Linode Linode (4 GB) vs. Vultr Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Same showdown, different day. Today I've spun up brand new instance from Linode and Vultr and ran my world famous suite of benchmarking scripts. Each instance was running 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
| Linode – (4 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:52 GMT | Sat, 30 May 2026 03:00:52 GMT |
| Linux Distro | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 |
| Kernel Version | 6.8.0-111-generic | 6.8.0-117-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 | Newark, NJ | Newark, NJ |
| Monthly Price | $24.00 | $10.00 |
| RAM (GB) | 4 | 2 |
| CPU Cores | 2 | 1 |
| Storage (TB) | 80 | 50 |
| Storage Type | SSD | SSD |
| Transfer (TB) | 4 | 2 |
CPU
| Linode – (4 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 | 3,791.92 |
| CPU Cache Size (KB) | 512.00 | 16,384.00 |
| BogoMips | 3,999.99 | 7,583.84 |
| Events per Second | 3,444.02 | 1,473.75 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.28 | 0.63 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.29 | 0.68 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 4.83 | 3.12 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.3 | 0.75 |
Memory
Memory Read
| Linode – (4 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 5,349,213.60 | 6,820,350.62 |
| Mebibytes per second | 5,223.84 | 6,660.50 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.16 | 0.31 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| Linode – (4 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 5,332,401.09 | 6,454,818.09 |
| Mebibytes per second | 5,207.42 | 6,303.53 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.25 | 0.66 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
File I/O
| Linode – (4 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 3,325.24 | 4,389.79 |
| Writes per Second | 2,216.89 | 2,926.52 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 7,095.98 | 9,376.39 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 51.96 | 68.59 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 34.64 | 45.73 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.08 | 0.06 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 13.12 | 31.02 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.22 | 0.17 |
Mutex
| Linode – (4 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 864.93 | 1,262.77 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 931.61 | 1,272.88 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 968.34 | 1,285.30 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 960.30 | 1,280.93 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| Linode – (4 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 5,919.00 | 9,122.00 |
| Queries per second | 59,190.00 | 91,220.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.29 | 0.92 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.69 | 1.09 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 8 | 3.36 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.03 | 1.5 |
MySQL Write-only
| Linode – (4 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 5,152.00 | 6,552.00 |
| Queries per second | 51,520.00 | 65,520.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.22 | 0.68 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.94 | 1.52 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 24.88 | 263.27 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.52 | 1.61 |
MySQL Read/Write
| Linode – (4 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 2,609.00 | 3,107.00 |
| Queries per second | 26,090.00 | 31,070.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 2.83 | 2.29 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.83 | 3.22 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 8.83 | 47.81 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4.74 | 4.18 |
MySQL INSERT
| Linode – (4 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 7,493.00 | 15,510.00 |
| Queries per second | 74,930.00 | 155,100.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.73 | 0.39 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.33 | 0.64 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 15.06 | 16.42 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.86 | 0.87 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| Linode – (4 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,754,467.00 | 1,463,217.00 |
| Queries per second | 17,544,670.00 | 14,632,170.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0.01 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 418.75 | 376.55 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| Linode – (4 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 130,180.00 | 210,316.00 |
| Queries per second | 1,301,800.00 | 2,103,160.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.05 | 0.04 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.08 | 0.05 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 4.63 | 1.67 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.1 | 0.07 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| Linode – (4 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 8,212.00 | 8,048.00 |
| Queries per second | 82,120.00 | 80,480.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.33 | 0.37 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.22 | 1.24 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 11.27 | 4.78 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.3 | 1.96 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| Linode – (4 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 8,956.00 | 8,555.00 |
| Queries per second | 89,560.00 | 85,550.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.42 | 0.32 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.12 | 1.17 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 4.66 | 5.25 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.44 | 2.48 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| Linode – (4 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 7,381.00 | 11,650.00 |
| Queries per second | 73,810.00 | 116,500.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.81 | 0.4 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.35 | 0.86 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 8.43 | 39.27 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.76 | 1.39 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| Linode – (4 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 7,379.00 | 13,004.00 |
| Queries per second | 73,790.00 | 130,040.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.82 | 0.4 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.35 | 0.77 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 7.2 | 13.05 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.73 | 1.1 |
MySQL DELETE
| Linode – (4 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 58,502.00 | 110,717.00 |
| Queries per second | 585,020.00 | 1,107,170.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.04 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.17 | 0.09 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 8.26 | 25.53 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.14 | 0.13 |
Redis
| Linode – (4 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 44,444.45 | 52,882.07 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 42,158.52 | 55,218.11 |
| SET per Second | 43,725.41 | 53,191.49 |
| GET per Second | 43,084.88 | 53,705.69 |
| INCR per Second | 43,917.44 | 52,273.91 |
| LPUSH per Second | 44,169.61 | 46,904.32 |
| RPUSH per Second | 42,918.46 | 52,002.08 |
| LPOP per Second | 43,630.02 | 53,078.56 |
| RPOP per Second | 42,900.04 | 52,742.62 |
| SADD per Second | 43,066.32 | 52,938.06 |
| HSET per Second | 42,826.55 | 53,106.74 |
| SPOP per Second | 43,821.21 | 50,403.23 |
| ZADD per Second | 43,706.29 | 49,726.51 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 46,554.93 | 53,504.55 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 30,084.24 | 34,770.52 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 21,141.65 | 17,091.10 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 17,825.31 | 11,966.02 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 15,969.34 | 10,231.23 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 45,578.85 | 49,358.34 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| Linode – (4 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 0.58 | 0.62 |
| PING_MBULK | 0.61 | 0.58 |
| SET | 0.59 | 0.62 |
| GET | 0.60 | 0.61 |
| INCR | 0.59 | 0.63 |
| LPUSH | 0.58 | 0.71 |
| RPUSH | 0.60 | 0.63 |
| LPOP | 0.59 | 0.63 |
| RPOP | 0.60 | 0.63 |
| SADD | 0.60 | 0.62 |
| HSET | 0.60 | 0.62 |
| SPOP | 0.59 | 0.65 |
| ZADD | 0.59 | 0.67 |
| ZPOPMIN | 0.55 | 0.62 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 0.89 | 0.98 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 1.25 | 2.06 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 1.50 | 2.98 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 1.59 | 3.47 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 0.57 | 0.70 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
When comparing the benchmarks of the Linode and Vultr instances, the Linode instance (4 GB) significantly outperforms the Vultr instance (2 GB) in most metrics, particularly in CPU performance, memory operations, and Redis operations. The Linode instance demonstrates superior efficiency in handling CPU-intensive tasks, memory read/write operations, and Redis commands, with lower latencies and higher requests per second (rps). Conversely, the Vultr instance, while providing respectable performance, is limited by its single CPU core and lower memory capacity, resulting in slower performance for tasks requiring substantial computational power. Therefore, the Linode instance is ideal for high-performance workloads that benefit from multiple CPU cores and ample RAM, such as large-scale applications, databases, and high-traffic web services, whereas the Vultr instance is more suited for less demanding applications or as a cost-effective solution for smaller, less resource-intensive tasks.
From the friendly human:
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