VPS Showdown VPS Showdown

Linode Linode (2 GB) vs. Vultr High Frequency Intel (1 GB)

vs.

Same showdown, different day. Today I spun up fresh instances from Linode and Vultr and ran some benchmarks. Each instance was running 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 – (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Last Benchmarked Sat, 01 Aug 2026 05:04:32 GMT Sat, 01 Aug 2026 05:07:32 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 $6.00
RAM (GB) 2 1
CPU Cores 1 1
Storage (TB) 50 32
Storage Type SSD NVMe
Transfer (TB) 2 1

Head-to-head

Category winners from the latest benchmarks.

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

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB) takes 5 of 6 categories.

CPU

Linode – (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Vendor AuthenticAMD GenuineIntel
Model Name AMD EPYC 7642 48-Core Processor Intel Core Processor (Skylake, IBRS, no TSX)
Clock Speed (MHz) 2,300.00 3,792.05
CPU Cache Size (KB) 512.00 16,384.00
BogoMips 4,600.00 7,584.09
Events per Second 737.68 1,418.80
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.66 0.67
Average Latency (ms) 1.35 0.7
Maximum Latency (ms) 10.12 3.97
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.52 0.74

Memory

Memory Read

Linode – (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Operations per second 5,317,370.64 7,260,754.36
Mebibytes per second 5,192.74 7,090.58
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 7.57 1.81
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

Linode – (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Operations per second 5,086,007.31 7,520,415.11
Mebibytes per second 4,966.80 7,344.16
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.07 0.36
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

Linode – (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Reads per Second 1,006.42 4,675.97
Writes per Second 670.92 3,117.32
Fsyncs per Second 2,147.89 9,977.97
Read Mebibytes per Second 15.73 73.06
Written Mebibytes per Second 10.48 48.71
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.26 0.06
Maximum Latency (ms) 138.62 3.47
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.56 0.16

Mutex

Linode – (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms) 1,559.26 1,149.56
Average Latency (ms) 1,564.38 1,155.82
Maximum Latency (ms) 1,570.82 1,161.84
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1,561.52 1,170.65

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

Linode – (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 8,336.00 10,055.00
Queries per second 83,360.00 100,550.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.15 0.89
Average Latency (ms) 1.2 0.99
Maximum Latency (ms) 6.16 3.72
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.32 1.16

MySQL Write-only

Linode – (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 7,039.00 12,149.00
Queries per second 70,390.00 121,490.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.01 0.64
Average Latency (ms) 1.42 0.82
Maximum Latency (ms) 150.2 8.53
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.76 1.03

MySQL Read/Write

Linode – (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 3,717.00 4,295.00
Queries per second 37,170.00 42,950.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 2.29 1.71
Average Latency (ms) 2.69 2.33
Maximum Latency (ms) 26.26 9.32
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.19 2.76

MySQL INSERT

Linode – (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 11,835.00 21,088.00
Queries per second 118,350.00 210,880.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.61 0.37
Average Latency (ms) 0.84 0.47
Maximum Latency (ms) 6.31 6.56
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.12 0.62

MySQL Bulk INSERT

Linode – (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 1,288,467.00 1,783,592.00
Queries per second 12,884,670.00 17,835,920.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.01 0.01
Maximum Latency (ms) 393.46 439.57
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

Linode – (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 179,147.00 224,934.00
Queries per second 1,791,470.00 2,249,340.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.05 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.06 0.04
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.33 1.18
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.07 0.06

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

Linode – (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 6,122.00 7,840.00
Queries per second 61,220.00 78,400.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.55 0.48
Average Latency (ms) 1.63 1.27
Maximum Latency (ms) 8.04 3.92
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.52 1.67

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

Linode – (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 7,561.00 10,489.00
Queries per second 75,610.00 104,890.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.5 0.3
Average Latency (ms) 1.32 0.95
Maximum Latency (ms) 6.3 4.87
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.73 1.3

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

Linode – (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 11,379.00 20,766.00
Queries per second 113,790.00 207,660.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.62 0.37
Average Latency (ms) 0.88 0.48
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.5 4.23
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.14 0.62

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

Linode – (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 12,535.00 21,906.00
Queries per second 125,350.00 219,060.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.59 0.37
Average Latency (ms) 0.8 0.46
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.91 2.93
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.99 0.55

MySQL DELETE

Linode – (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 93,260.00 164,853.00
Queries per second 932,600.00 1,648,530.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.11 0.06
Maximum Latency (ms) 106.79 4.54
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.17 0.09

Redis

Linode – (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second 76,103.50 52,246.60
PING_MBULK per Second 75,930.14 52,826.20
SET per Second 76,923.08 52,083.34
GET per Second 77,579.52 53,134.96
INCR per Second 77,639.75 52,603.89
LPUSH per Second 77,459.34 51,652.89
RPUSH per Second 76,569.68 51,282.05
LPOP per Second 76,103.50 50,684.23
RPOP per Second 77,220.08 51,361.07
SADD per Second 78,554.59 51,413.88
HSET per Second 78,369.91 51,308.36
SPOP per Second 78,864.35 51,948.05
ZADD per Second 75,244.55 50,787.20
ZPOPMIN per Second 72,621.64 51,124.75
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 41,017.23 35,650.62
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 19,712.20 21,385.80
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 12,941.63 15,246.23
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 11,352.03 13,271.40
MSET (10 keys) per Second 65,104.17 49,603.17

Redis Average Latency (ms)

Linode – (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
PING_INLINE0.420.58
PING_MBULK0.410.58
SET0.420.59
GET0.410.58
INCR0.410.58
LPUSH0.420.59
RPUSH0.420.59
LPOP0.430.61
RPOP0.420.60
SADD0.410.59
HSET0.410.59
SPOP0.400.58
ZADD0.430.60
ZPOPMIN0.430.59
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)0.870.87
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)1.701.51
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)2.662.11
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)2.982.47
MSET (10 keys)0.640.66

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

Linode's g6-standard-1 instance with 2 GB RAM outperforms Vultr's High Frequency Intel (1 GB) VPS in overall performance, particularly in CPU-intensive tasks and database operations, as evidenced by the significantly higher CPU event rates per second (738 vs 1419) and better MySQL bulk insert TPS (127606 vs 177200). While Vultr's instance excels in raw I/O throughput with higher reads and writes per second, Linode's superior handling of Redis commands and MySQL operations makes it a better choice for applications that demand robust CPU and memory performance rather than just high I/O rates.

From the friendly human:

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Providers & pricing

Linode overview Vultr overviewLinode (2 GB) pricing Vultr High Frequency Intel (1 GB) pricing

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