VPS Showdown VPS Showdown

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

vs.

Fresh benchmarks coming at ya. Today I spun up fresh instances from DigitalOcean and Linode to run some benchmarks on. All instances were spun up with Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 and were created in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Enough talk. Here's the data.

Overview

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Last Benchmarked Thu, 01 Oct 2026 05:01:32 GMT Thu, 01 Oct 2026 05:00:49 GMT
Linux Distro Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64
Kernel Version 7.0.0-34-generic 7.0.0-31-generic
MySQL Version 8.4.11-0ubuntu0.26.04.1 8.4.11-0ubuntu0.26.04.1
Redis Version 8.0.5 8.0.5
Location Newark, NJ New York, NY
Monthly Price $5.00 $6.00
RAM (GB) 1 1
CPU Cores 1 1
Storage (TB) 25 25
Storage Type SSD SSD
Transfer (TB) 1 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 (1 GB)
Value (CPU events per $/mo)Linode – Nanode (1 GB)

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

CPU

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Vendor AuthenticAMD GenuineIntel
Model Name AMD EPYC 7713 64-Core Processor DO-Regular
Clock Speed (MHz) 2,000.00 2,494.14
CPU Cache Size (KB) 512.00 4,096.00
BogoMips 4,000.00 4,988.27
Events per Second 1,548.52 705.37
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.3 0.98
Average Latency (ms) 0.64 1.41
Maximum Latency (ms) 21.85 12.76
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.13 2

Memory

Memory Read

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Operations per second 4,152,415.63 3,663,208.77
Mebibytes per second 4,055.09 3,577.35
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 3.82 5.47
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Operations per second 5,085,089.33 3,890,887.47
Mebibytes per second 4,965.91 3,799.69
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 3.02 2.33
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Reads per Second 2,243.85 2,194.30
Writes per Second 1,495.90 1,462.87
Fsyncs per Second 4,795.18 4,688.57
Read Mebibytes per Second 35.06 34.29
Written Mebibytes per Second 23.37 22.86
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.12 0.12
Maximum Latency (ms) 10.58 10.7
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.29 0.32

Mutex

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms) 2,091.27 2,352.19
Average Latency (ms) 2,118.60 2,382.76
Maximum Latency (ms) 2,135.24 2,393.79
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2,120.76 2,405.65

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second 5,863.00 4,593.00
Queries per second 58,630.00 45,930.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.27 1.29
Average Latency (ms) 1.7 2.17
Maximum Latency (ms) 8.4 13.82
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.14 3.02

MySQL Write-only

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second 5,483.00 3,486.00
Queries per second 54,830.00 34,860.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.12 1.26
Average Latency (ms) 1.82 2.86
Maximum Latency (ms) 17.77 33.41
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.3 4.33

MySQL Read/Write

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second 2,888.00 1,761.00
Queries per second 28,880.00 17,610.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 2.56 3.36
Average Latency (ms) 3.46 5.67
Maximum Latency (ms) 14.47 16.69
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 4.25 7.98

MySQL INSERT

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second 9,681.00 6,877.00
Queries per second 96,810.00 68,770.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.67 0.65
Average Latency (ms) 1.03 1.45
Maximum Latency (ms) 10.33 9.48
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.39 2.35

MySQL Bulk INSERT

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second 1,142,842.00 833,039.00
Queries per second 11,428,420.00 8,330,390.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.01 0.01
Maximum Latency (ms) 503.09 670.02
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second 129,495.00 122,209.00
Queries per second 1,294,950.00 1,222,090.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.06 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.08 0.08
Maximum Latency (ms) 6.67 8.73
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.11 0.14

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second 6,337.00 3,294.00
Queries per second 63,370.00 32,940.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.41 1.13
Average Latency (ms) 1.58 3.03
Maximum Latency (ms) 8.87 17.77
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.26 4.65

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second 7,456.00 5,143.00
Queries per second 74,560.00 51,430.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.49 0.52
Average Latency (ms) 1.34 1.94
Maximum Latency (ms) 8.59 8.8
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.11 3.02

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second 6,797.00 5,821.00
Queries per second 67,970.00 58,210.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.65 0.62
Average Latency (ms) 1.47 1.71
Maximum Latency (ms) 65.69 21.71
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.3 3.3

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second 9,777.00 7,391.00
Queries per second 97,770.00 73,910.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.67 0.57
Average Latency (ms) 1.02 1.35
Maximum Latency (ms) 8.79 8.09
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.34 2.14

MySQL DELETE

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second 48,437.00 51,002.00
Queries per second 484,370.00 510,020.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.05 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.21 0.19
Maximum Latency (ms) 39.37 9.61
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.92 1.12

Redis

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second 32,669.06 31,026.99
PING_MBULK per Second 33,738.19 34,530.39
SET per Second 15,948.96 35,945.36
GET per Second 31,675.64 34,293.55
INCR per Second 34,387.89 23,820.87
LPUSH per Second 34,650.04 30,931.02
RPUSH per Second 31,705.77 33,014.20
LPOP per Second 32,478.08 30,553.01
RPOP per Second 30,883.26 34,459.00
SADD per Second 33,046.93 37,285.61
HSET per Second 31,357.79 29,002.32
SPOP per Second 30,395.14 32,195.75
ZADD per Second 32,894.74 30,562.35
ZPOPMIN per Second 33,456.00 29,342.72
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 25,271.67 20,024.03
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 12,495.31 11,069.29
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 10,815.49 6,976.42
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 9,273.00 6,141.75
MSET (10 keys) per Second 30,066.15 27,609.06

Redis Average Latency (ms)

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
PING_INLINE0.940.99
PING_MBULK0.900.88
SET2.120.86
GET1.000.90
INCR0.901.33
LPUSH0.901.00
RPUSH0.970.94
LPOP0.961.03
RPOP1.010.91
SADD0.930.83
HSET0.991.07
SPOP1.010.95
ZADD0.951.01
ZPOPMIN0.921.06
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)1.291.62
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)2.482.90
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)2.834.30
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)3.284.79
MSET (10 keys)1.091.25

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

Linode's Nanode (1 GB) outshines DigitalOcean's Regular (1 GB) in the benchmarks, especially in Redis operations where it achieves significantly higher requests per second and lower latencies, such as 85324.23 RPS for PING_INLINE compared to 27956.39. The Nanode also demonstrates superior CPU performance with higher events per second and lower average latencies. For those needing robust performance for CPU-intensive tasks or high-throughput data processing, Linode's offering provides better overall capabilities despite being slightly more expensive.

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 (1 GB) pricing Linode Nanode (1 GB) pricing

Related comparisons

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