DigitalOcean Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) vs. Linode Linode (8 GB)
Fresh benchmarks coming at ya. Today I've spun up some 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 – (8 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Tue, 02 Jun 2026 06:00:52 GMT | Mon, 01 Jun 2026 03:00:52 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 | $48.00 |
| RAM (GB) | 8 | 8 |
| CPU Cores | 4 | 4 |
| Storage (TB) | 240 | 160 |
| Storage Type | NVMe | SSD |
| Transfer (TB) | 6 | 5 |
CPU
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Linode – (8 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | GenuineIntel | AuthenticAMD |
| Model Name | DO-Premium-Intel | AMD EPYC 7542 32-Core Processor |
| Clock Speed (MHz) | 1,995.31 | 2,900.00 |
| CPU Cache Size (KB) | 4,096.00 | 512.00 |
| BogoMips | 3,990.61 | 5,799.99 |
| Events per Second | 2,100.00 | 1,661.57 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.46 | 0.58 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.48 | 0.6 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.77 | 3.57 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.49 | 0.63 |
Memory
Memory Read
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Linode – (8 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 4,031,036.30 | 5,533,114.95 |
| Mebibytes per second | 3,936.56 | 5,403.43 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.09 | 1.96 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Linode – (8 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 4,327,248.72 | 5,426,984.96 |
| Mebibytes per second | 4,225.83 | 5,299.79 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.18 | 4 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
File I/O
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Linode – (8 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 1,848.36 | 5,520.56 |
| Writes per Second | 1,232.24 | 3,680.37 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 3,943.27 | 11,779.39 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 28.88 | 86.26 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 19.25 | 57.51 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.14 | 0.05 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 32.73 | 3.48 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.83 | 0.17 |
Mutex
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Linode – (8 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 496.91 | 296.37 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 678.09 | 381.09 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 755.25 | 428.18 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 759.88 | 427.07 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Linode – (8 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 5,172.00 | 6,942.00 |
| Queries per second | 51,720.00 | 69,420.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.28 | 1.2 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.93 | 1.44 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 8.32 | 4.62 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.61 | 1.58 |
MySQL Write-only
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Linode – (8 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 2,301.00 | 6,324.00 |
| Queries per second | 23,010.00 | 63,240.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.35 | 1.02 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 4.34 | 1.58 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 12.64 | 22.06 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 7.3 | 2.07 |
MySQL Read/Write
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Linode – (8 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,495.00 | 3,352.00 |
| Queries per second | 14,950.00 | 33,520.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 2.89 | 2.25 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 6.68 | 2.98 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 19.01 | 6.85 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 10.46 | 3.49 |
MySQL INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Linode – (8 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,010.00 | 8,779.00 |
| Queries per second | 30,100.00 | 87,790.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.11 | 0.7 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.32 | 1.14 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 14.62 | 14.61 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 6.09 | 1.42 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Linode – (8 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,201,092.00 | 1,783,592.00 |
| Queries per second | 12,010,920.00 | 17,835,920.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0.01 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 566.03 | 292.01 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Linode – (8 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 157,927.00 | 160,295.00 |
| Queries per second | 1,579,270.00 | 1,602,950.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.04 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.06 | 0.06 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 2.99 | 3.19 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.09 | 0.08 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Linode – (8 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 5,434.00 | 9,140.00 |
| Queries per second | 54,340.00 | 91,400.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.45 | 0.4 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.84 | 1.09 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 14.81 | 4.24 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.71 | 1.39 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Linode – (8 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 6,582.00 | 7,642.00 |
| Queries per second | 65,820.00 | 76,420.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.57 | 0.47 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.52 | 1.31 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 5.15 | 4.75 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.66 | 1.67 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Linode – (8 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,033.00 | 9,081.00 |
| Queries per second | 30,330.00 | 90,810.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1 | 0.68 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.29 | 1.1 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 67.75 | 4.8 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 5.99 | 1.3 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Linode – (8 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,268.00 | 7,997.00 |
| Queries per second | 32,680.00 | 79,970.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.03 | 0.67 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.06 | 1.25 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 11.49 | 23.14 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 5.57 | 1.67 |
MySQL DELETE
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Linode – (8 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 24,924.00 | 93,716.00 |
| Queries per second | 249,240.00 | 937,160.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.04 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.4 | 0.11 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 26.64 | 6.7 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.81 | 0.12 |
Redis
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Linode – (8 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 93,545.37 | 61,728.39 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 87,796.30 | 60,204.70 |
| SET per Second | 93,457.94 | 61,957.87 |
| GET per Second | 94,250.71 | 61,199.51 |
| INCR per Second | 85,106.38 | 62,266.50 |
| LPUSH per Second | 95,057.03 | 62,695.92 |
| RPUSH per Second | 86,505.19 | 67,159.17 |
| LPOP per Second | 89,285.71 | 62,460.96 |
| RPOP per Second | 100,100.10 | 60,606.06 |
| SADD per Second | 90,661.83 | 60,716.46 |
| HSET per Second | 90,415.91 | 60,532.69 |
| SPOP per Second | 96,432.02 | 60,679.61 |
| ZADD per Second | 97,751.71 | 61,804.70 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 97,751.71 | 61,425.06 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 58,997.05 | 49,236.83 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 26,191.72 | 27,839.64 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 15,961.69 | 20,614.31 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 14,390.56 | 16,931.93 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 73,152.89 | 64,766.84 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Linode – (8 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 0.28 | 0.42 |
| PING_MBULK | 0.31 | 0.43 |
| SET | 0.31 | 0.42 |
| GET | 0.28 | 0.42 |
| INCR | 0.31 | 0.41 |
| LPUSH | 0.29 | 0.41 |
| RPUSH | 0.32 | 0.38 |
| LPOP | 0.32 | 0.41 |
| RPOP | 0.27 | 0.43 |
| SADD | 0.32 | 0.43 |
| HSET | 0.29 | 0.43 |
| SPOP | 0.30 | 0.43 |
| ZADD | 0.31 | 0.42 |
| ZPOPMIN | 0.28 | 0.42 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 0.46 | 0.52 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 1.05 | 0.93 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 2.04 | 1.25 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 2.12 | 1.52 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 0.49 | 0.40 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
In benchmarking, the DigitalOcean instance shows higher performance in CPU-intensive tasks, memory operations, and I/O throughput with faster average latencies and higher rates of read/write operations per second. Meanwhile, the Linode instance, powered by an AMD EPYC processor, performs marginally better in specific Redis benchmarks and provides slightly higher CPU event rates, though both instances are competitive. DigitalOcean's configuration suits workloads that benefit from high throughput and lower latency in memory and I/O operations, while Linode's configuration could be preferable for applications that require slightly faster Redis operations and bulk insert performance in MySQL, at a lower monthly cost.
From the friendly human:
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