VPS Showdown VPS Showdown

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

vs.

Welcome to another round of the VPS Showdown. Today I spun up fresh instances from Linode and Vultr to run some benchmarks on. Each instance was running Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 and all resided in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Without further ado, here's the results.

Overview

Linode – (2 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Last Benchmarked Sat, 01 Aug 2026 05:04:32 GMT Sat, 01 Aug 2026 05:06:02 GMT
Linux Distro Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64
Kernel Version 7.0.0-22-generic 7.0.0-28-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 $12.00 $10.00
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)Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Memory (read MiB/s)Linode – (2 GB)
Disk I/O (MiB/s)Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
MySQL (read/write tps)Linode – (2 GB)
Redis (GET/sec)Linode – (2 GB)
Value (CPU events per $/mo)Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)

Evenly matched across 6 categories.

CPU

Linode – (2 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Vendor AuthenticAMD GenuineIntel
Model Name AMD EPYC 7642 48-Core Processor Intel Xeon Processor (Skylake, IBRS)
Clock Speed (MHz) 2,300.00 2,593.91
CPU Cache Size (KB) 512.00 16,384.00
BogoMips 4,600.00 5,187.82
Events per Second 737.68 929.36
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.66 0.95
Average Latency (ms) 1.35 1.07
Maximum Latency (ms) 10.12 2.29
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.52 1.39

Memory

Memory Read

Linode – (2 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Operations per second 5,317,370.64 3,441,276.65
Mebibytes per second 5,192.74 3,360.62
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 7.57 1.05
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

Linode – (2 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Operations per second 5,086,007.31 3,505,662.23
Mebibytes per second 4,966.80 3,423.50
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.07 0.71
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

Linode – (2 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Reads per Second 1,006.42 2,556.83
Writes per Second 670.92 1,704.52
Fsyncs per Second 2,147.89 5,461.18
Read Mebibytes per Second 15.73 39.95
Written Mebibytes per Second 10.48 26.63
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.26 0.1
Maximum Latency (ms) 138.62 36.01
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.56 0.24

Mutex

Linode – (2 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms) 1,559.26 1,783.52
Average Latency (ms) 1,564.38 1,799.40
Maximum Latency (ms) 1,570.82 1,810.68
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1,561.52 1,803.47

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

Linode – (2 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second 8,336.00 5,535.00
Queries per second 83,360.00 55,350.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.15 1.57
Average Latency (ms) 1.2 1.8
Maximum Latency (ms) 6.16 4.09
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.32 2.07

MySQL Write-only

Linode – (2 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second 7,039.00 5,739.00
Queries per second 70,390.00 57,390.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.01 1.19
Average Latency (ms) 1.42 1.74
Maximum Latency (ms) 150.2 29.45
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.76 2.35

MySQL Read/Write

Linode – (2 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second 3,717.00 2,265.00
Queries per second 37,170.00 22,650.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 2.29 3.24
Average Latency (ms) 2.69 4.41
Maximum Latency (ms) 26.26 30.01
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.19 5.67

MySQL INSERT

Linode – (2 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second 11,835.00 11,053.00
Queries per second 118,350.00 110,530.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.61 0.65
Average Latency (ms) 0.84 0.9
Maximum Latency (ms) 6.31 17.38
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.12 1.16

MySQL Bulk INSERT

Linode – (2 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second 1,288,467.00 701,975.00
Queries per second 12,884,670.00 7,019,750.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.01 0.01
Maximum Latency (ms) 393.46 625.32
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

Linode – (2 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second 179,147.00 152,246.00
Queries per second 1,791,470.00 1,522,460.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.05 0.05
Average Latency (ms) 0.06 0.07
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.33 1.38
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.07 0.1

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

Linode – (2 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second 6,122.00 3,020.00
Queries per second 61,220.00 30,200.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.55 0.76
Average Latency (ms) 1.63 3.31
Maximum Latency (ms) 8.04 8.79
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.52 4.33

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

Linode – (2 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second 7,561.00 2,424.00
Queries per second 75,610.00 24,240.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.5 1.46
Average Latency (ms) 1.32 4.12
Maximum Latency (ms) 6.3 7.2
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.73 5.47

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

Linode – (2 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second 11,379.00 10,298.00
Queries per second 113,790.00 102,980.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.62 0.64
Average Latency (ms) 0.88 0.97
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.5 20.63
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.14 1.39

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

Linode – (2 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second 12,535.00 10,146.00
Queries per second 125,350.00 101,460.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.59 0.65
Average Latency (ms) 0.8 0.98
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.91 16.18
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.99 1.34

MySQL DELETE

Linode – (2 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second 93,260.00 87,018.00
Queries per second 932,600.00 870,180.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.05
Average Latency (ms) 0.11 0.11
Maximum Latency (ms) 106.79 112.3
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.17 0.23

Redis

Linode – (2 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second 76,103.50 31,908.10
PING_MBULK per Second 75,930.14 33,014.20
SET per Second 76,923.08 32,237.27
GET per Second 77,579.52 32,404.41
INCR per Second 77,639.75 33,300.03
LPUSH per Second 77,459.34 32,722.51
RPUSH per Second 76,569.68 32,404.41
LPOP per Second 76,103.50 32,206.12
RPOP per Second 77,220.08 35,063.11
SADD per Second 78,554.59 34,746.35
HSET per Second 78,369.91 35,001.75
SPOP per Second 78,864.35 35,701.54
ZADD per Second 75,244.55 34,602.07
ZPOPMIN per Second 72,621.64 33,898.30
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 41,017.23 16,764.46
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 19,712.20 7,578.63
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 12,941.63 4,631.56
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 11,352.03 4,000.80
MSET (10 keys) per Second 65,104.17 25,297.24

Redis Average Latency (ms)

Linode – (2 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
PING_INLINE0.420.96
PING_MBULK0.410.92
SET0.420.97
GET0.410.95
INCR0.410.94
LPUSH0.420.95
RPUSH0.420.96
LPOP0.430.97
RPOP0.420.90
SADD0.410.89
HSET0.410.90
SPOP0.400.87
ZADD0.430.91
ZPOPMIN0.430.91
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)0.871.84
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)1.703.87
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)2.666.03
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)2.986.91
MSET (10 keys)0.641.53

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

Linode's instance leads in overall performance, particularly in CPU benchmarks where it scores 737.68 events per second compared to Vultr's 929.36, and in Redis benchmarks with an average of 77000 RPS for simple commands like GET versus Vultr's 32000 RPS. This makes Linode a better choice for CPU-heavy tasks or applications requiring high Redis performance, whereas Vultr may offer more acceptable results for less demanding use-cases with its competitive throughput and I/O operations.

From the friendly human:

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Providers & pricing

Linode overview Vultr overviewLinode (2 GB) pricing Vultr Cloud Compute (2 GB) pricing

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