DigitalOcean Regular (2 GB) vs. Linode Nanode (1 GB)
My friend, I'm so glad you're here! Today I spun up fresh instances from DigitalOcean and Linode and did some benchmarking. All instances were running Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 and all resided in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Without further ado, here's the results.
Overview
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Last Benchmarked
Sat, 01 Aug 2026 05:03:47 GMT
Sat, 01 Aug 2026 05:01:32 GMT
Linux Distro
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64
Kernel Version
7.0.0-27-generic
7.0.0-22-generic
MySQL Version
8.4.10-0ubuntu0.26.04.1
8.4.10-0ubuntu0.26.04.1
Redis Version
8.0.5
8.0.5
Location
New York, NY
Newark, NJ
Monthly Price
$12.00
$5.00
RAM (GB)
2
1
CPU Cores
1
1
Storage (TB)
50
25
Storage Type
SSD
SSD
Transfer (TB)
2
1
Head-to-head
Category winners from the latest benchmarks.
Category
Winner
CPU (events/sec)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Memory (read MiB/s)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Disk I/O (MiB/s)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
MySQL (read/write tps)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Redis (GET/sec)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Value (CPU events per $/mo)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB) takes 6 of 6 categories.
CPU
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Vendor
GenuineIntel
AuthenticAMD
Model Name
DO-Regular
AMD EPYC 7642 48-Core Processor
Clock Speed (MHz)
2,294.61
2,300.00
CPU Cache Size (KB)
4,096.00
512.00
BogoMips
4,589.21
4,600.00
Events per Second
337.24
1,479.09
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.07
0.65
Average Latency (ms)
2.96
0.68
Maximum Latency (ms)
7.98
4.07
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
4.74
0.69
Memory
Memory Read
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Operations per second
2,158,838.24
5,162,780.30
Mebibytes per second
2,108.24
5,041.78
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
7.22
1.07
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
Memory Write
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Operations per second
3,098,478.11
5,347,459.67
Mebibytes per second
3,025.86
5,222.13
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
2.23
0.26
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
File I/O
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Reads per Second
897.65
2,518.00
Writes per Second
598.43
1,678.67
Fsyncs per Second
1,924.36
5,375.23
Read Mebibytes per Second
14.03
39.34
Written Mebibytes per Second
9.35
26.23
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.29
0.1
Maximum Latency (ms)
30.6
14.25
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.9
0.35
Mutex
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms)
2,798.91
1,639.75
Average Latency (ms)
2,816.88
1,650.21
Maximum Latency (ms)
2,827.29
1,660.37
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2,828.87
1,648.20
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second
4,209.00
9,017.00
Queries per second
42,090.00
90,170.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.24
1.02
Average Latency (ms)
2.37
1.11
Maximum Latency (ms)
5.8
5.75
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.91
1.27
MySQL Write-only
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second
720.00
8,101.00
Queries per second
7,200.00
81,010.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
2.26
0.87
Average Latency (ms)
13.89
1.23
Maximum Latency (ms)
898.41
11.04
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
11.24
1.64
MySQL Read/Write
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second
914.00
3,971.00
Queries per second
9,140.00
39,710.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
5.04
1.98
Average Latency (ms)
10.93
2.52
Maximum Latency (ms)
399.05
17.34
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
12.98
3.07
MySQL INSERT
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second
2,481.00
12,157.00
Queries per second
24,810.00
121,570.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.76
0.58
Average Latency (ms)
4.02
0.82
Maximum Latency (ms)
209.08
13.14
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
6.43
1.12
MySQL Bulk INSERT
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second
603,677.00
1,346,717.00
Queries per second
6,036,770.00
13,467,170.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.02
0.01
Maximum Latency (ms)
768.14
454.87
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
MySQL SELECT
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second
111,711.00
211,595.00
Queries per second
1,117,110.00
2,115,950.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.04
0.04
Average Latency (ms)
0.09
0.05
Maximum Latency (ms)
4.67
3.28
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.14
0.06
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second
2,616.00
6,687.00
Queries per second
26,160.00
66,870.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.4
0.46
Average Latency (ms)
3.82
1.49
Maximum Latency (ms)
19.97
5
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
5.18
1.93
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second
2,567.00
7,633.00
Queries per second
25,670.00
76,330.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.01
0.46
Average Latency (ms)
3.89
1.31
Maximum Latency (ms)
8.69
3.52
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
5.57
1.73
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second
1,815.00
12,921.00
Queries per second
18,150.00
129,210.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.76
0.6
Average Latency (ms)
5.5
0.77
Maximum Latency (ms)
1034.92
10.21
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
6.67
0.99
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second
3,210.00
11,621.00
Queries per second
32,100.00
116,210.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.61
0.59
Average Latency (ms)
3.11
0.86
Maximum Latency (ms)
42.13
70.33
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
5.09
1.3
MySQL DELETE
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second
18,558.00
137,539.00
Queries per second
185,580.00
1,375,390.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.04
0.04
Average Latency (ms)
0.54
0.07
Maximum Latency (ms)
146.02
5.83
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.91
0.1
Redis
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second
32,310.18
85,324.23
PING_MBULK per Second
31,645.57
72,150.07
SET per Second
29,222.68
83,682.01
GET per Second
28,760.43
86,430.43
INCR per Second
34,411.56
85,984.52
LPUSH per Second
31,705.77
85,324.23
RPUSH per Second
30,883.26
85,543.20
LPOP per Second
30,892.80
85,034.02
RPOP per Second
33,602.15
84,961.77
SADD per Second
32,520.32
85,763.29
HSET per Second
34,459.00
84,961.77
SPOP per Second
35,997.12
85,984.52
ZADD per Second
29,197.08
85,106.38
ZPOPMIN per Second
29,403.12
86,580.09
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second
14,295.93
44,782.80
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second
6,915.15
21,213.41
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second
4,855.55
14,192.45
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second
4,463.09
11,773.02
MSET (10 keys) per Second
27,631.94
72,046.11
Redis Average Latency (ms)
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
PING_INLINE
0.96
0.37
PING_MBULK
0.97
0.43
SET
1.06
0.39
GET
1.08
0.37
INCR
0.91
0.37
LPUSH
0.98
0.38
RPUSH
0.99
0.38
LPOP
1.00
0.38
RPOP
0.94
0.38
SADD
0.95
0.37
HSET
0.91
0.38
SPOP
0.86
0.37
ZADD
1.07
0.38
ZPOPMIN
1.05
0.37
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)
2.23
0.80
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)
4.29
1.61
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)
5.91
2.49
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)
6.47
2.96
MSET (10 keys)
1.37
0.57
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
The Linode Nanode (1 GB) instance outperforms the DigitalOcean Regular (2 GB) in most benchmarks, especially in CPU-bound tasks where it processes significantly more Redis operations per second, such as 85324.23 RPS for PING_INLINE compared to DigitalOcean's 32310.18, indicating superior performance for CPU-intensive workloads. However, DigitalOcean excels in memory operations and file I/O tasks, showing faster read and write speeds, which are beneficial for applications that require high I/O throughput. For CPU-heavy applications, the Linode Nanode is the superior choice, while DigitalOcean's instance is better suited for I/O-heavy tasks.
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.
