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

vs.

New day, new benchmarks. Today I've spun up brand new instance from DigitalOcean and Linode to run some benchmarks on. Each instance was 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 – Regular (1 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Last Benchmarked Tue, 07 Apr 2026 15:00:53 GMT Mon, 06 Apr 2026 20:00:52 GMT
Linux Distro Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64
Kernel Version 6.8.0-71-generic 6.8.0-71-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 $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) 2,294.61 2,000.00
CPU Cache Size (KB) 4,096.00 512.00
BogoMips 4,589.21 3,999.99
Events per Second 413.49 1,620.95
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.98 0.28
Average Latency (ms) 2.41 0.61
Maximum Latency (ms) 6.72 16.58
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.96 2.97

Memory

Memory Read

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Operations per second 2,931,810.57 2,785,205.91
Mebibytes per second 2,863.10 2,719.93
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 3.41 3.98
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Operations per second 3,364,154.34 5,247,741.79
Mebibytes per second 3,285.31 5,124.75
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 1.03 4.41
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Reads per Second 1,031.43 2,319.13
Writes per Second 687.62 1,546.08
Fsyncs per Second 2,211.89 4,957.36
Read Mebibytes per Second 16.12 36.24
Written Mebibytes per Second 10.74 24.16
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.25 0.11
Maximum Latency (ms) 124.42 8.17
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.64 0.25

Mutex

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms) 2,085.64 2,349.38
Average Latency (ms) 2,117.30 2,390.79
Maximum Latency (ms) 2,126.74 2,412.13
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2,120.76 2,405.65

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second 4,188.00 6,608.00
Queries per second 41,880.00 66,080.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.34 1.28
Average Latency (ms) 2.38 1.51
Maximum Latency (ms) 13.68 8.96
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.76 1.79

MySQL Write-only

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second 898.00 4,539.00
Queries per second 8,980.00 45,390.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 3.87 1.33
Average Latency (ms) 11.12 2.2
Maximum Latency (ms) 199.35 18.39
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 22.28 3.25

MySQL Read/Write

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second 977.00 2,306.00
Queries per second 9,770.00 23,060.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 6.44 3.11
Average Latency (ms) 10.23 4.33
Maximum Latency (ms) 46.69 10.82
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 15.27 5.67

MySQL INSERT

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second 2,413.00 7,556.00
Queries per second 24,130.00 75,560.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 2.28 0.83
Average Latency (ms) 4.14 1.32
Maximum Latency (ms) 161.12 8.91
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 6.79 1.82

MySQL Bulk INSERT

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second 767,507.00 1,171,967.00
Queries per second 7,675,070.00 11,719,670.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.01 0.01
Maximum Latency (ms) 701.42 511.73
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second 129,998.00 127,249.00
Queries per second 1,299,980.00 1,272,490.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.05
Average Latency (ms) 0.08 0.08
Maximum Latency (ms) 2.05 7.66
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.11 0.11

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second 2,875.00 8,151.00
Queries per second 28,750.00 81,510.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.27 0.39
Average Latency (ms) 3.47 1.22
Maximum Latency (ms) 24.28 5.53
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 4.74 1.7

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second 2,894.00 9,239.00
Queries per second 28,940.00 92,390.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.12 0.33
Average Latency (ms) 3.45 1.08
Maximum Latency (ms) 12.05 8.4
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 4.91 1.42

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second 1,665.00 7,280.00
Queries per second 16,650.00 72,800.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 2.62 0.71
Average Latency (ms) 6 1.37
Maximum Latency (ms) 45.51 23.45
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 11.65 2.03

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second 1,754.00 7,428.00
Queries per second 17,540.00 74,280.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 2.21 0.72
Average Latency (ms) 5.7 1.34
Maximum Latency (ms) 163.84 6.56
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 11.04 1.86

MySQL DELETE

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second 15,267.00 54,792.00
Queries per second 152,670.00 547,920.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.05
Average Latency (ms) 0.65 0.18
Maximum Latency (ms) 31.8 11.29
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.62 1.14

Redis

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second 29,577.05 28,910.09
PING_MBULK per Second 36,496.35 34,328.87
SET per Second 32,164.68 33,178.50
GET per Second 36,589.83 33,670.04
INCR per Second 36,390.10 34,650.04
LPUSH per Second 35,001.75 32,992.41
RPUSH per Second 32,552.08 32,992.41
LPOP per Second 34,470.87 33,068.79
RPOP per Second 31,575.62 33,388.98
SADD per Second 28,546.96 33,014.20
HSET per Second 29,673.59 33,967.39
SPOP per Second 31,705.77 35,549.23
ZADD per Second 31,585.60 34,071.55
ZPOPMIN per Second 33,255.74 34,364.26
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 13,048.02 20,876.83
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 6,657.35 13,976.24
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 4,256.59 10,399.33
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 3,682.29 8,848.77
MSET (10 keys) per Second 19,047.62 31,240.24

Redis Average Latency (ms)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
PING_INLINE1.101.11
PING_MBULK0.900.97
SET1.030.99
GET0.910.97
INCR0.910.95
LPUSH0.950.99
RPUSH1.010.99
LPOP0.981.00
RPOP1.060.98
SADD1.130.98
HSET1.090.96
SPOP1.030.93
ZADD1.040.96
ZPOPMIN0.980.94
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)2.761.61
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)5.262.39
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)8.103.26
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)9.213.83
MSET (10 keys)2.011.08

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

After analyzing the benchmarks for both DigitalOcean's Regular (1 GB) instance and Linode's Nanode (1 GB) instance, it is evident that Linode's Nanode outperforms DigitalOcean's Regular in most metrics, particularly in CPU and memory throughput where Nanode demonstrates significantly higher requests per second and lower latencies across Redis commands and MySQL operations. The Linode instance shows superior file I/O performance with lower average latencies and higher throughput rates, which reflects in the lower latencies for Redis LRANGE commands despite lower read and write operations per second compared to DigitalOcean. For developers and sysadmins seeking a balance of cost and performance, DigitalOcean's Regular might suffice for simple tasks, but for more demanding CPU-intensive or I/O-heavy workloads, Linode's Nanode provides a clear advantage due to its higher benchmark scores and better overall performance.

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.

You can also support me directly by buying me a coffee.