Linode Linode (4 GB) vs. Vultr High Performance Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Same showdown, different day. Today I've spun up brand new instance from Linode and Vultr and ran some benchmarks. Each instance was running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and all resided in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Enough talk. Here's the data.
Overview
| Linode – (4 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:52 GMT | Mon, 01 Jun 2026 09:00:52 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 | $24.00 |
| RAM (GB) | 4 | 4 |
| CPU Cores | 2 | 2 |
| Storage (TB) | 80 | 100 |
| Storage Type | SSD | NVMe |
| Transfer (TB) | 4 | 5 |
CPU
| Linode – (4 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | AuthenticAMD | GenuineIntel |
| Model Name | AMD EPYC 7713 64-Core Processor | Intel Xeon Processor (Cascadelake) |
| Clock Speed (MHz) | 2,000.00 | 2,893.17 |
| CPU Cache Size (KB) | 512.00 | 16,384.00 |
| BogoMips | 3,999.99 | 5,786.33 |
| Events per Second | 3,444.02 | 1,127.22 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.28 | 0.83 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.29 | 0.89 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 4.83 | 1.63 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.3 | 1.03 |
Memory
Memory Read
| Linode – (4 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 5,349,213.60 | 5,076,641.48 |
| Mebibytes per second | 5,223.84 | 4,957.66 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.16 | 0.11 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| Linode – (4 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 5,332,401.09 | 5,199,921.82 |
| Mebibytes per second | 5,207.42 | 5,078.05 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.25 | 0.32 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
File I/O
| Linode – (4 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 3,325.24 | 6,643.48 |
| Writes per Second | 2,216.89 | 4,428.99 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 7,095.98 | 14,178.45 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 51.96 | 103.80 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 34.64 | 69.20 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.08 | 0.04 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 13.12 | 2.72 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.22 | 0.13 |
Mutex
| Linode – (4 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 864.93 | 934.92 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 931.61 | 952.27 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 968.34 | 971.10 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 960.30 | 977.74 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| Linode – (4 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 5,919.00 | 6,936.00 |
| Queries per second | 59,190.00 | 69,360.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.29 | 1.12 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.69 | 1.44 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 8 | 3.44 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.03 | 1.93 |
MySQL Write-only
| Linode – (4 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 5,152.00 | 7,639.00 |
| Queries per second | 51,520.00 | 76,390.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.22 | 0.82 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.94 | 1.31 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 24.88 | 5.39 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.52 | 1.86 |
MySQL Read/Write
| Linode – (4 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 2,609.00 | 3,172.00 |
| Queries per second | 26,090.00 | 31,720.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 2.83 | 2.12 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.83 | 3.15 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 8.83 | 6.4 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4.74 | 4.1 |
MySQL INSERT
| Linode – (4 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 7,493.00 | 12,696.00 |
| Queries per second | 74,930.00 | 126,960.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.73 | 0.43 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.33 | 0.78 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 15.06 | 3.84 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.86 | 1.08 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| Linode – (4 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,754,467.00 | 1,375,842.00 |
| Queries per second | 17,544,670.00 | 13,758,420.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0.01 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 418.75 | 346.5 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| Linode – (4 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 130,180.00 | 183,136.00 |
| Queries per second | 1,301,800.00 | 1,831,360.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.05 | 0.03 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.08 | 0.05 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 4.63 | 0.84 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.1 | 0.08 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| Linode – (4 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 8,212.00 | 5,984.00 |
| Queries per second | 82,120.00 | 59,840.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.33 | 0.39 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.22 | 1.67 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 11.27 | 29.6 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.3 | 2.26 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| Linode – (4 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 8,956.00 | 7,185.00 |
| Queries per second | 89,560.00 | 71,850.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.42 | 0.46 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.12 | 1.39 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 4.66 | 3.38 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.44 | 1.96 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| Linode – (4 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 7,381.00 | 11,973.00 |
| Queries per second | 73,810.00 | 119,730.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.81 | 0.45 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.35 | 0.83 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 8.43 | 4.5 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.76 | 1.23 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| Linode – (4 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 7,379.00 | 12,915.00 |
| Queries per second | 73,790.00 | 129,150.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.82 | 0.43 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.35 | 0.77 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 7.2 | 8.63 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.73 | 1.08 |
MySQL DELETE
| Linode – (4 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 58,502.00 | 107,097.00 |
| Queries per second | 585,020.00 | 1,070,970.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.04 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.17 | 0.09 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 8.26 | 4.34 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.14 | 0.14 |
Redis
| Linode – (4 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 44,444.45 | 59,808.61 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 42,158.52 | 54,614.96 |
| SET per Second | 43,725.41 | 50,916.50 |
| GET per Second | 43,084.88 | 63,171.20 |
| INCR per Second | 43,917.44 | 61,652.28 |
| LPUSH per Second | 44,169.61 | 52,826.20 |
| RPUSH per Second | 42,918.46 | 59,523.81 |
| LPOP per Second | 43,630.02 | 65,359.48 |
| RPOP per Second | 42,900.04 | 59,952.04 |
| SADD per Second | 43,066.32 | 62,344.14 |
| HSET per Second | 42,826.55 | 53,734.55 |
| SPOP per Second | 43,821.21 | 58,038.30 |
| ZADD per Second | 43,706.29 | 61,349.70 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 46,554.93 | 64,308.68 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 30,084.24 | 43,687.20 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 21,141.65 | 21,390.37 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 17,825.31 | 16,374.65 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 15,969.34 | 15,060.24 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 45,578.85 | 58,858.15 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| Linode – (4 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 0.58 | 0.44 |
| PING_MBULK | 0.61 | 0.51 |
| SET | 0.59 | 0.53 |
| GET | 0.60 | 0.43 |
| INCR | 0.59 | 0.43 |
| LPUSH | 0.58 | 0.49 |
| RPUSH | 0.60 | 0.43 |
| LPOP | 0.59 | 0.40 |
| RPOP | 0.60 | 0.43 |
| SADD | 0.60 | 0.45 |
| HSET | 0.60 | 0.48 |
| SPOP | 0.59 | 0.45 |
| ZADD | 0.59 | 0.42 |
| ZPOPMIN | 0.55 | 0.40 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 0.89 | 0.64 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 1.25 | 1.50 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 1.50 | 1.83 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 1.59 | 1.91 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 0.57 | 0.50 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
Based on the benchmark performance, the Vultr High Performance Intel instance shows significantly higher throughput and lower latency in Redis operations compared to the Linode instance, suggesting better performance for I/O-intensive tasks. Vultr also outperforms Linode in CPU operations, file I/O, and MySQL benchmarks, indicating better overall processing power. However, the Linode instance shows minimal variance in thread fairness, suggesting more balanced CPU load distribution. For CPU-intensive and I/O-heavy workloads, the Vultr High Performance Intel instance would generally be the better choice due to its superior throughput and lower latency metrics, while Linode might be more suitable for applications that benefit from consistent and balanced CPU performance across multiple cores.
From the friendly human:
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