.05
Maximum (ms) 19.57 16.40 6.19

MySQL

Read Only

DigitalOcean - Premium Intel DigitalOcean - Premium AMD Vultr - High Frequency
Transactions per Second 5,622.33 4,201.67 9,084.33
Queries per Second 89,957.33 67,226.67 145,349.33
Minimum (ms) 1.17 1.54 0.92
Average (ms) 1.83 2.41 1.13
Maximum (ms) 18.24 18.82 12.03

Write Only

DigitalOcean - Premium Intel DigitalOcean - Premium AMD Vultr - High Frequency
Transactions per Second 3,059.00 2,737.00 9,969.33
Queries per Second 18,354.00 16,422.00 59,816.00
Minimum (ms) 0.98 1.24 0.58
Average (ms) 3.49 3.77 1.03
Maximum (ms) 31.10 33.89 9.75

Read Write

DigitalOcean - Premium Intel DigitalOcean - Premium AMD Vultr - High Frequency
Transactions per Second 1,772.00 1,277.33 4,023.00
Queries per Second 35,440.00 25,546.67 80,460.00
Minimum (ms) 2.72 3.64 1.73
Average (ms) 5.80 8.03 2.57
Maximum (ms) 42.16 43.40 19.74

Redis

DigitalOcean - Premium Intel DigitalOcean - Premium AMD Vultr - High Frequency
PING_INLINE 65,722.47 54,261.42 65,710.15
PING_BULK 65,260.02 57,687.38 61,951.15
SET 70,306.99 55,322.96 65,926.08
GET 71,490.26 56,316.70 64,629.05
INCR 72,041.96 57,204.67 65,559.82
LPUSH 73,575.82 44,273.07 66,854.97
RPUSH 76,788.59 46,330.36 66,539.96
LPOP 79,947.08 48,229.19 66,644.81
RPOP 79,402.70 51,509.74 65,893.62
SADD 77,176.94 59,970.64 63,630.10
HSET 80,355.41 50,722.97 66,424.18
SPOP 75,006.77 58,491.04 64,900.19
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) 32,396.36 25,186.34 45,606.91
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) 12,530.23 10,364.18 19,169.98
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) 8,590.20 7,359.27 12,854.34
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) 7,025.93 5,632.45 10,994.78
MSET (10 keys) 42,109.10 28,180.41 57,204.84

Conclusion

Not a ton of surprises this month, but it was interesting to see all of the same processor from all of the providers, Linode especially as they have been reporting different models of the AMD EPYC processor since switching over.

That being said, I always recommend spinning up multiple instances and running your own set of benchmarks to help ensure that you're on the latest and greatest hardware that a provider has to offer. I'd say this is extremely important when using DigitalOcean as they have been obscuring the name of the underlying processor for a while now.

As always, if you found this post helpful in your journey, please use one of my referral links below!

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