DigitalOcean Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) vs. Linode Linode (2 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). Enough talk. Here's the data.
Overview
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Linode – (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Tue, 02 Jun 2026 06:00:52 GMT | Mon, 01 Jun 2026 15:00:52 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 | $64.00 | $12.00 |
| RAM (GB) | 8 | 2 |
| CPU Cores | 4 | 1 |
| Storage (TB) | 240 | 50 |
| Storage Type | NVMe | SSD |
| Transfer (TB) | 6 | 2 |
CPU
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Linode – (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | GenuineIntel | AuthenticAMD |
| Model Name | DO-Premium-Intel | AMD EPYC 7713 64-Core Processor |
| Clock Speed (MHz) | 1,995.31 | 2,000.00 |
| CPU Cache Size (KB) | 4,096.00 | 512.00 |
| BogoMips | 3,990.61 | 4,000.00 |
| Events per Second | 2,100.00 | 1,678.52 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.46 | 0.28 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.48 | 0.59 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.77 | 9.24 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.49 | 2.81 |
Memory
Memory Read
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Linode – (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 4,031,036.30 | 2,645,654.09 |
| Mebibytes per second | 3,936.56 | 2,583.65 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.09 | 6.1 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Linode – (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 4,327,248.72 | 2,626,766.86 |
| Mebibytes per second | 4,225.83 | 2,565.20 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.18 | 6.15 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
File I/O
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Linode – (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 1,848.36 | 2,287.26 |
| Writes per Second | 1,232.24 | 1,524.77 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 3,943.27 | 4,881.82 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 28.88 | 35.74 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 19.25 | 23.82 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.14 | 0.11 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 32.73 | 5.87 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.83 | 0.34 |
Mutex
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Linode – (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 496.91 | 1,654.99 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 678.09 | 1,663.47 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 755.25 | 1,670.46 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 759.88 | 1,678.14 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Linode – (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 5,172.00 | 7,825.00 |
| Queries per second | 51,720.00 | 78,250.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.28 | 1.14 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.93 | 1.28 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 8.32 | 5.27 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.61 | 1.5 |
MySQL Write-only
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Linode – (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 2,301.00 | 5,536.00 |
| Queries per second | 23,010.00 | 55,360.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.35 | 1.14 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 4.34 | 1.8 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 12.64 | 6.57 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 7.3 | 2.39 |
MySQL Read/Write
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Linode – (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,495.00 | 2,901.00 |
| Queries per second | 14,950.00 | 29,010.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 2.89 | 2.49 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 6.68 | 3.44 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 19.01 | 8.33 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 10.46 | 4.25 |
MySQL INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Linode – (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,010.00 | 8,340.00 |
| Queries per second | 30,100.00 | 83,400.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.11 | 0.67 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.32 | 1.2 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 14.62 | 5.42 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 6.09 | 1.55 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Linode – (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,201,092.00 | 1,434,092.00 |
| Queries per second | 12,010,920.00 | 14,340,920.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0.01 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 566.03 | 351.06 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Linode – (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 157,927.00 | 174,599.00 |
| Queries per second | 1,579,270.00 | 1,745,990.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.05 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.06 | 0.06 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 2.99 | 3.6 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.09 | 0.07 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Linode – (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 5,434.00 | 9,155.00 |
| Queries per second | 54,340.00 | 91,550.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.45 | 0.36 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.84 | 1.09 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 14.81 | 4.69 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.71 | 1.44 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Linode – (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 6,582.00 | 8,799.00 |
| Queries per second | 65,820.00 | 87,990.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.57 | 0.3 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.52 | 1.13 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 5.15 | 4.2 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.66 | 2.26 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Linode – (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,033.00 | 6,915.00 |
| Queries per second | 30,330.00 | 69,150.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1 | 0.69 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.29 | 1.44 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 67.75 | 38.35 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 5.99 | 2.14 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Linode – (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,268.00 | 8,030.00 |
| Queries per second | 32,680.00 | 80,300.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.03 | 0.68 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.06 | 1.24 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 11.49 | 5.88 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 5.57 | 1.64 |
MySQL DELETE
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Linode – (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 24,924.00 | 75,134.00 |
| Queries per second | 249,240.00 | 751,340.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.04 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.4 | 0.13 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 26.64 | 5.6 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.81 | 0.77 |
Redis
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Linode – (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 93,545.37 | 37,369.21 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 87,796.30 | 37,921.88 |
| SET per Second | 93,457.94 | 37,936.27 |
| GET per Second | 94,250.71 | 37,693.18 |
| INCR per Second | 85,106.38 | 37,523.45 |
| LPUSH per Second | 95,057.03 | 37,921.88 |
| RPUSH per Second | 86,505.19 | 36,075.04 |
| LPOP per Second | 89,285.71 | 37,285.61 |
| RPOP per Second | 100,100.10 | 37,993.92 |
| SADD per Second | 90,661.83 | 37,664.79 |
| HSET per Second | 90,415.91 | 37,565.74 |
| SPOP per Second | 96,432.02 | 38,182.51 |
| ZADD per Second | 97,751.71 | 37,750.09 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 97,751.71 | 37,299.52 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 58,997.05 | 26,048.45 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 26,191.72 | 15,156.11 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 15,961.69 | 10,071.51 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 14,390.56 | 9,412.65 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 73,152.89 | 34,317.09 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Linode – (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 0.28 | 0.87 |
| PING_MBULK | 0.31 | 0.86 |
| SET | 0.31 | 0.87 |
| GET | 0.28 | 0.87 |
| INCR | 0.31 | 0.88 |
| LPUSH | 0.29 | 0.88 |
| RPUSH | 0.32 | 0.94 |
| LPOP | 0.32 | 0.90 |
| RPOP | 0.27 | 0.89 |
| SADD | 0.32 | 0.89 |
| HSET | 0.29 | 0.90 |
| SPOP | 0.30 | 0.88 |
| ZADD | 0.31 | 0.89 |
| ZPOPMIN | 0.28 | 0.90 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 0.46 | 1.30 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 1.05 | 2.19 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 2.04 | 3.30 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 2.12 | 3.57 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 0.49 | 0.98 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
The DigitalOcean Premium Intel instance demonstrates superior performance across the board, achieving higher request rates per second (rps) and lower average latency in Redis benchmarks compared to the Linode instance. It also shows better CPU utilization, higher throughput in file I/O operations, and more efficient memory handling. The Linode instance, although it boasts a high-end AMD EPYC processor, falls behind in most benchmarks, with lower rps rates and higher latencies. For CPU-intensive, memory-heavy, or I/O-demanding workloads, the DigitalOcean instance is the more compelling choice due to its higher performance metrics, making it ideal for applications requiring robust computational power and fast data handling. Conversely, the Linode instance, with its lower cost and decent performance, could still be suitable for less demanding tasks or where cost is a primary concern.
From the friendly human:
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