DigitalOcean Premium AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) vs. Linode Linode (4 GB)
Same showdown, different day. Today I've spun up brand new instance from DigitalOcean and Linode to run some benchmarks on. All instances were spun up with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and all resided in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Without further ado, here's the results.
Overview
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Linode – (4 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Sat, 30 May 2026 17:00:53 GMT | Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:52 GMT |
| Linux Distro | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 |
| Kernel Version | 6.8.0-71-generic | 6.8.0-111-generic |
| MySQL Version | 8.0.45-0ubuntu0.24.04.1 | 8.0.45-0ubuntu0.24.04.1 |
| Redis Version | 7.0.15 | 7.0.15 |
| Location | New York, NY | Newark, NJ |
| Monthly Price | $28.00 | $24.00 |
| RAM (GB) | 4 | 4 |
| CPU Cores | 2 | 2 |
| Storage (TB) | 80 | 80 |
| Storage Type | NVMe | SSD |
| Transfer (TB) | 2 | 4 |
CPU
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Linode – (4 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | AuthenticAMD | AuthenticAMD |
| Model Name | DO-Premium-AMD | AMD EPYC 7713 64-Core Processor |
| Clock Speed (MHz) | 1,996.25 | 2,000.00 |
| CPU Cache Size (KB) | 512.00 | 512.00 |
| BogoMips | 3,992.49 | 3,999.99 |
| Events per Second | 1,507.58 | 3,444.02 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.6 | 0.28 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.66 | 0.29 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 1.5 | 4.83 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.74 | 0.3 |
Memory
Memory Read
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Linode – (4 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 4,451,201.81 | 5,349,213.60 |
| Mebibytes per second | 4,346.88 | 5,223.84 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 2.42 | 3.16 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Linode – (4 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 4,886,468.54 | 5,332,401.09 |
| Mebibytes per second | 4,771.94 | 5,207.42 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.29 | 3.25 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
File I/O
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Linode – (4 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 1,632.78 | 3,325.24 |
| Writes per Second | 1,088.52 | 2,216.89 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 3,483.47 | 7,095.98 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 25.51 | 51.96 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 17.01 | 34.64 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.16 | 0.08 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 16.1 | 13.12 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.61 | 0.22 |
Mutex
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Linode – (4 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 882.26 | 864.93 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 948.17 | 931.61 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 982.40 | 968.34 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 977.74 | 960.30 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Linode – (4 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 6,052.00 | 5,919.00 |
| Queries per second | 60,520.00 | 59,190.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.36 | 1.29 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.65 | 1.69 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.73 | 8 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.11 | 2.03 |
MySQL Write-only
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Linode – (4 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 2,898.00 | 5,152.00 |
| Queries per second | 28,980.00 | 51,520.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.44 | 1.22 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.45 | 1.94 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 93.68 | 24.88 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 5.28 | 2.52 |
MySQL Read/Write
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Linode – (4 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,886.00 | 2,609.00 |
| Queries per second | 18,860.00 | 26,090.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 3.15 | 2.83 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 5.3 | 3.83 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 84.59 | 8.83 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 7.43 | 4.74 |
MySQL INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Linode – (4 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 4,486.00 | 7,493.00 |
| Queries per second | 44,860.00 | 74,930.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.06 | 0.73 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.23 | 1.33 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 18.55 | 15.06 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.68 | 1.86 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Linode – (4 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,434,092.00 | 1,754,467.00 |
| Queries per second | 14,340,920.00 | 17,544,670.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0.01 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 414.91 | 418.75 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Linode – (4 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 119,923.00 | 130,180.00 |
| Queries per second | 1,199,230.00 | 1,301,800.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.05 | 0.05 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.08 | 0.08 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 1.68 | 4.63 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.11 | 0.1 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Linode – (4 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 7,111.00 | 8,212.00 |
| Queries per second | 71,110.00 | 82,120.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.49 | 0.33 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.4 | 1.22 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 10.53 | 11.27 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2 | 2.3 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Linode – (4 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 6,087.00 | 8,956.00 |
| Queries per second | 60,870.00 | 89,560.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.44 | 0.42 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.64 | 1.12 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.34 | 4.66 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.22 | 1.44 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Linode – (4 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 4,391.00 | 7,381.00 |
| Queries per second | 43,910.00 | 73,810.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.02 | 0.81 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.28 | 1.35 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 16.67 | 8.43 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.68 | 1.76 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Linode – (4 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 4,148.00 | 7,379.00 |
| Queries per second | 41,480.00 | 73,790.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.28 | 0.82 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.41 | 1.35 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 18.58 | 7.2 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.82 | 1.73 |
MySQL DELETE
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Linode – (4 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 26,739.00 | 58,502.00 |
| Queries per second | 267,390.00 | 585,020.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.05 | 0.04 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.37 | 0.17 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 14.65 | 8.26 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.39 | 1.14 |
Redis
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Linode – (4 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 60,386.47 | 44,444.45 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 58,962.27 | 42,158.52 |
| SET per Second | 50,100.20 | 43,725.41 |
| GET per Second | 51,387.46 | 43,084.88 |
| INCR per Second | 51,786.64 | 43,917.44 |
| LPUSH per Second | 53,276.50 | 44,169.61 |
| RPUSH per Second | 50,454.09 | 42,918.46 |
| LPOP per Second | 50,327.12 | 43,630.02 |
| RPOP per Second | 50,050.05 | 42,900.04 |
| SADD per Second | 46,576.62 | 43,066.32 |
| HSET per Second | 49,701.79 | 42,826.55 |
| SPOP per Second | 48,379.30 | 43,821.21 |
| ZADD per Second | 49,950.05 | 43,706.29 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 49,455.98 | 46,554.93 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 39,032.00 | 30,084.24 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 22,456.77 | 21,141.65 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 16,097.88 | 17,825.31 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 14,760.15 | 15,969.34 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 50,581.69 | 45,578.85 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Linode – (4 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 0.44 | 0.58 |
| PING_MBULK | 0.44 | 0.61 |
| SET | 0.52 | 0.59 |
| GET | 0.51 | 0.60 |
| INCR | 0.50 | 0.59 |
| LPUSH | 0.49 | 0.58 |
| RPUSH | 0.52 | 0.60 |
| LPOP | 0.52 | 0.59 |
| RPOP | 0.53 | 0.60 |
| SADD | 0.57 | 0.60 |
| HSET | 0.53 | 0.60 |
| SPOP | 0.54 | 0.59 |
| ZADD | 0.52 | 0.59 |
| ZPOPMIN | 0.53 | 0.55 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 0.70 | 0.89 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 1.21 | 1.25 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 1.74 | 1.50 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 1.91 | 1.59 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 0.59 | 0.57 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
After analyzing the benchmarks for both the DigitalOcean Premium AMD instance and the Linode instance, it's clear that the Linode instance, with its more powerful AMD EPYC processor and higher benchmark results in Redis operations, CPU tasks, file I/O, and memory management, generally outperforms the DigitalOcean instance. Linode's instance demonstrates significantly higher request per second (rps) rates and lower latencies across various metrics, indicating a more responsive and capable performance, especially under I/O-heavy workloads. DigitalOcean's instance, while still competent, lags behind in terms of overall throughput and responsiveness, making it a better choice for more budget-conscious scenarios or where slightly lower performance is acceptable. For developers and sysadmins needing high performance for CPU-intensive or I/O-demanding tasks, the Linode instance is the recommended option.
From the friendly human:
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