Josh Sherman

VPS Showdown – September 2021 – DigitalOcean vs. Lightsail vs. Linode vs. UpCloud vs. Vultr

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by

Josh Sherman
in

September, the last month of summer (in the northern hemisphere at least) but not the end of comparing a few VPS providers.

Didn’t see a lot happening this month side from Vultr starting a beta period for
their Kubernetes offering in a few of their data centers.

As always, I’ve spun up 3 server instances with each hosting provider at the $5
and $6 price points. Each instance is running the latest LTS release of Ubuntu,
which is 20.04 and the results are averaged together where applicable.

$5 VPS Showdown – DigitalOcean vs. Lightsail vs. Linode vs. UpCloud vs. Vultr”

Overview

 DigitalOceanLightsailLinodeUpCloudVultr
LocationNew York 1Virginia, Zone ANewark, NJUS-NYC1New York (NJ)
DistroUbuntu 20.04 LTSUbuntu 20.04 LTSUbuntu 20.04 LTSUbuntu 20.04 LTSUbuntu 20.04 LTS
Kernel5.4.05.4.05.4.05.4.05.4.0
MySQL8.0.268.0.268.0.268.0.268.0.26
Redis5.0.75.0.75.0.75.0.75.0.7
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
RAM1 GB1 GB1 GB1 GB1 GB
CPU1 Core1 Core1 Core1 Core1 Core
Storage25 GB40 GB25 GB25 GB25 GB
Storage TypeSSDSSDSSDSSDSSD
Transfer1 TB2 TB1 TB1 TB1 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
DNSYesYesYesNoYes
FirewallYesYesin betaYesYes
Load Balancer$10/month$18/month$10/monthNo$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 DatabasesYesYesNoYesNo
2FA/MFAYesYesYesYesYes
One-click AppsYesYesYesNoYes
Custom ImagesYesNoYesYesYes
KubernetesYesYesYesNoin beta
Container RegistryYesYesNoNoNo

CPU Info

 Model Name
DigitalOcean – All InstancesDO-Regular
Lightsail – All InstancesIntel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2676 v3 @ 2.40GHz
Linode – Instance #1AMD EPYC 7542 32-Core Processor
Linode – Instance #2AMD EPYC 7601 32-Core Processor
Linode – Instance #3AMD EPYC 7601 32-Core Processor
UpCloud – All InstancesAMD EPYC 7542 32-Core Processor
Vultr – All InstancesIntel Core Processor (Broadwell, no TSX, IBRS)
 DigitalOceanLightsailLinodeUpCloudVultr
CPU MHz2,427.602,400.022,433.332,894.562,394.45
Cache Size (KB)4,096.0030,720.00512.00512.0016,384.00
BogoMips3,192.673,200.003,400.003,859.673,192.33

CPU

 DigitalOceanLightsailLinodeUpCloudVultr
Events per Second762.38763.381,394.241,576.50754.03
Minimum (ms)0.981.240.690.601.20
Average (ms)1.311.310.730.631.33
Maximum (ms)16.223.016.852.687.36

Memory

Read

 DigitalOceanLightsailLinodeUpCloudVultr
Ops per Second3,126,203.89521,635.284,247,168.485,231,790.343,436,816.76
Minimum (ms)0.000.000.000.000.00
Average (ms)0.000.000.000.000.00
Maximum (ms)10.890.864.000.275.58

Write

 DigitalOceanLightsailLinodeUpCloudVultr
Ops per Second3,528,506.24522,720.634,284,244.715,280,279.053,449,905.92
Minimum (ms)0.000.000.000.000.00
Average (ms)0.000.000.000.000.00
Maximum (ms)12.931.563.690.223.55

File I/O

 DigitalOceanLightsailLinodeUpCloudVultr
Reads per Second900.45982.652,555.772,490.682,063.20
Writes per Second600.29655.051,703.841,660.451,375.42
Fsyncs per Second1,926.612,100.495,456.695,319.054,409.66
Minimum (ms)0.000.000.000.000.00
Average (ms)0.320.280.100.100.13
Maximum (ms)37.469.8042.038.536.78

MySQL

Read Only

 DigitalOceanLightsailLinodeUpCloudVultr
Transactions per Second3,424.004,913.675,425.678,393.334,382.33
Queries per Second54,784.0078,618.6786,810.67134,293.3370,117.33
Minimum (ms)1.651.801.540.941.76
Average (ms)2.962.031.951.192.28
Maximum (ms)24.9328.2916.487.5512.36

Write Only

 DigitalOceanLightsailLinodeUpCloudVultr
Transactions per Second1,048.331,523.004,695.333,970.003,544.67
Queries per Second6,290.009,138.0028,172.0023,820.0021,268.00
Minimum (ms)2.963.551.071.421.41
Average (ms)12.806.732.182.522.83
Maximum (ms)81.1034.3118.7921.2645.68

Read Write

 DigitalOceanLightsailLinodeUpCloudVultr
Transactions per Second735.001,036.672,063.332,427.001,611.00
Queries per Second14,700.0020,733.3341,266.6748,540.0032,220.00
Minimum (ms)5.605.623.052.593.67
Average (ms)16.239.705.054.126.21
Maximum (ms)73.10101.5690.9418.9964.13

Redis

 DigitalOceanLightsailLinodeUpCloudVultr
PING_INLINE24,120.2745,290.8964,847.2693,551.2834,272.25
PING_BULK27,935.0744,642.2662,826.5587,422.4532,751.32
SET33,053.2245,328.6365,614.8495,117.5634,395.96
GET34,398.1745,291.3364,100.2591,192.8534,190.12
INCR33,263.0445,155.2066,341.5394,313.1634,459.01
LPUSH27,333.6244,745.3160,580.6591,324.5636,204.34
RPUSH29,411.7745,462.4463,123.7392,511.0935,904.58
LPOP27,530.1045,552.8458,860.4190,445.9536,016.79
RPOP31,323.9945,338.2063,639.9191,396.9936,429.76
SADD34,350.2045,340.2666,661.5692,157.0734,308.94
HSET35,960.9745,734.4160,542.5987,574.5136,116.51
SPOP31,899.2745,477.0065,440.9688,427.3533,820.08
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)17,537.1029,551.9429,812.9635,466.9224,262.88
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)8,304.8612,979.979,288.3011,276.509,571.95
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)5,650.239,367.336,581.668,717.976,887.86
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)4,614.427,686.115,439.417,232.195,407.14
MSET (10 keys)22,109.6537,629.7231,494.0647,337.8927,591.91

$6 VPS Showdown – DigitalOcean – Premium Intel vs. DigitalOcean – Premium AMD vs. Vultr – High Frequency”

Overview

 DigitalOcean – Premium IntelDigitalOcean – Premium AMDVultr – High Frequency
LocationNew York 1New York 1New York (NJ)
DistroUbuntu 20.04 LTSUbuntu 20.04 LTSUbuntu 20.04 LTS
Kernel5.4.05.4.05.4.0
MySQL8.0.268.0.268.0.26
Redis5.0.75.0.75.0.7
Base Price$6/month$6/month$6/month
Hourly Price$0.009/hour$0.009/hour$0.009/hour
RAM1 GB1 GB1 GB
CPU1 Core1 Core1 Core
Storage25 GB25 GB25 GB
Storage TypeNVMeNVMeNVMe
Transfer1 TB1 TB1 TB
Transfer Overage$0.01/GB$0.01/GB$0.01/GB
Backups$1.2/month$1.2/month$1.2/month
DNSYesYesYes
FirewallYesYesYes
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 DatabasesYesYesNo
2FA/MFAYesYesYes
One-click AppsYesYesYes
Custom ImagesYesYesYes
KubernetesYesYesin beta
Container RegistryYesYesNo

CPU Info

 Model Name
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel – All InstancesDO-Premium-Intel
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD – All InstancesDO-Premium-AMD
Vultr – High Frequency – All InstancesIntel Core Processor (Skylake, IBRS)
 DigitalOcean – Premium IntelDigitalOcean – Premium AMDVultr – High Frequency
CPU MHz2,494.131,999.983,695.98
Cache Size (KB)4,096.00512.0016,384.00
BogoMips3,325.672,666.334,928.00

CPU

 DigitalOcean – Premium IntelDigitalOcean – Premium AMDVultr – High Frequency
Events per Second898.581,134.161,498.35
Minimum (ms)0.950.710.64
Average (ms)1.110.880.67
Maximum (ms)9.5310.321.54

Memory

Read

 DigitalOcean – Premium IntelDigitalOcean – Premium AMDVultr – High Frequency
Ops per Second4,482,226.913,863,109.977,174,553.33
Minimum (ms)0.000.000.00
Average (ms)0.000.000.00
Maximum (ms)2.711.481.41

Write

 DigitalOcean – Premium IntelDigitalOcean – Premium AMDVultr – High Frequency
Ops per Second3,977,203.303,497,975.347,077,034.39
Minimum (ms)0.000.000.00
Average (ms)0.000.000.00
Maximum (ms)1.591.120.89

File I/O

 DigitalOcean – Premium IntelDigitalOcean – Premium AMDVultr – High Frequency
Reads per Second1,988.911,652.984,976.50
Writes per Second1,325.941,101.993,317.62
Fsyncs per Second4,245.883,533.4810,619.53
Minimum (ms)0.000.000.00
Average (ms)0.130.160.05
Maximum (ms)9.699.103.80

MySQL

Read Only

 DigitalOcean – Premium IntelDigitalOcean – Premium AMDVultr – High Frequency
Transactions per Second5,864.334,554.009,689.00
Queries per Second93,829.3372,864.00155,024.00
Minimum (ms)1.241.520.84
Average (ms)1.712.201.03
Maximum (ms)13.1313.088.01

Write Only

 DigitalOcean – Premium IntelDigitalOcean – Premium AMDVultr – High Frequency
Transactions per Second3,788.672,584.0010,420.00
Queries per Second22,732.0015,504.0062,520.00
Minimum (ms)1.131.270.52
Average (ms)3.234.200.96
Maximum (ms)22.0648.047.47

Read Write

 DigitalOcean – Premium IntelDigitalOcean – Premium AMDVultr – High Frequency
Transactions per Second1,713.671,253.334,212.67
Queries per Second34,273.3325,066.6784,253.33
Minimum (ms)3.083.431.56
Average (ms)6.357.992.38
Maximum (ms)79.4832.5312.80

Redis

 DigitalOcean – Premium IntelDigitalOcean – Premium AMDVultr – High Frequency
PING_INLINE41,152.3853,978.2366,163.62
PING_BULK37,593.8047,748.3365,414.03
SET34,638.3148,269.2168,067.47
GET35,143.6749,846.3066,609.51
INCR38,917.7055,458.7567,061.53
LPUSH46,210.7050,557.3667,813.09
RPUSH45,764.2054,590.2068,479.84
LPOP46,172.1652,435.3469,347.20
RPOP43,926.6953,915.0669,170.74
SADD42,107.0361,182.4166,788.07
HSET38,383.2351,736.8568,698.43
SPOP39,681.9953,296.1166,179.35
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)28,090.4421,041.9446,949.33
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)12,067.8610,367.4719,508.87
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)7,796.096,293.5813,521.40
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)6,829.995,285.4811,202.15
MSET (10 keys)37,682.2526,258.3860,672.51

Conclusion

Fairly consistent with recently month. Would say the shocker this month would be
Lightsail seizing a few of the Redis metrics from UpCloud at the lower price
point.

It’s also been very apparent that the AMD processors that both Linode and
UpCloud are using are performing amazingly well for these benchmarks, yet the
premium AMD offering from DigitalOcean still falls short to Vultr’s Intel
offering.

As always, I’d like you remind y’all that these are just benchmarks and you
should always factor in your own application’s needs when choosing a provider.
In fact, it’s a good idea to run your own benchmarks and also, spin up a few
instances before moving in, as you may end up getting an instance on sub-par
hardware.

If you’ve found these benchmarks helpful when choosing your new hosting
provider, I’d be greatly appreciative if you used one of my referral links:

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)
Josh Sherman - The Man, The Myth, The Avatar

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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