VPS Showdown VPS Showdown

Linode Nanode (1 GB) vs. Vultr Cloud Compute (2 GB)

vs.

Same showdown, different day. Today I spun up fresh instances from Linode and Vultr and ran my world famous suite of benchmarking scripts. All instances were spun up with Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 and all resided in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Enough talk. Here's the data.

Overview

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Last Benchmarked Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:29:06 GMT Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:33:36 GMT
Linux Distro Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64
Kernel Version 7.0.0-22-generic 7.0.0-27-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 Newark, NJ Newark, NJ
Monthly Price $5.00 $10.00
RAM (GB) 1 2
CPU Cores 1 1
Storage (TB) 25 50
Storage Type SSD SSD
Transfer (TB) 1 2

Head-to-head

Category winners from the latest benchmarks.

CategoryWinner
CPU (events/sec)Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Memory (read MiB/s)Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Disk I/O (MiB/s)Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
MySQL (read/write tps)Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Redis (GET/sec)Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Value (CPU events per $/mo)Linode – Nanode (1 GB)

Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB) takes 4 of 6 categories.

CPU

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Vendor AuthenticAMD GenuineIntel
Model Name AMD EPYC 7713 64-Core Processor Intel Core Processor (Skylake, IBRS, no TSX)
Clock Speed (MHz) 2,000.00 3,791.94
CPU Cache Size (KB) 512.00 16,384.00
BogoMips 4,000.00 7,583.88
Events per Second 2,995.79 1,435.42
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.3 0.67
Average Latency (ms) 0.33 0.7
Maximum Latency (ms) 3.68 4.15
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.34 0.74

Memory

Memory Read

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Operations per second 5,138,712.44 7,568,455.18
Mebibytes per second 5,018.27 7,391.07
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 0.36 0.36
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Operations per second 5,126,038.83 7,598,419.58
Mebibytes per second 5,005.90 7,420.33
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 2.06 0.68
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Reads per Second 3,144.54 4,001.75
Writes per Second 2,096.29 2,667.80
Fsyncs per Second 6,714.53 8,546.24
Read Mebibytes per Second 49.13 62.53
Written Mebibytes per Second 32.75 41.68
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.08 0.07
Maximum Latency (ms) 40.23 24.03
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.19 0.2

Mutex

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms) 1,726.97 1,145.72
Average Latency (ms) 1,752.52 1,154.58
Maximum Latency (ms) 1,763.59 1,160.32
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1,771.29 1,170.65

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second 7,323.00 9,706.00
Queries per second 73,230.00 97,060.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.26 0.91
Average Latency (ms) 1.36 1.03
Maximum Latency (ms) 3.63 2.49
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.58 1.18

MySQL Write-only

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second 4,970.00 7,666.00
Queries per second 49,700.00 76,660.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.15 0.67
Average Latency (ms) 2.02 1.3
Maximum Latency (ms) 99.24 158.72
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.19 1.42

MySQL Read/Write

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second 3,294.00 3,938.00
Queries per second 32,940.00 39,380.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 2.51 1.82
Average Latency (ms) 3.03 2.54
Maximum Latency (ms) 24.98 51.37
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.68 3.13

MySQL INSERT

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second 11,632.00 18,012.00
Queries per second 116,320.00 180,120.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.65 0.39
Average Latency (ms) 0.86 0.55
Maximum Latency (ms) 6.61 44.86
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.14 0.73

MySQL Bulk INSERT

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second 1,201,092.00 1,870,967.00
Queries per second 12,010,920.00 18,709,670.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.01 0.01
Maximum Latency (ms) 468.92 225.74
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second 140,938.00 213,062.00
Queries per second 1,409,380.00 2,130,620.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.05 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.07 0.05
Maximum Latency (ms) 1.49 1.04
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.12 0.06

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second 6,603.00 7,351.00
Queries per second 66,030.00 73,510.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.52 0.41
Average Latency (ms) 1.51 1.36
Maximum Latency (ms) 9.28 5.95
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.96 2.14

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second 7,697.00 9,954.00
Queries per second 76,970.00 99,540.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.49 0.27
Average Latency (ms) 1.3 1
Maximum Latency (ms) 4.02 4.46
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.7 1.58

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second 11,465.00 16,749.00
Queries per second 114,650.00 167,490.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.66 0.38
Average Latency (ms) 0.87 0.6
Maximum Latency (ms) 43.16 83.31
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.1 0.8

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second 11,672.00 17,638.00
Queries per second 116,720.00 176,380.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.67 0.38
Average Latency (ms) 0.86 0.57
Maximum Latency (ms) 24.29 77.2
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.1 0.75

MySQL DELETE

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second 94,623.00 145,888.00
Queries per second 946,230.00 1,458,880.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.05 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.11 0.07
Maximum Latency (ms) 10.28 4.51
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.19 0.1

Redis

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second 38,446.75 50,838.84
PING_MBULK per Second 38,505.97 50,761.42
SET per Second 39,123.63 52,192.07
GET per Second 38,804.81 52,383.45
INCR per Second 39,169.61 52,938.06
LPUSH per Second 39,215.69 51,813.47
RPUSH per Second 39,184.95 51,572.98
LPOP per Second 39,323.63 50,968.40
RPOP per Second 39,093.04 50,479.56
SADD per Second 38,008.36 51,308.36
HSET per Second 40,160.64 49,925.11
SPOP per Second 38,714.67 50,890.59
ZADD per Second 40,064.10 50,505.05
ZPOPMIN per Second 39,169.61 50,968.40
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 25,163.56 34,399.72
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 13,114.75 20,016.01
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 8,311.86 14,332.81
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 7,606.30 12,966.80
MSET (10 keys) per Second 37,821.48 49,603.17

Redis Average Latency (ms)

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
PING_INLINE0.780.61
PING_MBULK0.780.60
SET0.790.59
GET0.770.59
INCR0.780.59
LPUSH0.790.60
RPUSH0.790.60
LPOP0.800.61
RPOP0.800.61
SADD0.810.60
HSET0.780.62
SPOP0.780.60
ZADD0.780.61
ZPOPMIN0.770.60
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)1.270.91
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)2.281.61
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)3.352.25
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)3.572.52
MSET (10 keys)0.860.67

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

The Vultr Cloud Compute instance outperforms the Linode Nanode in almost all benchmarks, especially in Redis operations where it achieves significantly higher requests per second, such as the SET command with 52,192.07 rps compared to Linode's 39,123.63 rps, and overall CPU and memory throughput metrics. While Linode's instance shows slightly better performance in MySQL bulk insert and point select operations, Vultr's superior RAM and CPU capabilities make it the clear winner for memory-intensive and CPU-bound tasks, making it ideal for applications that require high throughput and low latency.

From the friendly human:

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