Linode Linode (4 GB) vs. Vultr High Performance Intel (2 GB)
My friend, I'm so glad you're here! Today I've spun up brand new instance from Linode and Vultr and ran my world famous suite of benchmarking scripts. All instances were spun up with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and all resided in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Time to see who showed up today.
Overview
| Linode – Linode (4 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Thu, 02 Apr 2026 23:00:52 GMT | Wed, 01 Apr 2026 22:00:52 GMT |
| Linux Distro | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 |
| Kernel Version | 6.8.0-71-generic | 6.8.0-107-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 | $12.00 |
| RAM (GB) | 4 | 2 |
| CPU Cores | 2 | 1 |
| Storage (TB) | 80 | 50 |
| Storage Type | SSD | NVMe |
| Transfer (TB) | 4 | 3 |
CPU
| Linode – Linode (4 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | AuthenticAMD | GenuineIntel |
| Model Name | AMD EPYC 7642 48-Core Processor | Intel Xeon Processor (Cascadelake) |
| Clock Speed (MHz) | 2,300.00 | 2,893.17 |
| CPU Cache Size (KB) | 512.00 | 16,384.00 |
| BogoMips | 4,600.00 | 5,786.33 |
| Events per Second | 1,369.77 | 1,127.24 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.6 | 0.83 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.73 | 0.89 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 10.63 | 2.11 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.14 | 1.08 |
Memory
Memory Read
| Linode – Linode (4 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 5,252,717.06 | 5,259,777.12 |
| Mebibytes per second | 5,129.61 | 5,136.50 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.34 | 0.95 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| Linode – Linode (4 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 5,229,826.82 | 5,214,807.37 |
| Mebibytes per second | 5,107.25 | 5,092.59 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.17 | 0.62 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
File I/O
| Linode – Linode (4 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 2,551.55 | 4,769.60 |
| Writes per Second | 1,701.00 | 3,179.67 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 5,446.72 | 10,181.97 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 39.87 | 74.53 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 26.58 | 49.68 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.1 | 0.05 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.64 | 3.15 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.38 | 0.16 |
Mutex
| Linode – Linode (4 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 587.14 | 1,592.79 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 792.99 | 1,608.05 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 847.02 | 1,620.59 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 846.57 | 1,618.78 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| Linode – Linode (4 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 6,593.00 | 8,200.00 |
| Queries per second | 65,930.00 | 82,000.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.22 | 1.07 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.52 | 1.22 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 4.82 | 3.36 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.7 | 1.7 |
MySQL Write-only
| Linode – Linode (4 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 7,165.00 | 8,216.00 |
| Queries per second | 71,650.00 | 82,160.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.98 | 0.78 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.39 | 1.21 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 5.65 | 3.91 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.82 | 1.79 |
MySQL Read/Write
| Linode – Linode (4 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,558.00 | 3,431.00 |
| Queries per second | 35,580.00 | 34,310.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 2.23 | 2.29 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.81 | 2.91 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 6.25 | 9.17 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.36 | 3.89 |
MySQL INSERT
| Linode – Linode (4 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 9,745.00 | 14,150.00 |
| Queries per second | 97,450.00 | 141,500.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.63 | 0.43 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.02 | 0.7 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 4.78 | 15.85 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.27 | 0.94 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| Linode – Linode (4 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,696,217.00 | 1,317,592.00 |
| Queries per second | 16,962,170.00 | 13,175,920.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0.01 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 288.85 | 350.64 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| Linode – Linode (4 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 143,954.00 | 222,375.00 |
| Queries per second | 1,439,540.00 | 2,223,750.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.04 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.07 | 0.04 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.42 | 1.37 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.09 | 0.07 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| Linode – Linode (4 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 8,738.00 | 6,428.00 |
| Queries per second | 87,380.00 | 64,280.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.43 | 0.49 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.14 | 1.55 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 4.54 | 4.76 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.47 | 2.11 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| Linode – Linode (4 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 7,426.00 | 7,644.00 |
| Queries per second | 74,260.00 | 76,440.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.27 | 0.34 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.35 | 1.31 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 4.64 | 3.31 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.73 | 1.76 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| Linode – Linode (4 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 8,846.00 | 14,581.00 |
| Queries per second | 88,460.00 | 145,810.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.62 | 0.42 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.13 | 0.68 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 40.13 | 3.02 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.42 | 1.01 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| Linode – Linode (4 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 10,257.00 | 15,011.00 |
| Queries per second | 102,570.00 | 150,110.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.62 | 0.42 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.97 | 0.66 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 19.36 | 2.81 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.18 | 0.9 |
MySQL DELETE
| Linode – Linode (4 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 79,900.00 | 125,978.00 |
| Queries per second | 799,000.00 | 1,259,780.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.04 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.12 | 0.08 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 18.09 | 3.88 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.31 | 0.14 |
Redis
| Linode – Linode (4 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 58,004.64 | 47,438.33 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 67,024.13 | 48,007.68 |
| SET per Second | 62,189.05 | 46,992.48 |
| GET per Second | 60,569.35 | 47,687.18 |
| INCR per Second | 55,493.89 | 47,281.32 |
| LPUSH per Second | 60,132.29 | 45,599.63 |
| RPUSH per Second | 59,066.75 | 42,535.09 |
| LPOP per Second | 59,772.86 | 46,685.34 |
| RPOP per Second | 59,988.00 | 46,360.68 |
| SADD per Second | 60,168.47 | 48,192.77 |
| HSET per Second | 59,952.04 | 46,970.41 |
| SPOP per Second | 57,339.45 | 48,053.82 |
| ZADD per Second | 59,311.98 | 41,425.02 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 58,719.91 | 47,236.65 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 45,004.50 | 29,316.92 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 25,568.91 | 15,544.85 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 20,132.88 | 10,083.70 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 17,412.50 | 8,859.75 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 59,988.00 | 43,668.12 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| Linode – Linode (4 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 0.45 | 0.68 |
| PING_MBULK | 0.39 | 0.67 |
| SET | 0.42 | 0.70 |
| GET | 0.43 | 0.69 |
| INCR | 0.51 | 0.70 |
| LPUSH | 0.43 | 0.73 |
| RPUSH | 0.44 | 0.77 |
| LPOP | 0.43 | 0.71 |
| RPOP | 0.43 | 0.71 |
| SADD | 0.43 | 0.68 |
| HSET | 0.43 | 0.70 |
| SPOP | 0.45 | 0.67 |
| ZADD | 0.44 | 0.80 |
| ZPOPMIN | 0.44 | 0.68 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 0.58 | 1.16 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 1.11 | 2.30 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 1.41 | 3.53 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 1.66 | 4.00 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 0.45 | 0.78 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
After analyzing the benchmark results from both the Linode (4 GB) and Vultr High Performance Intel (2 GB) instances, it's clear that the Linode instance provides superior overall performance, especially in CPU-intensive and I/O-heavy workloads due to its higher core count and more substantial RAM. The Linode instance shows better throughput and lower latency in Redis operations, file I/O tasks, and memory operations. However, the Vultr instance, while performing adequately, shows slightly better read performance in MySQL benchmarks and has competitive results in some Redis and general CPU tasks. Ideal use cases for the Linode instance would include demanding applications requiring high throughput and lower latency, such as web servers, databases, and high-frequency trading platforms, while the Vultr instance might be better suited for less resource-intensive applications needing cost-effective solutions with reasonable performance.
From the friendly human:
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