DigitalOcean Premium Intel (1 GB) vs. Linode Nanode (1 GB)
Welcome to another round of the VPS Showdown. Today I've spun up brand new instance from DigitalOcean and Linode and did some benchmarking. All instances were spun up with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and were created in the New York area (or close to it). Let's get into the numbers.
Overview
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Linode – Nanode (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Fri, 29 May 2026 03:00:52 GMT | Fri, 29 May 2026 15:00:53 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 | $8.00 | $5.00 |
| RAM (GB) | 1 | 1 |
| CPU Cores | 1 | 1 |
| Storage (TB) | 35 | 25 |
| Storage Type | NVMe | SSD |
| Transfer (TB) | 1 | 1 |
CPU
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Linode – Nanode (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | GenuineIntel | AuthenticAMD |
| Model Name | DO-Premium-Intel | AMD EPYC 7642 48-Core Processor |
| Clock Speed (MHz) | 2,494.14 | 2,300.00 |
| CPU Cache Size (KB) | 4,096.00 | 512.00 |
| BogoMips | 4,988.28 | 4,599.99 |
| Events per Second | 525.49 | 1,022.23 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.91 | 0.61 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.9 | 0.98 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 5.34 | 5.4 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.36 | 2.39 |
Memory
Memory Read
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Linode – Nanode (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 4,052,256.26 | 5,296,233.64 |
| Mebibytes per second | 3,957.28 | 5,172.10 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 1.41 | 3.05 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Linode – Nanode (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 4,271,857.39 | 5,154,651.90 |
| Mebibytes per second | 4,171.74 | 5,033.84 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 2.04 | 3.06 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
File I/O
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Linode – Nanode (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 2,628.32 | 2,055.76 |
| Writes per Second | 1,752.18 | 1,370.51 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 5,614.96 | 4,389.22 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 41.07 | 32.12 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 27.38 | 21.41 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.1 | 0.13 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 6.87 | 12.79 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.28 | 0.35 |
Mutex
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Linode – Nanode (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 2,115.84 | 1,633.32 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2,129.80 | 1,644.62 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 2,143.49 | 1,653.29 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2,159.29 | 1,648.20 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Linode – Nanode (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 8,113.00 | 7,575.00 |
| Queries per second | 81,130.00 | 75,750.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.92 | 1.22 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.23 | 1.32 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 11.74 | 4.67 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.07 | 1.42 |
MySQL Write-only
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Linode – Nanode (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 9,056.00 | 5,800.00 |
| Queries per second | 90,560.00 | 58,000.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.7 | 1.15 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.1 | 1.72 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 5.23 | 12.35 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.55 | 2.39 |
MySQL Read/Write
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Linode – Nanode (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,920.00 | 2,955.00 |
| Queries per second | 39,200.00 | 29,550.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.89 | 2.64 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.55 | 3.38 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 7.14 | 22.69 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.13 | 4.41 |
MySQL INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Linode – Nanode (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 9,248.00 | 8,921.00 |
| Queries per second | 92,480.00 | 89,210.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.49 | 0.65 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.08 | 1.12 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 17.97 | 8.92 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.61 | 1.42 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Linode – Nanode (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 996,869.00 | 1,288,467.00 |
| Queries per second | 9,968,690.00 | 12,884,670.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0.01 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 403.83 | 398.24 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Linode – Nanode (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 173,603.00 | 170,179.00 |
| Queries per second | 1,736,030.00 | 1,701,790.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.05 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.06 | 0.06 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 2.33 | 7.27 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.09 | 0.08 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Linode – Nanode (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 8,411.00 | 7,819.00 |
| Queries per second | 84,110.00 | 78,190.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.4 | 0.42 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.19 | 1.28 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 4.33 | 6.03 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.52 | 1.64 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Linode – Nanode (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 8,316.00 | 7,328.00 |
| Queries per second | 83,160.00 | 73,280.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.37 | 0.3 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.2 | 1.36 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 4.44 | 4.97 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.58 | 1.76 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Linode – Nanode (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 14,540.00 | 8,603.00 |
| Queries per second | 145,400.00 | 86,030.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.41 | 0.69 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.69 | 1.16 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 10.37 | 6.97 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.06 | 1.7 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Linode – Nanode (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 15,807.00 | 7,719.00 |
| Queries per second | 158,070.00 | 77,190.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.4 | 0.65 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.63 | 1.29 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 6.44 | 54.76 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.87 | 1.73 |
MySQL DELETE
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Linode – Nanode (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 86,818.00 | 80,451.00 |
| Queries per second | 868,180.00 | 804,510.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.05 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.11 | 0.12 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 6.38 | 16.14 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.27 | 0.42 |
Redis
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Linode – Nanode (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 81,300.81 | 44,052.86 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 82,304.52 | 44,563.28 |
| SET per Second | 75,757.57 | 44,072.28 |
| GET per Second | 83,194.67 | 44,345.89 |
| INCR per Second | 85,178.88 | 42,535.09 |
| LPUSH per Second | 84,459.46 | 41,545.49 |
| RPUSH per Second | 83,125.52 | 37,299.52 |
| LPOP per Second | 81,900.09 | 43,327.55 |
| RPOP per Second | 76,394.20 | 43,103.45 |
| SADD per Second | 83,056.48 | 43,994.72 |
| HSET per Second | 78,125.00 | 43,956.04 |
| SPOP per Second | 83,612.04 | 44,130.62 |
| ZADD per Second | 82,440.23 | 42,390.84 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 82,781.46 | 43,159.26 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 39,714.06 | 28,843.38 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 18,487.71 | 15,153.81 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 12,068.55 | 10,595.47 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 10,504.20 | 9,122.42 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 70,972.32 | 40,112.31 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Linode – Nanode (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 0.40 | 0.78 |
| PING_MBULK | 0.39 | 0.77 |
| SET | 0.43 | 0.78 |
| GET | 0.39 | 0.77 |
| INCR | 0.38 | 0.80 |
| LPUSH | 0.39 | 0.82 |
| RPUSH | 0.39 | 0.90 |
| LPOP | 0.40 | 0.80 |
| RPOP | 0.43 | 0.80 |
| SADD | 0.39 | 0.78 |
| HSET | 0.42 | 0.79 |
| SPOP | 0.39 | 0.77 |
| ZADD | 0.40 | 0.81 |
| ZPOPMIN | 0.39 | 0.79 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 0.91 | 1.23 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 1.96 | 2.38 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 3.02 | 3.44 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 3.46 | 3.96 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 0.50 | 0.88 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
When comparing the two instances, the DigitalOcean Premium Intel (1 GB) instance exhibits slightly higher raw performance across most metrics, with superior Redis benchmarks and better I/O and CPU performance, though it comes at a higher cost. The Linode Nanode (1 GB) instance, despite using a less powerful AMD processor, shows comparable performance in many areas, especially in throughput and memory operations, but falls short in Redis operations and slightly in I/O latency. Ideal use cases for DigitalOcean's instance would be applications requiring high-speed data handling and low Redis latency, such as high-traffic websites or real-time data processing. On the other hand, Linode's Nanode might be more suitable for cost-sensitive deployments where CPU-intensive tasks or slightly less critical data processing are required, balancing between performance and budget.
From the friendly human:
If you found this VPS Showdown helpful in your search for a hosting provider, please consider supporting my efforts by signing up using my referral links for DigitalOcean and Linode.
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