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. All instances were spun up with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and were created in the New York area (or close to it). Without further ado, here's the results.
Overview
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Linode – (4 GB)
Last Benchmarked
Sun, 31 May 2026 08:00:52 GMT
Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:52 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
$18.00
$24.00
RAM (GB)
2
4
CPU Cores
2
2
Storage (TB)
60
80
Storage Type
SSD
SSD
Transfer (TB)
3
4
CPU
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Linode – (4 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
3,999.99
Events per Second
813.64
3,444.02
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.91
0.28
Average Latency (ms)
1.23
0.29
Maximum Latency (ms)
8.88
4.83
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.44
0.3
Memory
Memory Read
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Linode – (4 GB)
Operations per second
3,863,161.54
5,349,213.60
Mebibytes per second
3,772.62
5,223.84
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
6.47
3.16
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
Memory Write
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Linode – (4 GB)
Operations per second
3,937,174.33
5,332,401.09
Mebibytes per second
3,844.90
5,207.42
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
4.03
3.25
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
File I/O
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Linode – (4 GB)
Reads per Second
1,604.65
3,325.24
Writes per Second
1,069.77
2,216.89
Fsyncs per Second
3,429.94
7,095.98
Read Mebibytes per Second
25.07
51.96
Written Mebibytes per Second
16.72
34.64
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.16
0.08
Maximum Latency (ms)
9.88
13.12
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.4
0.22
Mutex
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Linode – (4 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms)
1,275.46
864.93
Average Latency (ms)
1,454.38
931.61
Maximum Latency (ms)
1,488.79
968.34
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1,479.41
960.30
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Linode – (4 GB)
Transactions per second
1,594.00
5,919.00
Queries per second
15,940.00
59,190.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.68
1.29
Average Latency (ms)
6.27
1.69
Maximum Latency (ms)
87.36
8
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
24.38
2.03
MySQL Write-only
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Linode – (4 GB)
Transactions per second
1,576.00
5,152.00
Queries per second
15,760.00
51,520.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
2
1.22
Average Latency (ms)
6.34
1.94
Maximum Latency (ms)
34.54
24.88
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
14.46
2.52
MySQL Read/Write
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Linode – (4 GB)
Transactions per second
582.00
2,609.00
Queries per second
5,820.00
26,090.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
3.92
2.83
Average Latency (ms)
17.17
3.83
Maximum Latency (ms)
125.99
8.83
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
47.47
4.74
MySQL INSERT
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Linode – (4 GB)
Transactions per second
2,759.00
7,493.00
Queries per second
27,590.00
74,930.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.36
0.73
Average Latency (ms)
3.62
1.33
Maximum Latency (ms)
34.11
15.06
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
7.04
1.86
MySQL Bulk INSERT
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Linode – (4 GB)
Transactions per second
964,103.00
1,754,467.00
Queries per second
9,641,030.00
17,544,670.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.01
0.01
Maximum Latency (ms)
459.02
418.75
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
MySQL SELECT
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Linode – (4 GB)
Transactions per second
54,163.00
130,180.00
Queries per second
541,630.00
1,301,800.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.04
0.05
Average Latency (ms)
0.18
0.08
Maximum Latency (ms)
23.62
4.63
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.43
0.1
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Linode – (4 GB)
Transactions per second
3,859.00
8,212.00
Queries per second
38,590.00
82,120.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.61
0.33
Average Latency (ms)
2.59
1.22
Maximum Latency (ms)
53.87
11.27
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
6.55
2.3
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Linode – (4 GB)
Transactions per second
7,179.00
8,956.00
Queries per second
71,790.00
89,560.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.38
0.42
Average Latency (ms)
1.39
1.12
Maximum Latency (ms)
3.44
4.66
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.86
1.44
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Linode – (4 GB)
Transactions per second
2,435.00
7,381.00
Queries per second
24,350.00
73,810.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.15
0.81
Average Latency (ms)
4.1
1.35
Maximum Latency (ms)
52.68
8.43
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
8.9
1.76
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Linode – (4 GB)
Transactions per second
2,495.00
7,379.00
Queries per second
24,950.00
73,790.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.37
0.82
Average Latency (ms)
4
1.35
Maximum Latency (ms)
40.4
7.2
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
8.9
1.73
MySQL DELETE
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Linode – (4 GB)
Transactions per second
13,719.00
58,502.00
Queries per second
137,190.00
585,020.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.04
0.04
Average Latency (ms)
0.73
0.17
Maximum Latency (ms)
38.65
8.26
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
3.25
1.14
Redis
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Linode – (4 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second
78,740.16
44,444.45
PING_MBULK per Second
77,821.02
42,158.52
SET per Second
75,815.01
43,725.41
GET per Second
75,414.78
43,084.88
INCR per Second
76,628.36
43,917.44
LPUSH per Second
76,511.09
44,169.61
RPUSH per Second
79,617.83
42,918.46
LPOP per Second
79,808.46
43,630.02
RPOP per Second
74,074.07
42,900.04
SADD per Second
77,101.00
43,066.32
HSET per Second
74,294.21
42,826.55
SPOP per Second
72,358.90
43,821.21
ZADD per Second
78,616.35
43,706.29
ZPOPMIN per Second
73,800.73
46,554.93
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second
53,705.69
30,084.24
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second
27,218.29
21,141.65
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second
18,573.55
17,825.31
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second
16,578.25
15,969.34
MSET (10 keys) per Second
73,206.44
45,578.85
Redis Average Latency (ms)
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Linode – (4 GB)
PING_INLINE
0.33
0.58
PING_MBULK
0.33
0.61
SET
0.35
0.59
GET
0.34
0.60
INCR
0.41
0.59
LPUSH
0.34
0.58
RPUSH
0.33
0.60
LPOP
0.33
0.59
RPOP
0.35
0.60
SADD
0.34
0.60
HSET
0.35
0.60
SPOP
0.36
0.59
ZADD
0.33
0.59
ZPOPMIN
0.35
0.55
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)
0.52
0.89
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)
1.13
1.25
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)
1.47
1.50
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)
1.62
1.59
MSET (10 keys)
0.36
0.57
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
After analyzing the benchmark performance of both DigitalOcean and Linode instances, it's clear that the Linode (4 GB) outperforms the DigitalOcean (2 GB, 2 Cores) in most metrics, particularly in CPU and Redis benchmarks where Linode shows significantly higher RPS rates and lower latency across most commands. Linode's configuration also benefits from larger RAM and more storage which enhances its performance in memory and file IO operations. However, DigitalOcean provides better thread fairness and lower latency in MySQL operations. Given these results, Linode is better suited for CPU-intensive and memory-heavy workloads, while DigitalOcean might be more advantageous for tasks requiring lower latency in database operations, making it a better fit for applications needing tight control over database interactions.
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.