VPS Showdown – February 2024 – DigitalOcean vs. Linode vs. Vultr

New month with new observations when looking at DigitalOcean vs. Linode vs. Vultr. Even though each provider uses the same Linux kernel version, they all have different patch numbers and dates. Vultr offering the most recent, Linode second, and DigitalOcean with a version seemingly from nearly a year ago.

Suspect that each provider has their own flavor of Linux kernel to support their own hardware. From an end user’s perspective, this isn’t even noticed in terms of system function and stability.

Similar to last month, I spun up three instances with each VPS provider and ran my metrics. Finally, where appropriate, I average the results.

Overview – DigitalOcean vs. Linode vs. Vultr

Linux DistroUbuntu 22.04 LTS
Kernel Version5.15.0
MySQL Version8.0.36
Redis Version6.0.16

DigitalOceanLinodeVultr
LocationNew York 1Newark, NJNew York (NJ)
Monthly Price$6/month$5/month$5/month
Hourly Price$0.009/hour$0.0075/hour$0.007/hour
RAM1 GB1 GB1 GB
CPU1 Core1 Core1 Core
Storage25 GB25 GB25 GB
Storage TypeSSDSSDSSD
Transfer1 TB1 TB1 TB
Transfer Overage$0.01/GB$0.01/GB$0.01/GB
Backups$1.2/month$2/month$1/month

CPU Info


Model Name
DigitalOcean – AllDO-Regular
Linode – Instance #1AMD EPYC 7713 64-Core Processor
Linode – Instance #2AMD EPYC 7642 48-Core Processor
Linode – Instance #3AMD EPYC 7713 64-Core Processor
Vultr – Instance #1Intel Core Processor (Broadwell, no TSX, IBRS)
Vultr – Instance #2Intel Core Processor (Broadwell, no TSX, IBRS)
Vultr – Instance #3Intel Core Processor (Haswell, no TSX, IBRS)

DigitalOceanLinodeVultr
CPU MHz2,361.122,100.002,400.00
Cache Size (KB)4,096.00512.0016,384.00
BogoMipsNaN2,666.333,199.67

CPU


DigitalOceanLinodeVultr
Events per Second971.222,808.26832.67
Minimum (ms)0.910.391.02
Average (ms)1.040.401.20
Maximum (ms)11.243.894.50

Memory

Read


DigitalOceanLinodeVultr
Ops per Second3,720,266.685,309,869.344,012,520.88
Minimum (ms)0.000.000.00
Average (ms)0.000.000.00
Maximum (ms)3.213.460.42

Write


DigitalOceanLinodeVultr
Ops per Second3,741,704.825,340,109.363,980,842.98
Minimum (ms)0.000.000.00
Average (ms)0.000.000.00
Maximum (ms)2.183.990.46

File I/O


DigitalOceanLinodeVultr
Reads per Second1,202.133,471.041,928.35
Writes per Second801.412,313.991,285.53
Fsyncs per Second2,568.907,411.874,120.38
Minimum (ms)0.000.000.00
Average (ms)0.230.080.14
Maximum (ms)45.056.80203.83

MySQL

Read Only


DigitalOceanLinodeVultr
Transactions per Second4,437.336,669.004,292.33
Queries per Second70,997.33106,704.0068,677.33
Minimum (ms)1.491.151.68
Average (ms)2.351.502.33
Maximum (ms)41.8813.9024.15

Write Only


DigitalOceanLinodeVultr
Transactions per Second1,958.336,453.003,368.33
Queries per Second11,750.0038,718.0020,210.00
Minimum (ms)2.030.731.46
Average (ms)5.301.552.97
Maximum (ms)66.8026.8124.50

Read Write


DigitalOceanLinodeVultr
Transactions per Second807.672,806.001,478.67
Queries per Second16,153.3356,120.0029,573.33
Minimum (ms)5.882.113.76
Average (ms)78.383.586.77
Maximum (ms)431.8819.6135.40

Redis


DigitalOceanLinodeVultr
PING_INLINE31,682.5549,533.4324,486.06
PING_BULK28,844.9146,922.3623,509.21
SET32,012.8850,590.6824,371.38
GET31,351.2148,426.0524,576.17
INCR31,981.9247,763.5425,099.43
LPUSH33,966.6651,102.1926,350.20
RPUSH33,105.9351,376.4525,529.62
LPOP32,521.7149,615.0026,318.95
RPOP32,952.7549,189.7225,863.66
SADD31,728.5149,013.9924,822.19
HSET33,668.8952,227.4526,198.89
SPOP30,508.2247,750.5123,058.04
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)17,910.7322,149.3717,926.04
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)8,079.979,899.088,202.66
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)6,009.817,470.366,269.88
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)4,781.046,352.235,462.09
MSET (10 keys)30,648.8760,110.5529,793.72

Conclusion

Things were a bit more all over the place this month, with Linode putting up the best metrics overall. While running my scripts, one of the DigitalOcean instances was definitely lagging behind all of the others. More than likely, this negatively impacted some of the metrics.

Hopefully you found this post helpful in your quest for a hosting provider. These results are my own, so it’s always a good idea to do your own independent research as well. If nothing else, spin up a few instances to ensure you’re getting the best CPU available.


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)
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About Josh

Husband. Father. Pug dad. Musician. Founder of Holiday API, Head of Engineering and Emoji Specialist at Mailshake, and author of the best damn Lorem Ipsum Library for PHP.


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