Before we get to the metrics, there is big news this month. Firstly, DigitalOcean recently announced their “serverless functions” product being beta released. In the same fashion as AWS Lambda, GCP Cloud Functions, and Azure Function, if you are familiar.
Additionally, Ubuntu 22.04 LTS was released. I planned to use Ubuntu 22.04 LTS and omit AWS Lightsail since they tend to drag behind on their adoption. Sadly, when I went to run my script on it, there were tons of issues. I’ll need to work through those before moving to Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.
Not to mention that UpCloud didn’t have Ubuntu 22.04 LTS as a distro option for new servers. Seems they are also slow to adopt the latest version of Ubuntu.
For the purpose of this post, the metrics were gathered from 3 server instances from each provider. I also added a section for both the $5 and $6 price points. Then we take an average of the results where it makes sense. Also, each server instance is running Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and exists in or around the New York / Newark area.
$5 VPS Showdown – DigitalOcean vs. Lightsail vs. Linode vs. UpCloud vs. Vultr
Firstly, let’s take a look at the $5 price point.
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
DocumentDB, Memcached, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Redis
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
Serverless Functions
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 – 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
2,399.97
2,433.33
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
3,399.67
3,859.67
3,196.00
CPU
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
Events per Second
830.44
761.84
1,371.84
1,635.03
714.65
Minimum (ms)
0.95
1.19
0.65
0.59
1.25
Average (ms)
1.22
1.31
0.75
0.61
1.40
Maximum (ms)
17.10
2.04
5.61
2.67
6.66
Memory
Read
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
Ops per Second
3,673,705.03
522,746.89
4,290,192.37
5,435,608.57
3,556,545.08
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)
14.62
0.19
4.64
0.25
4.44
Write
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
Ops per Second
3,694,312.45
523,158.45
4,024,275.38
5,462,390.39
3,535,161.00
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)
6.92
0.23
5.91
0.69
2.96
File I/O
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
Reads per Second
903.53
990.86
1,888.37
2,619.42
1,866.22
Writes per Second
602.35
660.52
1,258.92
1,746.26
1,244.16
Fsyncs per Second
1,931.52
2,121.00
4,035.90
5,596.29
3,990.02
Minimum (ms)
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
Average (ms)
0.30
0.27
0.15
0.10
0.14
Maximum (ms)
43.29
31.15
27.06
17.17
6.31
MySQL
Read Only
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
Transactions per Second
3,993.00
4,536.67
5,119.33
7,560.33
4,143.00
Queries per Second
63,888.00
72,586.67
81,909.33
120,965.33
66,288.00
Minimum (ms)
1.45
1.77
1.45
0.98
1.77
Average (ms)
2.51
2.20
2.18
1.32
2.42
Maximum (ms)
21.72
47.48
19.98
11.35
21.36
Write Only
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
Transactions per Second
1,039.67
1,558.67
4,468.00
4,240.33
2,595.00
Queries per Second
6,238.00
9,352.00
26,808.00
25,442.00
15,570.00
Minimum (ms)
2.04
3.27
1.08
1.38
1.53
Average (ms)
9.78
6.46
2.82
2.36
3.89
Maximum (ms)
86.38
97.59
74.88
17.68
57.62
Read Write
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
Transactions per Second
583.33
1,074.00
1,739.00
2,334.33
1,478.67
Queries per Second
11,666.67
21,480.00
34,780.00
46,686.67
29,573.33
Minimum (ms)
5.39
5.58
3.12
2.65
3.94
Average (ms)
17.16
9.34
6.52
4.29
6.79
Maximum (ms)
118.35
93.32
147.70
19.64
58.90
Redis
DigitalOcean
Lightsail
Linode
UpCloud
Vultr
PING_INLINE
38,654.56
45,726.89
57,104.53
63,723.13
35,314.12
PING_BULK
35,539.67
45,406.50
59,483.93
62,223.64
32,079.28
SET
35,150.81
45,620.46
62,482.71
65,440.57
35,737.97
GET
37,723.95
45,586.18
61,276.80
63,707.98
34,788.44
INCR
37,960.24
45,511.54
65,777.83
65,133.41
33,271.98
LPUSH
39,156.86
45,816.04
54,765.85
70,388.50
36,745.41
RPUSH
38,903.91
45,579.44
57,340.51
68,084.19
36,776.17
LPOP
40,438.35
45,739.46
48,254.95
68,646.95
37,138.81
RPOP
38,835.14
45,621.37
50,404.05
67,764.33
35,796.62
SADD
36,500.45
45,395.05
60,964.30
65,577.89
35,072.41
HSET
37,434.72
45,912.14
56,106.06
71,196.02
37,039.40
SPOP
34,257.67
45,690.49
62,740.51
64,035.82
34,599.37
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)
22,763.63
29,751.29
27,048.89
31,399.02
24,558.93
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)
9,686.14
12,770.04
8,833.90
11,558.15
9,758.00
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)
6,846.14
9,400.75
6,288.42
9,149.50
6,929.30
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)
5,702.49
7,557.34
5,252.30
7,499.88
5,518.05
MSET (10 keys)
29,369.95
37,901.73
27,990.43
64,205.89
29,267.97
$6 VPS Showdown – DigitalOcean – Premium Intel vs. DigitalOcean – Premium AMD vs. Vultr – High Frequency Intel vs. Vultr – High Performance AMD vs. Vultr – High Performance Intel
Lastly, we’ll take a look at the $6 price point.
Overview
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD
Vultr – High Frequency Intel
Vultr – High Performance AMD
Vultr – High Performance Intel
Location
New York 1
New York 1
New York (NJ)
New York (NJ)
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
$6/month
$6/month
$6/month
$6/month
$6/month
Hourly Price
$0.009/hour
$0.009/hour
$0.009/hour
$0.009/hour
$0.009/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
25 GB
25 GB
25 GB
25 GB
Storage Type
NVMe
NVMe
NVMe
NVMe
NVMe
Transfer
1 TB
1 TB
1 TB
1 TB
1 TB
Transfer Overage
$0.01/GB
$0.01/GB
$0.01/GB
$0.01/GB
$0.01/GB
Backups
$1.2/month
$1.2/month
$1.2/month
$1.2/month
$1.2/month
DNS
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Firewall
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Load Balancer
$10/month
$10/month
$10/month
$10/month
$10/month
Block Storage
$0.1/GB
$0.1/GB
$0.1/GB
$0.1/GB
$0.1/GB
Object Storage
$5/month
$5/month
$5/month
$5/month
$5/month
Managed Databases
MongoDB, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Redis
MongoDB, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Redis
No
No
No
2FA/MFA
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
One-click Apps
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Custom Images
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Kubernetes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Container Registry
Yes
Yes
No
No
No
Container Hosting
Yes
Yes
No
No
No
Serverless Functions
Yes
Yes
No
No
No
CPU Info
Model Name
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel – All Instances
DO-Premium-Intel
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD – All Instances
DO-Premium-AMD
Vultr – High Frequency Intel – All Instances
Intel Core Processor (Skylake, IBRS)
Vultr – High Performance AMD – All Instances
AMD EPYC-Rome Processor
Vultr – High Performance Intel – All Instances
Intel Xeon Processor (Cascadelake)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD
Vultr – High Frequency Intel
Vultr – High Performance AMD
Vultr – High Performance Intel
CPU MHz
2,427.63
1,996.25
3,696.00
1,996.25
2,926.46
Cache Size (KB)
4,096.00
512.00
16,384.00
512.00
16,384.00
BogoMips
3,192.67
2,661.67
4,928.00
2,661.67
3,924.00
CPU
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD
Vultr – High Frequency Intel
Vultr – High Performance AMD
Vultr – High Performance Intel
Events per Second
760.10
1,444.23
1,406.45
3,430.96
1,126.90
Minimum (ms)
1.00
0.62
0.70
0.28
0.85
Average (ms)
1.63
0.69
0.72
0.29
0.89
Maximum (ms)
17.39
2.85
3.59
28.24
5.89
Memory
Read
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD
Vultr – High Frequency Intel
Vultr – High Performance AMD
Vultr – High Performance Intel
Ops per Second
2,947,436.58
3,938,695.73
6,807,736.03
4,903,164.64
5,221,374.70
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)
20.79
7.52
1.30
4.18
1.77
Write
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD
Vultr – High Frequency Intel
Vultr – High Performance AMD
Vultr – High Performance Intel
Ops per Second
3,539,691.75
4,526,903.83
6,775,623.16
5,049,626.46
5,204,902.15
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)
11.32
0.30
2.01
2.51
1.29
File I/O
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD
Vultr – High Frequency Intel
Vultr – High Performance AMD
Vultr – High Performance Intel
Reads per Second
920.75
1,280.62
4,639.94
820.60
4,282.83
Writes per Second
613.83
853.75
3,093.30
547.07
2,855.17
Fsyncs per Second
1,967.25
2,736.25
9,903.11
1,752.94
9,140.90
Minimum (ms)
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
Average (ms)
0.36
0.21
0.06
0.33
0.06
Maximum (ms)
38.36
31.68
4.40
332.56
9.92
MySQL
Read Only
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD
Vultr – High Frequency Intel
Vultr – High Performance AMD
Vultr – High Performance Intel
Transactions per Second
3,938.00
4,457.67
8,969.00
7,614.00
6,262.67
Queries per Second
63,008.00
71,322.67
143,504.00
121,824.00
100,202.67
Minimum (ms)
1.46
1.38
0.93
0.99
1.21
Average (ms)
3.08
2.26
1.12
1.32
1.60
Maximum (ms)
45.02
33.89
10.06
97.56
20.80
Write Only
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD
Vultr – High Frequency Intel
Vultr – High Performance AMD
Vultr – High Performance Intel
Transactions per Second
1,440.33
2,472.00
9,631.67
788.00
7,131.67
Queries per Second
8,642.00
14,832.00
57,790.00
4,728.00
42,790.00
Minimum (ms)
2.29
1.23
0.59
1.11
0.69
Average (ms)
13.99
4.53
1.05
12.89
1.40
Maximum (ms)
88.17
72.04
8.54
540.52
25.06
Read Write
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD
Vultr – High Frequency Intel
Vultr – High Performance AMD
Vultr – High Performance Intel
Transactions per Second
1,159.00
1,252.67
3,910.67
550.00
2,910.00
Queries per Second
23,180.00
25,053.33
78,213.33
11,000.00
58,200.00
Minimum (ms)
6.17
3.22
1.70
2.70
2.17
Average (ms)
18.77
8.03
2.59
19.25
3.44
Maximum (ms)
81.93
72.04
13.26
730.90
23.68
Redis
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD
Vultr – High Frequency Intel
Vultr – High Performance AMD
Vultr – High Performance Intel
PING_INLINE
37,752.11
57,398.20
63,350.99
86,695.92
49,517.31
PING_BULK
47,354.11
61,524.28
62,074.81
85,939.26
48,774.99
SET
47,114.56
63,921.48
64,884.33
87,954.75
49,848.36
GET
44,428.96
67,546.71
62,460.26
85,928.74
49,064.22
INCR
44,901.22
70,497.16
62,676.88
86,360.50
50,301.50
LPUSH
36,603.41
60,828.76
65,361.10
85,412.42
50,748.86
RPUSH
37,607.87
60,899.17
64,295.53
87,371.26
51,225.90
LPOP
36,949.10
59,809.02
65,210.00
86,733.08
50,706.62
RPOP
36,402.21
59,557.56
63,201.95
85,939.78
50,822.59
SADD
46,487.25
60,495.78
63,605.22
87,558.58
50,447.81
HSET
50,988.35
53,912.51
65,536.49
89,968.99
51,236.82
SPOP
44,092.05
60,434.33
62,494.75
85,947.20
50,113.78
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)
25,390.22
27,292.20
43,756.91
31,722.58
33,466.65
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)
8,696.39
12,960.12
18,628.73
13,989.92
14,140.66
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)
5,466.24
7,636.90
12,762.15
10,108.89
10,311.42
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)
5,139.61
6,457.74
10,748.55
8,045.25
8,642.60
MSET (10 keys)
21,176.50
30,054.12
55,651.45
56,822.10
43,014.30
Conclusion
In general, the metrics are fairly consistent with previous months, with AMD processors stealing the show (regardless of the provider offering them).
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)
