Switching things up a small bit this month. Last month, I had introduced a “$6
VPS Showdown” as a separate post alongside my existing $5 post. This was all
well and good, but best as I can figure, there’s no reason to have them split
out, as most folks probably want to see all of the data.
That said, I still think it’s important to only compare similarly priced plans,
so you won’t see the $5 and $6 instances directly compared with each other.
Instead, I’ve included both price points with their own sections. To make things
easier, you can simply jump down to either the $5 VPS
Showdown or the $6 VPS Showdown.
As per usual, I’ve spun up 3 instances with each provider (and their respective
price points). Each instance is running Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and where applicable,
the results have been averaged to give you a general sense of performance.
$5 VPS Showdown
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 | 8.0.23 | 8.0.23 | 8.0.23 | 8.0.23 | 8.0.23 |
| 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 | in beta | 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 | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| 2FA/MFA | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| One-click Apps | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Custom Images | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Kubernetes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Container Registry | 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 7542 32-Core Processor |
| UpCloud – All Instances | AMD EPYC 7542 32-Core Processor |
| Vultr – All Instances | Intel Core Processor (Haswell, no TSX, IBRS) |
| DigitalOcean | Lightsail | Linode | UpCloud | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CPU MHz | 1,963.48 | 2,400.04 | 2,900.00 | 2,894.56 | 2,400.00 |
| Cache Size (KB) | 4,096.00 | 30,720.00 | 512.00 | 512.00 | 16,384.00 |
| BogoMips | 2,728.33 | 3,200.33 | 3,866.33 | 3,859.67 | 3,199.67 |
CPU
| DigitalOcean | Lightsail | Linode | UpCloud | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Events per Second | 696.99 | 761.33 | 1,645.95 | 1,635.48 | 662.77 |
| Minimum (ms) | 1.40 | 1.21 | 0.58 | 0.58 | 1.38 |
| Average (ms) | 1.54 | 1.31 | 0.61 | 0.61 | 1.51 |
| Maximum (ms) | 5.25 | 6.52 | 3.88 | 1.92 | 11.47 |
Memory
Read
| DigitalOcean | Lightsail | Linode | UpCloud | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ops per Second | 3,315,175.33 | 527,911.12 | 5,250,619.35 | 5,398,017.24 | 3,069,091.88 |
| 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) | 2.06 | 0.17 | 2.60 | 0.27 | 3.13 |
Write
| DigitalOcean | Lightsail | Linode | UpCloud | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ops per Second | 3,510,497.08 | 526,812.88 | 5,190,983.92 | 5,371,477.25 | 2,987,360.95 |
| 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) | 1.57 | 0.22 | 3.53 | 0.67 | 7.16 |
File I/O
| DigitalOcean | Lightsail | Linode | UpCloud | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 1,356.06 | 817.80 | 2,338.31 | 2,662.30 | 1,365.83 |
| Writes per Second | 904.00 | 545.19 | 1,558.83 | 1,774.87 | 910.54 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 2,901.01 | 1,748.91 | 4,997.20 | 5,690.37 | 2,920.50 |
| Minimum (ms) | 0.01 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Average (ms) | 0.23 | 0.32 | 0.11 | 0.10 | 0.20 |
| Maximum (ms) | 13.65 | 41.22 | 58.19 | 133.30 | 12.32 |
MySQL
Read Only
| DigitalOcean | Lightsail | Linode | UpCloud | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Transactions per Second | 4,643.00 | 5,176.33 | 8,094.67 | 8,858.00 | 3,591.00 |
| Queries per Second | 74,288.00 | 82,821.33 | 129,514.67 | 141,728.00 | 57,456.00 |
| Minimum (ms) | 1.92 | 1.68 | 0.93 | 0.90 | 1.92 |
| Average (ms) | 2.49 | 1.93 | 1.24 | 1.13 | 2.78 |
| Maximum (ms) | 22.30 | 27.02 | 110.35 | 7.48 | 14.27 |
Write Only
| DigitalOcean | Lightsail | Linode | UpCloud | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Transactions per Second | 2,239.00 | 1,442.00 | 6,969.00 | 4,641.67 | 2,090.33 |
| Queries per Second | 13,434.00 | 8,652.00 | 41,814.00 | 27,850.00 | 12,542.00 |
| Minimum (ms) | 2.44 | 3.41 | 0.66 | 1.22 | 2.07 |
| Average (ms) | 6.18 | 6.96 | 1.44 | 2.15 | 4.78 |
| Maximum (ms) | 35.41 | 59.37 | 53.52 | 14.84 | 31.35 |
Read Write
| DigitalOcean | Lightsail | Linode | UpCloud | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Transactions per Second | 1,309.00 | 1,032.67 | 3,104.00 | 2,686.00 | 1,058.33 |
| Queries per Second | 26,180.00 | 20,653.33 | 62,080.00 | 53,720.00 | 21,166.67 |
| Minimum (ms) | 5.98 | 5.85 | 1.80 | 2.34 | 5.30 |
| Average (ms) | 10.84 | 9.68 | 3.22 | 3.72 | 9.44 |
| Maximum (ms) | 50.35 | 128.18 | 58.93 | 19.18 | 41.61 |
Redis
| DigitalOcean | Lightsail | Linode | UpCloud | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 34,158.97 | 45,581.01 | 95,575.44 | 93,880.35 | 27,927.56 |
| PING_BULK | 35,171.11 | 45,767.07 | 88,335.55 | 84,351.31 | 26,515.50 |
| SET | 35,504.24 | 46,062.45 | 96,692.92 | 95,391.84 | 28,560.04 |
| GET | 35,372.77 | 45,934.79 | 90,543.39 | 90,336.09 | 28,457.47 |
| INCR | 34,702.08 | 45,823.12 | 94,885.24 | 93,927.28 | 27,844.39 |
| LPUSH | 36,272.62 | 46,097.12 | 85,201.26 | 91,759.09 | 30,956.17 |
| RPUSH | 36,288.41 | 46,133.48 | 87,854.16 | 90,311.62 | 30,174.17 |
| LPOP | 36,228.73 | 46,282.36 | 85,161.00 | 89,588.37 | 29,930.76 |
| RPOP | 37,447.90 | 46,007.52 | 88,155.76 | 93,205.77 | 28,717.52 |
| SADD | 35,859.08 | 45,942.80 | 94,588.94 | 90,279.98 | 27,963.67 |
| HSET | 37,568.88 | 46,168.76 | 85,945.16 | 89,156.58 | 28,150.19 |
| SPOP | 36,388.22 | 46,020.70 | 93,958.80 | 89,820.91 | 27,934.61 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 24,164.89 | 29,911.32 | 36,566.38 | 37,671.70 | 19,458.95 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 9,681.56 | 13,074.87 | 11,383.59 | 18,431.89 | 7,953.20 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 6,629.92 | 9,427.29 | 8,560.18 | 11,761.22 | 5,994.16 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 5,493.09 | 7,705.43 | 7,192.11 | 9,504.71 | 4,714.00 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 33,405.66 | 38,159.56 | 48,219.36 | 45,518.23 | 21,873.29 |
$6 VPS Showdown
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 | 8.0.23 | 8.0.23 | 8.0.23 |
| 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 | Yes | Yes | No |
| 2FA/MFA | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| One-click Apps | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Custom Images | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Kubernetes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Container Registry | 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 | 4,928.33 |
CPU
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD | Vultr – High Frequency | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Events per Second | 868.63 | 1,229.89 | 1,444.94 |
| Minimum (ms) | 0.96 | 0.65 | 0.64 |
| Average (ms) | 1.16 | 0.81 | 0.69 |
| Maximum (ms) | 7.64 | 5.18 | 3.75 |
Memory
Read
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD | Vultr – High Frequency | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ops per Second | 4,032,827.03 | 3,554,174.05 | 6,803,441.34 |
| Minimum (ms) | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Average (ms) | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Maximum (ms) | 0.29 | 2.96 | 0.28 |
Write
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD | Vultr – High Frequency | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ops per Second | 3,948,708.68 | 3,515,080.73 | 6,751,933.46 |
| Minimum (ms) | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Average (ms) | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Maximum (ms) | 0.85 | 0.35 | 0.23 |
File I/O
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD | Vultr – High Frequency | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 1,832.24 | 1,754.21 | 4,869.97 |
| Writes per Second | 1,221.50 | 1,169.47 | 3,246.61 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 3,915.21 | 3,747.21 | 10,399.57 |
| Minimum (ms) | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| Average (ms) | 0.14 | 0.16 | 0.05 |
| Maximum (ms) | 16.29 | 12.17 | 5.91 |
MySQL
Read Only
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD | Vultr – High Frequency | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Transactions per Second | 4,520.00 | 4,936.00 | 8,618.33 |
| Queries per Second | 72,320.00 | 78,976.00 | 137,893.33 |
| Minimum (ms) | 1.54 | 1.26 | 0.84 |
| Average (ms) | 2.25 | 2.03 | 1.16 |
| Maximum (ms) | 12.83 | 13.37 | 10.00 |
Write Only
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD | Vultr – High Frequency | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Transactions per Second | 2,620.33 | 3,804.67 | 8,990.67 |
| Queries per Second | 15,722.00 | 22,828.00 | 53,944.00 |
| Minimum (ms) | 1.50 | 0.89 | 0.53 |
| Average (ms) | 3.97 | 2.79 | 1.12 |
| Maximum (ms) | 25.94 | 29.24 | 11.03 |
Read Write
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD | Vultr – High Frequency | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Transactions per Second | 1,254.33 | 1,690.00 | 3,528.67 |
| Queries per Second | 25,086.67 | 33,800.00 | 70,573.33 |
| Minimum (ms) | 4.11 | 2.63 | 1.68 |
| Average (ms) | 8.02 | 6.11 | 2.86 |
| Maximum (ms) | 30.62 | 39.07 | 15.06 |
Redis
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD | Vultr – High Frequency | |
|---|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 29,871.99 | 63,126.30 | 57,486.09 |
| PING_BULK | 30,250.42 | 59,998.44 | 57,772.40 |
| SET | 30,594.50 | 64,297.83 | 59,630.48 |
| GET | 30,074.63 | 61,978.92 | 59,209.70 |
| INCR | 31,286.54 | 63,492.01 | 58,580.68 |
| LPUSH | 35,215.61 | 60,764.37 | 61,294.53 |
| RPUSH | 34,281.56 | 63,075.04 | 57,103.91 |
| LPOP | 33,903.54 | 60,858.60 | 57,033.13 |
| RPOP | 35,265.89 | 62,998.84 | 57,504.45 |
| SADD | 35,881.75 | 63,127.90 | 60,220.60 |
| HSET | 37,409.87 | 60,345.44 | 60,581.80 |
| SPOP | 34,674.72 | 60,710.17 | 55,281.25 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 22,984.12 | 28,873.73 | 39,431.25 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 9,573.41 | 10,361.22 | 16,499.61 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 6,939.46 | 7,113.84 | 11,677.03 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 5,370.87 | 5,468.40 | 9,763.26 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 30,383.42 | 32,822.84 | 50,799.39 |
Conclusion
At the $5 price point, Linode and UpCloud are really starting to give each other
a run for their money while Vultr is continuing to shine at the premium price
point.
As always, your mileage may vary, so it’s always best to factor in your own
needs and even run your own benchmarks yourself. If you happened to find this
post helpful in your quest for a new hosting provider, please use one of my
referral links below.
