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

Fresh benchmarks coming at ya. Today I've spun up brand new instance from DigitalOcean and Linode and ran my world famous suite of benchmarking scripts. Each instance was spun up with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and were created in the New York area (or close to it). Time to see who showed up today.

Overview

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Last Benchmarked	Tue, 26 Aug 2025 14:00:52 GMT	Mon, 25 Aug 2025 13:00:52 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	8.0.43-0ubuntu0.24.04.1	8.0.43-0ubuntu0.24.04.1
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)	2,494.14	2,000.00
CPU Cache Size (KB)	4,096.00	512.00
BogoMips	4,988.28	4,000.00
Events per Second	954.20	1,709.10
Minimum Latency (ms)	0.91	0.28
Average Latency (ms)	1.05	0.58
Maximum Latency (ms)	2.11	3.53
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	1.27	2.03

Memory Read

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Operations per second	4,209,859.81	5,389,227.66
Mebibytes per second	4,111.19	5,262.92
Minimum Latency (ms)	0	0
Average Latency (ms)	0	0
Maximum Latency (ms)	1.49	2.68
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	0	0

Memory Write

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Operations per second	4,189,329.99	5,415,718.29
Mebibytes per second	4,091.14	5,288.79
Minimum Latency (ms)	0	0
Average Latency (ms)	0	0
Maximum Latency (ms)	1.03	2.63
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	0	0

File I/O

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Reads per Second	2,467.11	2,297.45
Writes per Second	1,644.74	1,531.64
Fsyncs per Second	5,269.57	4,911.47
Read Mebibytes per Second	38.55	35.90
Written Mebibytes per Second	25.70	23.93
Minimum Latency (ms)	0	0
Average Latency (ms)	0.11	0.11
Maximum Latency (ms)	14.6	4.66
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	0.3	0.29

Mutex

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms)	2,239.74	1,636.97
Average Latency (ms)	2,269.10	1,644.52
Maximum Latency (ms)	2,285.87	1,650.06
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	2,279.14	1,648.20

MySQL Read-only

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second	6,274.00	7,736.00
Queries per second	62,740.00	77,360.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	1.15	1.18
Average Latency (ms)	1.59	1.29
Maximum Latency (ms)	5.02	5.12
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	2.26	1.47

MySQL Write-only

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second	4,050.00	5,729.00
Queries per second	40,500.00	57,290.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	1.18	1.16
Average Latency (ms)	2.46	1.74
Maximum Latency (ms)	45.75	19.56
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	3.96	2.3

MySQL Read/Write

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second	1,942.00	2,905.00
Queries per second	19,420.00	29,050.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	3.07	2.54
Average Latency (ms)	5.14	3.44
Maximum Latency (ms)	40.59	9.03
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	7.04	4.25

MySQL INSERT

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second	6,791.00	8,887.00
Queries per second	67,910.00	88,870.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	0.58	0.67
Average Latency (ms)	1.47	1.12
Maximum Latency (ms)	21.15	6.15
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	2.48	1.42

MySQL Bulk INSERT

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second	1,026,342.00	1,608,842.00
Queries per second	10,263,420.00	16,088,420.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	0	0
Average Latency (ms)	0.01	0.01
Maximum Latency (ms)	577.57	340.01
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	0	0

MySQL SELECT

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second	156,704.00	165,329.00
Queries per second	1,567,040.00	1,653,290.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	0.04	0.05
Average Latency (ms)	0.06	0.06
Maximum Latency (ms)	2.29	10.74
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	0.1	0.08

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second	4,865.00	9,736.00
Queries per second	48,650.00	97,360.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	0.62	0.37
Average Latency (ms)	2.05	1.03
Maximum Latency (ms)	12.45	4.34
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	3.19	1.32

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second	5,861.00	9,526.00
Queries per second	58,610.00	95,260.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	0.65	0.39
Average Latency (ms)	1.7	1.05
Maximum Latency (ms)	5.66	5.19
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	2.76	1.34

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second	5,999.00	8,339.00
Queries per second	59,990.00	83,390.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	0.61	0.7
Average Latency (ms)	1.66	1.2
Maximum Latency (ms)	43.09	5.67
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	2.91	1.58

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second	7,513.00	8,527.00
Queries per second	75,130.00	85,270.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	0.54	0.7
Average Latency (ms)	1.33	1.17
Maximum Latency (ms)	43.22	5.57
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	2	1.5

MySQL DELETE

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second	60,867.00	80,676.00
Queries per second	608,670.00	806,760.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	0.04	0.05
Average Latency (ms)	0.16	0.12
Maximum Latency (ms)	16.04	10.37
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	0.99	0.34

Redis

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second	49,529.47	47,528.52
PING_MBULK per Second	49,067.71	48,332.53
SET per Second	48,007.68	46,882.33
GET per Second	48,520.13	47,483.38
INCR per Second	50,025.02	44,228.22
LPUSH per Second	46,446.82	47,058.82
RPUSH per Second	49,431.54	46,948.36
LPOP per Second	49,164.21	45,829.52
RPOP per Second	48,590.86	46,598.32
SADD per Second	44,642.86	46,926.32
HSET per Second	30,562.35	47,192.07
SPOP per Second	35,739.81	47,778.31
ZADD per Second	42,643.92	43,535.05
ZPOPMIN per Second	44,782.80	47,393.37
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second	22,212.35	31,836.99
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second	9,703.09	17,771.46
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second	8,345.85	12,277.47
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second	7,045.73	10,720.41
MSET (10 keys) per Second	38,299.50	43,290.04

Redis Average Latency (ms)

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
PING_INLINE	0.67	0.73
PING_MBULK	0.67	0.72
SET	0.70	0.74
GET	0.69	0.73
INCR	0.67	0.77
LPUSH	0.73	0.74
RPUSH	0.68	0.73
LPOP	0.69	0.75
RPOP	0.70	0.75
SADD	0.75	0.74
HSET	1.09	0.74
SPOP	0.93	0.73
ZADD	0.80	0.80
ZPOPMIN	0.75	0.73
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)	1.61	1.10
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)	3.73	1.99
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)	4.31	2.80
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)	5.03	3.21
MSET (10 keys)	0.93	0.81

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

After analyzing the benchmark results for both DigitalOcean's Regular (1 GB) and Linode's Nanode (1 GB) instances, it's clear that Linode's Nanode offers slightly higher performance across the board, particularly in CPU-intensive tasks and memory operations, likely due to its more powerful AMD EPYC processor. DigitalOcean's instance shows competitive Redis performance and solid file I/O capabilities, making it a good choice for applications that prioritize cost-effectiveness and simplicity. For developers and sysadmins looking for a balance of performance and affordability, DigitalOcean's instance is a solid option, while Linode's Nanode would be better suited for workloads that demand higher CPU performance and memory throughput.

From the friendly human:

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