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VPS Showdown - March 2022 - DigitalOcean vs. Lightsail vs. Linode vs. UpCloud vs. Vultr
The biggest news this month is that Linode was recently acquired by Akamai
Technologies for a whopping $900M. What that will do to the VPS landscape is yet
to be seen. The most immediate impact I've noticed is that Linode is going to
start charging sales tax in May.
I don't think it's a direct result of the acquisition, but Linode did perform
noticeably slower this month than in previous months. Seemed like two of the
three servers (both reporting an AMD EPYC 7601 32-Core Processor) were under
performing.
They very well may have both been on the same physical host, they also could
have been affected by noisy neighbors. Heck, running my benchmarks could have
been the noisy neighbor as well.
Regardless the cause, Linode's performance this month took a noticeable dip that
I anticipate will bounce back next month.
Oh, and Linode's managed MySQL databases are now in open beta, finally!
As for the benchmarks below, like previous months, I've spun up 3 instances for
each provider at the 5 and 6 dollar price points. All instances reside in or
around the New York / Newark area, are running the current LTS version of Ubuntu
and the metrics are 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
8.0.28
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
MySQL
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 - Instance #1
AMD EPYC 7642 48-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 - Instance #1
Intel Core Processor (Broadwell, no TSX, IBRS)
Vultr - Instance #2
Intel Core Processor (Haswell, no TSX, IBRS)
Vultr - Instance #3
Intel Core Processor (Haswell, no TSX, IBRS)
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
CPU MHz
2,494.14
2,399.94
2,233.33
2,894.56
2,398.15
Cache Size (KB)
4,096.00
30,720.00
512.00
512.00
16,384.00
BogoMips
3,325.67
3,200.33
3,000.00
3,859.67
3,196.00
CPU
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
Events per Second
865.24
757.40
1,026.80
1,650.72
738.06
Minimum (ms)
0.95
1.23
0.68
0.58
1.21
Average (ms)
1.18
1.32
1.18
0.60
1.37
Maximum (ms)
8.24
6.78
37.44
1.82
6.61
Memory
Read
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
Ops per Second
3,940,906.88
520,685.91
3,127,523.19
5,488,591.60
3,661,383.57
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)
3.17
2.71
20.75
0.35
3.45
Write
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
Ops per Second
3,987,403.78
522,620.92
2,902,942.47
5,502,535.75
3,735,334.37
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)
2.34
1.80
21.25
0.25
3.61
File I/O
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
Reads per Second
1,635.67
1,102.48
189.27
2,486.43
2,080.12
Writes per Second
1,090.44
734.96
126.16
1,657.59
1,386.71
Fsyncs per Second
3,493.31
2,360.41
409.20
5,310.48
4,444.61
Minimum (ms)
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
Average (ms)
0.17
0.24
1.38
0.11
0.13
Maximum (ms)
11.15
13.15
84.95
8.66
6.47
MySQL
Read Only
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
Transactions per Second
4,799.67
4,680.00
3,542.67
8,178.67
4,171.00
Queries per Second
76,794.67
74,880.00
56,682.67
130,858.67
66,736.00
Minimum (ms)
1.28
1.78
2.12
0.96
1.75
Average (ms)
2.15
2.13
4.24
1.22
2.42
Maximum (ms)
21.24
30.00
77.74
8.09
52.53
Write Only
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
Transactions per Second
2,679.33
1,671.67
779.67
3,997.00
3,356.00
Queries per Second
16,076.00
10,030.00
4,678.00
23,982.00
20,136.00
Minimum (ms)
1.34
3.02
4.70
1.38
1.57
Average (ms)
4.64
6.00
35.68
2.50
3.25
Maximum (ms)
32.69
26.31
199.82
16.70
40.61
Read Write
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
Transactions per Second
1,092.00
1,151.33
593.00
2,427.00
1,497.67
Queries per Second
21,840.00
23,026.67
11,860.00
48,540.00
29,953.33
Minimum (ms)
3.90
5.40
9.19
2.58
4.29
Average (ms)
10.07
8.69
45.57
4.12
7.04
Maximum (ms)
86.99
58.53
267.42
20.49
31.26
Redis
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
PING_INLINE
38,771.02
45,213.34
41,655.54
64,068.72
36,233.87
PING_BULK
38,411.35
44,769.48
45,235.77
62,161.46
34,980.11
SET
39,533.44
45,078.09
42,231.22
66,013.03
36,702.78
GET
39,510.67
45,143.03
45,362.17
64,118.48
35,263.73
INCR
38,829.12
44,964.05
48,527.07
65,632.14
35,641.15
LPUSH
34,285.24
45,665.88
37,962.69
69,152.36
37,003.51
RPUSH
33,427.85
45,408.70
38,505.82
68,340.20
37,780.57
LPOP
35,488.26
45,333.56
38,468.03
69,412.01
36,798.13
RPOP
38,397.89
45,300.44
41,048.27
68,728.61
36,234.68
SADD
39,039.79
45,176.80
45,358.86
65,350.07
35,403.70
HSET
40,946.85
45,410.51
38,251.66
69,801.03
37,225.46
SPOP
39,846.72
45,455.11
43,371.54
64,492.96
35,146.80
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)
22,969.88
29,350.65
17,719.85
31,437.83
25,199.44
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)
9,792.23
12,896.25
6,857.64
11,578.97
10,227.54
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)
7,148.05
9,314.58
5,236.80
9,103.11
7,237.59
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)
5,783.65
7,662.92
4,269.72
7,553.44
5,690.99
MSET (10 keys)
31,176.00
37,305.93
22,313.51
62,830.05
25,982.71
$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
2,494.13
2,000.00
3,696.00
Cache Size (KB)
4,096.00
512.00
16,384.00
BogoMips
3,325.67
2,666.33
4,927.67
CPU
DigitalOcean - Premium Intel
DigitalOcean - Premium AMD
Vultr - High Frequency
Events per Second
917.55
1,248.44
1,282.75
Minimum (ms)
0.95
0.71
0.76
Average (ms)
1.09
0.80
0.79
Maximum (ms)
3.65
2.21
3.57
Memory
Read
DigitalOcean - Premium Intel
DigitalOcean - Premium AMD
Vultr - High Frequency
Ops per Second
3,979,735.29
3,758,442.89
6,035,823.31
Minimum (ms)
0.00
0.00
0.00
Average (ms)
0.00
0.00
0.00
Maximum (ms)
7.79
1.60
1.91
Write
DigitalOcean - Premium Intel
DigitalOcean - Premium AMD
Vultr - High Frequency
Ops per Second
4,119,352.53
3,680,563.67
5,958,689.57
Minimum (ms)
0.00
0.00
0.00
Average (ms)
0.00
0.00
0.00
Maximum (ms)
8.23
0.39
2.62
File I/O
DigitalOcean - Premium Intel
DigitalOcean - Premium AMD
Vultr - High Frequency
Reads per Second
1,543.73
1,411.73
4,284.03
Writes per Second
1,029.16
941.15
2,856.01
Fsyncs per Second
3,298.36
3,018.59
9,145.51
Minimum (ms)
0.00
0.00
0.00
Average (ms)
0.18
0.19
0.06
Maximum (ms)
44.25
9.25
4.28
MySQL
Read Only
DigitalOcean - Premium Intel
DigitalOcean - Premium AMD
Vultr - High Frequency
Transactions per Second
5,348.00
4,214.33
7,732.00
Queries per Second
85,568.00
67,429.33
123,712.00
Minimum (ms)
1.25
1.61
1.00
Average (ms)
1.88
2.38
1.31
Maximum (ms)
15.21
15.02
13.92
Write Only
DigitalOcean - Premium Intel
DigitalOcean - Premium AMD
Vultr - High Frequency
Transactions per Second
2,337.33
2,335.33
8,485.67
Queries per Second
14,024.00
14,012.00
50,914.00
Minimum (ms)
1.35
1.36
0.65
Average (ms)
4.99
4.33
1.19
Maximum (ms)
67.42
31.50
9.14
Read Write
DigitalOcean - Premium Intel
DigitalOcean - Premium AMD
Vultr - High Frequency
Transactions per Second
1,569.00
1,356.33
3,419.67
Queries per Second
31,380.00
27,126.67
68,393.33
Minimum (ms)
3.40
3.58
1.93
Average (ms)
6.50
7.37
2.96
Maximum (ms)
42.49
46.04
14.31
Redis
DigitalOcean - Premium Intel
DigitalOcean - Premium AMD
Vultr - High Frequency
PING_INLINE
50,266.15
56,599.66
57,109.99
PING_BULK
58,428.95
58,457.23
55,453.14
SET
65,451.25
53,479.60
57,497.53
GET
68,538.76
50,075.38
57,157.16
INCR
73,527.31
53,560.93
55,939.91
LPUSH
69,139.43
48,015.23
58,951.83
RPUSH
71,894.19
50,203.37
57,703.71
LPOP
71,098.72
50,752.64
56,650.94
RPOP
69,684.18
52,063.91
55,335.97
SADD
68,376.48
56,393.02
54,516.48
HSET
64,383.89
47,876.91
57,782.21
SPOP
61,403.54
59,065.90
55,848.86
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)
28,538.76
26,498.22
39,926.35
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)
11,361.02
10,166.03
16,726.98
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)
7,871.50
7,100.11
11,425.41
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)
6,688.44
5,263.32
9,277.14
MSET (10 keys)
37,688.12
28,234.83
47,581.62
Conclusion
As mentioned, Linode's performance wasn't where it usually is, with noticeable
lag that seems to have impacted every category of benchmarks.
I mention it pretty regularly, it's always a great idea to spin up multiple
instances with a provider to ensure you're on the latest and greatest hardware.
This is especially true for the providers that aren't transparent with the
underlying processor. It's also good to run your own independent benchmarks and
factor in the needs of your own application when choosing a provider.
If these benchmarks helped you make a decision on a new hosting company, 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)
