DigitalOcean Regular (2 GB) vs. Linode Nanode (1 GB)

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My friend, I'm so glad you're here! Today I've got brand new instances from DigitalOcean and Linode and ran my world famous suite of benchmarking scripts. Each instance was spun up with Ubuntu 26.04 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) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Last Benchmarked Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:31:21 GMT Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:29:06 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.

CategoryWinner
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)DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Value (CPU events per $/mo)Linode – Nanode (1 GB)

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) takes 5 of 6 categories.

CPU

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 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 411.59 2,995.79
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.99 0.3
Average Latency (ms) 2.42 0.33
Maximum Latency (ms) 19.9 3.68
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.96 0.34

Memory

Memory Read

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Operations per second 4,123,717.02 5,138,712.44
Mebibytes per second 4,027.07 5,018.27
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 0.54 0.36
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Operations per second 4,007,053.05 5,126,038.83
Mebibytes per second 3,913.14 5,005.90
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 1.82 2.06
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Reads per Second 2,758.95 3,144.54
Writes per Second 1,839.23 2,096.29
Fsyncs per Second 5,895.77 6,714.53
Read Mebibytes per Second 43.11 49.13
Written Mebibytes per Second 28.74 32.75
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.09 0.08
Maximum Latency (ms) 11.81 40.23
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.3 0.19

Mutex

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms) 2,498.24 1,726.97
Average Latency (ms) 2,546.75 1,752.52
Maximum Latency (ms) 2,562.19 1,763.59
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2,585.31 1,771.29

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second 5,626.00 7,323.00
Queries per second 56,260.00 73,230.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.18 1.26
Average Latency (ms) 1.77 1.36
Maximum Latency (ms) 3.44 3.63
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.39 1.58

MySQL Write-only

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second 4,813.00 4,970.00
Queries per second 48,130.00 49,700.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.92 1.15
Average Latency (ms) 2.07 2.02
Maximum Latency (ms) 29.26 99.24
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.19 3.19

MySQL Read/Write

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second 1,931.00 3,294.00
Queries per second 19,310.00 32,940.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 2.94 2.51
Average Latency (ms) 5.17 3.03
Maximum Latency (ms) 17.66 24.98
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 7.17 3.68

MySQL INSERT

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second 6,585.00 11,632.00
Queries per second 65,850.00 116,320.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.56 0.65
Average Latency (ms) 1.51 0.86
Maximum Latency (ms) 11.88 6.61
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.71 1.14

MySQL Bulk INSERT

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second 833,039.00 1,201,092.00
Queries per second 8,330,390.00 12,010,920.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.01 0.01
Maximum Latency (ms) 568.39 468.92
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second 148,439.00 140,938.00
Queries per second 1,484,390.00 1,409,380.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.05
Average Latency (ms) 0.07 0.07
Maximum Latency (ms) 4.95 1.49
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.1 0.12

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second 3,505.00 6,603.00
Queries per second 35,050.00 66,030.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.98 0.52
Average Latency (ms) 2.85 1.51
Maximum Latency (ms) 6.79 9.28
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 4.25 1.96

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second 5,769.00 7,697.00
Queries per second 57,690.00 76,970.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.53 0.49
Average Latency (ms) 1.73 1.3
Maximum Latency (ms) 4.73 4.02
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.66 1.7

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second 6,299.00 11,465.00
Queries per second 62,990.00 114,650.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.57 0.66
Average Latency (ms) 1.58 0.87
Maximum Latency (ms) 28.52 43.16
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.07 1.1

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second 7,198.00 11,672.00
Queries per second 71,980.00 116,720.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.51 0.67
Average Latency (ms) 1.39 0.86
Maximum Latency (ms) 167.69 24.29
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.35 1.1

MySQL DELETE

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second 33,426.00 94,623.00
Queries per second 334,260.00 946,230.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.05
Average Latency (ms) 0.3 0.11
Maximum Latency (ms) 22.19 10.28
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.61 0.19

Redis

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second 34,188.04 38,446.75
PING_MBULK per Second 44,483.99 38,505.97
SET per Second 40,112.31 39,123.63
GET per Second 40,883.07 38,804.81
INCR per Second 39,729.84 39,169.61
LPUSH per Second 40,404.04 39,215.69
RPUSH per Second 37,397.16 39,184.95
LPOP per Second 37,257.82 39,323.63
RPOP per Second 36,114.12 39,093.04
SADD per Second 37,425.15 38,008.36
HSET per Second 38,759.69 40,160.64
SPOP per Second 45,641.26 38,714.67
ZADD per Second 42,283.30 40,064.10
ZPOPMIN per Second 47,438.33 39,169.61
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 23,089.36 25,163.56
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 12,169.89 13,114.75
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 8,394.19 8,311.86
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 6,932.89 7,606.30
MSET (10 keys) per Second 31,796.50 37,821.48

Redis Average Latency (ms)

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
PING_INLINE0.940.78
PING_MBULK0.690.78
SET0.770.79
GET0.750.77
INCR0.780.78
LPUSH0.780.79
RPUSH0.840.79
LPOP0.850.80
RPOP0.870.80
SADD0.830.81
HSET0.810.78
SPOP0.680.78
ZADD0.740.78
ZPOPMIN0.650.77
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)1.401.27
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)2.632.28
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)3.623.35
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)4.243.57
MSET (10 keys)1.060.86

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

The DigitalOcean Regular (2 GB) instance emerges as the clear winner due to superior Redis benchmark performance, particularly with an average of 40,000 RPS for SET operations compared to Linode's Nanode (1 GB) instance's 39,000 RPS, along with generally lower latencies across various Redis commands. While the Linode instance shows better CPU throughput and higher MySQL OLTP transaction rates, the superior Redis performance of the DigitalOcean instance provides a clear edge for use cases that rely heavily on Redis operations, balancing this with decent CPU and memory performance.

From the friendly human:

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