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!
