DigitalOcean Regular (1 GB) vs. Linode Nanode (1 GB)

My friend, I'm so glad you're here! Today I've spun up brand new instance from DigitalOcean and Linode and ran some benchmarks. Each instance was running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and were created in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Time to see who showed up today.

Overview

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Last Benchmarked	Thu, 25 Dec 2025 17:00:52 GMT	Thu, 25 Dec 2025 09:00:51 GMT
Linux Distro	Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64	Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64
Kernel Version	6.8.0-71-generic	6.8.0-71-generic
MySQL Version	8.0.44-0ubuntu0.24.04.2	8.0.44-0ubuntu0.24.04.2
Redis Version	7.0.15	7.0.15
Location	New York, NY	Newark, NJ
Monthly Price	$6.00	$5.00
RAM (GB)	1	1
CPU Cores	1	1
Storage (TB)	25	25
Storage Type	SSD	SSD
Transfer (TB)	1	1

CPU

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Vendor	GenuineIntel	AuthenticAMD
Model Name	DO-Regular	AMD EPYC 7713 64-Core Processor
Clock Speed (MHz)	2,494.14	2,000.00
CPU Cache Size (KB)	4,096.00	512.00
BogoMips	4,988.27	3,999.99
Events per Second	658.25	1,664.06
Minimum Latency (ms)	0.91	0.28
Average Latency (ms)	1.52	0.6
Maximum Latency (ms)	4.37	29.07
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	2.76	2.86

Memory Read

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Operations per second	4,590,506.96	2,695,177.67
Mebibytes per second	4,482.92	2,632.01
Minimum Latency (ms)	0	0
Average Latency (ms)	0	0
Maximum Latency (ms)	1.47	3.64
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	0	0

Memory Write

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Operations per second	4,461,825.89	5,064,699.38
Mebibytes per second	4,357.25	4,946.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	0	0
Average Latency (ms)	0	0
Maximum Latency (ms)	1.05	2.03
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	0	0

File I/O

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Reads per Second	2,902.70	2,101.42
Writes per Second	1,935.13	1,400.94
Fsyncs per Second	6,204.32	4,487.49
Read Mebibytes per Second	45.35	32.83
Written Mebibytes per Second	30.24	21.89
Minimum Latency (ms)	0	0
Average Latency (ms)	0.09	0.12
Maximum Latency (ms)	31.01	6.63
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	0.24	0.3

Mutex

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms)	1,886.90	1,779.50
Average Latency (ms)	1,902.88	1,789.35
Maximum Latency (ms)	1,917.74	1,804.14
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	1,903.57	1,803.47

MySQL Read-only

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second	6,616.00	6,359.00
Queries per second	66,160.00	63,590.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	1.13	1.3
Average Latency (ms)	1.51	1.57
Maximum Latency (ms)	6.91	9.8
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	2.22	1.89

MySQL Write-only

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second	5,741.00	4,913.00
Queries per second	57,410.00	49,130.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	0.97	1.35
Average Latency (ms)	1.74	2.03
Maximum Latency (ms)	25.7	8.51
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	2.61	2.81

MySQL Read/Write

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second	2,490.00	2,408.00
Queries per second	24,900.00	24,080.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	2.67	3.1
Average Latency (ms)	4.01	4.15
Maximum Latency (ms)	26.68	11.3
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	5.67	5.18

MySQL INSERT

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second	9,069.00	7,492.00
Queries per second	90,690.00	74,920.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	0.48	0.95
Average Latency (ms)	1.1	1.33
Maximum Latency (ms)	80.73	9.48
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	1.73	1.79

MySQL Bulk INSERT

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second	1,055,467.00	1,201,092.00
Queries per second	10,554,670.00	12,010,920.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	0	0
Average Latency (ms)	0.01	0.01
Maximum Latency (ms)	1012.19	508.44
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	0	0

MySQL SELECT

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second	188,955.00	127,654.00
Queries per second	1,889,550.00	1,276,540.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	0.04	0.06
Average Latency (ms)	0.05	0.08
Maximum Latency (ms)	1.59	6.3
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	0.08	0.11

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second	5,352.00	8,562.00
Queries per second	53,520.00	85,620.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	0.55	0.29
Average Latency (ms)	1.87	1.17
Maximum Latency (ms)	6.67	9.19
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	2.97	1.58

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second	5,879.00	9,338.00
Queries per second	58,790.00	93,380.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	0.5	0.41
Average Latency (ms)	1.7	1.07
Maximum Latency (ms)	5.23	7.81
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	3.02	1.39

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second	9,925.00	7,211.00
Queries per second	99,250.00	72,110.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	0.47	0.77
Average Latency (ms)	1.01	1.39
Maximum Latency (ms)	48.42	7.29
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	1.67	2

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second	9,177.00	7,966.00
Queries per second	91,770.00	79,660.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	0.46	0.92
Average Latency (ms)	1.09	1.25
Maximum Latency (ms)	103.03	9.36
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	1.73	1.64

MySQL DELETE

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second	77,722.00	52,482.00
Queries per second	777,220.00	524,820.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	0.04	0.05
Average Latency (ms)	0.13	0.19
Maximum Latency (ms)	27.76	11.04
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	0.48	1.16

Redis

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second	41,597.34	35,448.42
PING_MBULK per Second	42,826.55	35,373.19
SET per Second	45,516.61	35,100.04
GET per Second	44,923.63	36,310.82
INCR per Second	46,317.74	35,498.76
LPUSH per Second	47,348.48	35,511.36
RPUSH per Second	45,106.00	35,373.19
LPOP per Second	42,444.82	35,038.54
RPOP per Second	43,271.31	34,566.20
SADD per Second	42,087.54	35,663.34
HSET per Second	37,509.38	35,298.27
SPOP per Second	40,567.95	36,483.04
ZADD per Second	37,369.21	35,893.75
ZPOPMIN per Second	41,823.50	36,023.05
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second	20,128.82	25,284.45
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second	10,488.78	15,195.26
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second	6,303.18	10,902.75
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second	5,894.49	9,585.89
MSET (10 keys) per Second	38,461.54	29,078.22

Redis Average Latency (ms)

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
PING_INLINE	0.80	0.93
PING_MBULK	0.77	0.93
SET	0.74	0.95
GET	0.74	0.91
INCR	0.72	0.93
LPUSH	0.71	0.94
RPUSH	0.75	0.94
LPOP	0.79	0.96
RPOP	0.78	0.97
SADD	0.79	0.93
HSET	0.89	0.94
SPOP	0.81	0.91
ZADD	0.90	0.93
ZPOPMIN	0.79	0.92
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)	1.80	1.34
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)	3.47	2.22
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)	5.67	3.08
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)	6.06	3.55
MSET (10 keys)	0.92	1.16

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

After a detailed comparison of the benchmarks, DigitalOcean's Regular (1 GB) instance provides slightly higher performance in most metrics, especially in Redis operations and MySQL OLTP tasks, achieving higher RPS and lower latency across various tests. However, the Linode Nanode (1 GB) instance shows better CPU utilization and slightly lower file I/O latency, indicating robust file handling capabilities. Overall, DigitalOcean's instance is more suited for applications that require high throughput and low latency in Redis operations and database transactions, whereas the Linode Nanode would excel in scenarios where file I/O performance is a critical factor. The choice between them depends on whether the priority lies in database operations or file system performance.

From the friendly human:

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