VPS Showdown VPS Showdown

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

vs.

My friend, I'm so glad you're here! Today I spun up fresh instances from DigitalOcean and Linode and ran some benchmarks. All instances were 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 – (2 GB)
Last Benchmarked Sat, 01 Aug 2026 05:03:47 GMT Sat, 01 Aug 2026 05:04:32 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 $12.00
RAM (GB) 2 2
CPU Cores 1 1
Storage (TB) 50 50
Storage Type SSD SSD
Transfer (TB) 2 2

Head-to-head

Category winners from the latest benchmarks.

CategoryWinner
CPU (events/sec)Linode – (2 GB)
Memory (read MiB/s)Linode – (2 GB)
Disk I/O (MiB/s)Linode – (2 GB)
MySQL (read/write tps)Linode – (2 GB)
Redis (GET/sec)Linode – (2 GB)
Value (CPU events per $/mo)Linode – (2 GB)

Linode – (2 GB) takes 6 of 6 categories.

CPU

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Linode – (2 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 337.24 737.68
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.07 0.66
Average Latency (ms) 2.96 1.35
Maximum Latency (ms) 7.98 10.12
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 4.74 2.52

Memory

Memory Read

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Linode – (2 GB)
Operations per second 2,158,838.24 5,317,370.64
Mebibytes per second 2,108.24 5,192.74
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 7.22 7.57
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Linode – (2 GB)
Operations per second 3,098,478.11 5,086,007.31
Mebibytes per second 3,025.86 4,966.80
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 2.23 5.07
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Linode – (2 GB)
Reads per Second 897.65 1,006.42
Writes per Second 598.43 670.92
Fsyncs per Second 1,924.36 2,147.89
Read Mebibytes per Second 14.03 15.73
Written Mebibytes per Second 9.35 10.48
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.29 0.26
Maximum Latency (ms) 30.6 138.62
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.9 0.56

Mutex

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Linode – (2 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms) 2,798.91 1,559.26
Average Latency (ms) 2,816.88 1,564.38
Maximum Latency (ms) 2,827.29 1,570.82
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2,828.87 1,561.52

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Linode – (2 GB)
Transactions per second 4,209.00 8,336.00
Queries per second 42,090.00 83,360.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.24 1.15
Average Latency (ms) 2.37 1.2
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.8 6.16
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.91 1.32

MySQL Write-only

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Linode – (2 GB)
Transactions per second 720.00 7,039.00
Queries per second 7,200.00 70,390.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 2.26 1.01
Average Latency (ms) 13.89 1.42
Maximum Latency (ms) 898.41 150.2
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 11.24 1.76

MySQL Read/Write

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Linode – (2 GB)
Transactions per second 914.00 3,717.00
Queries per second 9,140.00 37,170.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 5.04 2.29
Average Latency (ms) 10.93 2.69
Maximum Latency (ms) 399.05 26.26
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 12.98 3.19

MySQL INSERT

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Linode – (2 GB)
Transactions per second 2,481.00 11,835.00
Queries per second 24,810.00 118,350.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.76 0.61
Average Latency (ms) 4.02 0.84
Maximum Latency (ms) 209.08 6.31
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 6.43 1.12

MySQL Bulk INSERT

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Linode – (2 GB)
Transactions per second 603,677.00 1,288,467.00
Queries per second 6,036,770.00 12,884,670.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.02 0.01
Maximum Latency (ms) 768.14 393.46
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Linode – (2 GB)
Transactions per second 111,711.00 179,147.00
Queries per second 1,117,110.00 1,791,470.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.05
Average Latency (ms) 0.09 0.06
Maximum Latency (ms) 4.67 5.33
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.14 0.07

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Linode – (2 GB)
Transactions per second 2,616.00 6,122.00
Queries per second 26,160.00 61,220.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.4 0.55
Average Latency (ms) 3.82 1.63
Maximum Latency (ms) 19.97 8.04
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 5.18 2.52

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Linode – (2 GB)
Transactions per second 2,567.00 7,561.00
Queries per second 25,670.00 75,610.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.01 0.5
Average Latency (ms) 3.89 1.32
Maximum Latency (ms) 8.69 6.3
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 5.57 1.73

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Linode – (2 GB)
Transactions per second 1,815.00 11,379.00
Queries per second 18,150.00 113,790.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.76 0.62
Average Latency (ms) 5.5 0.88
Maximum Latency (ms) 1034.92 5.5
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 6.67 1.14

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Linode – (2 GB)
Transactions per second 3,210.00 12,535.00
Queries per second 32,100.00 125,350.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.61 0.59
Average Latency (ms) 3.11 0.8
Maximum Latency (ms) 42.13 5.91
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 5.09 0.99

MySQL DELETE

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Linode – (2 GB)
Transactions per second 18,558.00 93,260.00
Queries per second 185,580.00 932,600.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.54 0.11
Maximum Latency (ms) 146.02 106.79
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.91 0.17

Redis

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Linode – (2 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second 32,310.18 76,103.50
PING_MBULK per Second 31,645.57 75,930.14
SET per Second 29,222.68 76,923.08
GET per Second 28,760.43 77,579.52
INCR per Second 34,411.56 77,639.75
LPUSH per Second 31,705.77 77,459.34
RPUSH per Second 30,883.26 76,569.68
LPOP per Second 30,892.80 76,103.50
RPOP per Second 33,602.15 77,220.08
SADD per Second 32,520.32 78,554.59
HSET per Second 34,459.00 78,369.91
SPOP per Second 35,997.12 78,864.35
ZADD per Second 29,197.08 75,244.55
ZPOPMIN per Second 29,403.12 72,621.64
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 14,295.93 41,017.23
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 6,915.15 19,712.20
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 4,855.55 12,941.63
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 4,463.09 11,352.03
MSET (10 keys) per Second 27,631.94 65,104.17

Redis Average Latency (ms)

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Linode – (2 GB)
PING_INLINE0.960.42
PING_MBULK0.970.41
SET1.060.42
GET1.080.41
INCR0.910.41
LPUSH0.980.42
RPUSH0.990.42
LPOP1.000.43
RPOP0.940.42
SADD0.950.41
HSET0.910.41
SPOP0.860.40
ZADD1.070.43
ZPOPMIN1.050.43
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)2.230.87
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)4.291.70
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)5.912.66
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)6.472.98
MSET (10 keys)1.370.64

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

The Linode instance clearly outperforms the DigitalOcean instance in both CPU-intensive tasks and memory operations, with a more than 50% increase in Redis requests per second and substantially higher throughput in MySQL bulk inserts and other memory operations, making it ideal for CPU-heavy and high-memory usage applications.

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 next time you shop on Amazon.

Providers & pricing

DigitalOcean overview Linode overviewDigitalOcean Regular (2 GB) pricing Linode (2 GB) pricing

Related comparisons

vs. DigitalOcean Regular (1 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Regular (1 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Premium Intel (1 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Premium Intel (2 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Premium Intel (1 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Premium AMD (1 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Premium Intel (2 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Premium AMD (2 GB)