DigitalOcean Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) vs. Linode Linode (4 GB)

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My friend, I'm so glad you're here! Today I've spun up some 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 (4 GB, 2 Cores) Linode – (4 GB)
Last Benchmarked Sat, 30 May 2026 15:00:52 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 $24.00 $24.00
RAM (GB) 4 4
CPU Cores 2 2
Storage (TB) 80 80
Storage Type SSD SSD
Transfer (TB) 4 4

CPU

DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) Linode – (4 GB)
Vendor GenuineIntel AuthenticAMD
Model Name DO-Regular AMD EPYC 7713 64-Core Processor
Clock Speed (MHz) 2,494.15 2,000.00
CPU Cache Size (KB) 4,096.00 512.00
BogoMips 4,988.29 3,999.99
Events per Second 871.36 3,444.02
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.91 0.28
Average Latency (ms) 1.15 0.29
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.11 4.83
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.34 0.3

Memory

Memory Read

DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) Linode – (4 GB)
Operations per second 4,167,908.44 5,349,213.60
Mebibytes per second 4,070.22 5,223.84
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 0.26 3.16
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) Linode – (4 GB)
Operations per second 4,455,346.90 5,332,401.09
Mebibytes per second 4,350.92 5,207.42
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 0.26 3.25
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) Linode – (4 GB)
Reads per Second 2,278.19 3,325.24
Writes per Second 1,518.80 2,216.89
Fsyncs per Second 4,871.44 7,095.98
Read Mebibytes per Second 35.60 51.96
Written Mebibytes per Second 23.73 34.64
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.11 0.08
Maximum Latency (ms) 12.59 13.12
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.37 0.22

Mutex

DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) Linode – (4 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms) 1,307.95 864.93
Average Latency (ms) 1,349.23 931.61
Maximum Latency (ms) 1,391.63 968.34
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1,401.61 960.30

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) Linode – (4 GB)
Transactions per second 4,297.00 5,919.00
Queries per second 42,970.00 59,190.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.39 1.29
Average Latency (ms) 2.32 1.69
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.78 8
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.97 2.03

MySQL Write-only

DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) Linode – (4 GB)
Transactions per second 3,514.00 5,152.00
Queries per second 35,140.00 51,520.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.29 1.22
Average Latency (ms) 2.84 1.94
Maximum Latency (ms) 13.78 24.88
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 4.1 2.52

MySQL Read/Write

DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) Linode – (4 GB)
Transactions per second 1,947.00 2,609.00
Queries per second 19,470.00 26,090.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 2.91 2.83
Average Latency (ms) 5.13 3.83
Maximum Latency (ms) 13.08 8.83
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 6.67 4.74

MySQL INSERT

DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) Linode – (4 GB)
Transactions per second 6,796.00 7,493.00
Queries per second 67,960.00 74,930.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.65 0.73
Average Latency (ms) 1.47 1.33
Maximum Latency (ms) 10.09 15.06
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.18 1.86

MySQL Bulk INSERT

DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) Linode – (4 GB)
Transactions per second 1,055,467.00 1,754,467.00
Queries per second 10,554,670.00 17,544,670.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.01 0.01
Maximum Latency (ms) 573.76 418.75
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) Linode – (4 GB)
Transactions per second 123,372.00 130,180.00
Queries per second 1,233,720.00 1,301,800.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.05
Average Latency (ms) 0.08 0.08
Maximum Latency (ms) 1.53 4.63
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.12 0.1

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) Linode – (4 GB)
Transactions per second 4,146.00 8,212.00
Queries per second 41,460.00 82,120.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.81 0.33
Average Latency (ms) 2.41 1.22
Maximum Latency (ms) 21.02 11.27
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.36 2.3

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) Linode – (4 GB)
Transactions per second 4,644.00 8,956.00
Queries per second 46,440.00 89,560.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.75 0.42
Average Latency (ms) 2.15 1.12
Maximum Latency (ms) 8.73 4.66
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.19 1.44

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) Linode – (4 GB)
Transactions per second 5,918.00 7,381.00
Queries per second 59,180.00 73,810.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.61 0.81
Average Latency (ms) 1.69 1.35
Maximum Latency (ms) 17.54 8.43
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.71 1.76

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) Linode – (4 GB)
Transactions per second 6,844.00 7,379.00
Queries per second 68,440.00 73,790.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.7 0.82
Average Latency (ms) 1.46 1.35
Maximum Latency (ms) 11.43 7.2
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.11 1.73

MySQL DELETE

DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) Linode – (4 GB)
Transactions per second 55,206.00 58,502.00
Queries per second 552,060.00 585,020.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.18 0.17
Maximum Latency (ms) 6.66 8.26
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.18 1.14

Redis

DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) Linode – (4 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second 50,607.29 44,444.45
PING_MBULK per Second 44,169.61 42,158.52
SET per Second 44,444.45 43,725.41
GET per Second 47,619.05 43,084.88
INCR per Second 48,638.13 43,917.44
LPUSH per Second 49,603.17 44,169.61
RPUSH per Second 47,664.44 42,918.46
LPOP per Second 50,942.43 43,630.02
RPOP per Second 48,216.01 42,900.04
SADD per Second 48,379.30 43,066.32
HSET per Second 48,053.82 42,826.55
SPOP per Second 50,301.81 43,821.21
ZADD per Second 54,495.91 43,706.29
ZPOPMIN per Second 50,864.70 46,554.93
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 33,523.30 30,084.24
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 16,619.58 21,141.65
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 10,716.96 17,825.31
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 9,849.31 15,969.34
MSET (10 keys) per Second 46,189.38 45,578.85

Redis Average Latency (ms)

DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) Linode – (4 GB)
PING_INLINE0.550.58
PING_MBULK0.590.61
SET0.600.59
GET0.560.60
INCR0.550.59
LPUSH0.540.58
RPUSH0.560.60
LPOP0.530.59
RPOP0.560.60
SADD0.550.60
HSET0.570.60
SPOP0.530.59
ZADD0.500.59
ZPOPMIN0.520.55
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)1.040.89
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)1.781.25
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)2.921.50
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)3.431.59
MSET (10 keys)0.670.57

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

Upon comparing the benchmarks of DigitalOcean's Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) and Linode's Linode (4 GB) instances, it's evident that Linode's offering demonstrates superior performance across various metrics, particularly in Redis operations and CPU processing, likely due to the higher clock speed and more advanced AMD EPYC 7542 processor. The DigitalOcean instance also shows solid performance but lags behind Linode in certain benchmarks like LRANGE operations and CPU event rates. Memory operations and file I/O performance are comparable between the two. Ideal use cases for DigitalOcean's instance might include scenarios where cost-efficiency and adequate performance for smaller workloads or development environments are prioritized, while Linode's instance would be better suited for more demanding production environments requiring higher throughput and lower latency, such as large-scale web applications and high-performance databases.

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.

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