DigitalOcean, Linode, and Vultr are the three names that come up almost every time someone asks “which cheap VPS should I get?” They’re also the three where the marketing copy is nearly identical, and where an honest answer takes more than a pricing table. So that’s what this page is: the same tier on all three, measured the same way, and a verdict you can act on.
We rent these boxes on paid accounts, run the same workloads, and write down what actually happens. When we haven’t measured something, we say so — we don’t estimate a number into a benchmark page. Here’s how the comparison shakes out.
Why these three (and not “best hosting”)
“Best VPS hosting” posts usually rank ten providers you’ll never buy alongside each other, which makes the winner a coin flip. This page is narrower and more useful: you have the budget for one real cloud VM around the entry tier, and you’re deciding between the two or three that most people actually end up choosing.
At that budget the differences that matter are rarely raw specs — on paper these plans are close. What separates them is:
- What you actually get for $6 — one provider’s $6 tier isn’t equivalent to another’s.
- Where your users are — region coverage decides latency, and the three are not equal here.
- Day-two experience — API, CLI, docs, and how fast you can move without touching a browser.
- Managed add-ons — whether you can grow into a database or Kubernetes without leaving the platform.
We also don’t pretend the verdict is neutral in the sense that all three are equally good. They’re good at different things, and we say which.
One thing up front: some links on this page are affiliate links. They don’t change any verdict here — if a provider is a poor fit for your workload, the conclusion says so. See our affiliate disclosure and how we test.
If you want the whole category, start at the hosting reviews and single-provider reviews. This page is the head-to-head; those are the deep dives.
How we tested
Every figure on this site follows the same discipline: rent the box on a paid plan, install a clean OS, run the benchmark, record the command, date, and result. If we haven’t run it, the number isn’t here. This is the standard we hold every post to, and it’s the reason the numbers below are useful to you and not just to us.
The benchmark set for this comparison:
- CPU (single- and multi-thread):
sysbench cpu --threads=1and--threads=Non a clean install, repeated at different times of day to see how the shared vCPU behaves when noisy neighbours are active. - Memory:
sysbench memoryfor throughput on writes and reads. - Disk: sequential and random I/O (
fio), because a 25 GB NVMe on one provider is not the same as a 25 GB SSD on another. - Network:
iperf3from the instance to a fixed target in the same region, plus a latency probe to a public endpoint from each geography.
On paid plans, not free tiers. Free credits and sandboxes are throttled and don’t reflect what a paying customer gets.
The plan specs below are official, from each provider’s own pricing page. The measured throughput numbers are being collected on live accounts and are published as each run completes at different times of day. Where a cell isn’t filled, it means we haven’t recorded a figure yet — not that the number is zero, and not that we guessed. See the methodology for the full command set.
Pricing and plans
The honest starting point: all three sell a 1 vCPU / 1 GiB cloud VM, but the price tag on that exact config differs, and the storage and transfer that ride along are not the same either.
| Provider | Plan | $/mo | vCPU | RAM | Storage | Transfer | Network |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DigitalOcean | Basic | $6.00 | 1 | 1 GiB | 25 GiB SSD | 1,000 GiB | — |
| Vultr | High Performance | $6.00 | 1 | 1 GB | 25 GB NVMe | 2 TB | — |
| Linode (Akamai) | Nanode 1 GB | $5.00 | 1 | 1 GB | 25 GB SSD | 1 TB | 40 Gbps in / 1 Gbps out |
DigitalOcean’s Basic $6 plan is 1 vCPU, 1 GiB RAM, 25 GiB SSD, and 1,000 GiB transfer.[1] Vultr’s High Performance $6 plan is 1 vCPU, 1 GB RAM, 25 GB NVMe, and 2 TB of transfer.[2] Linode’s entry tier is the Nanode 1 GB at $5/mo — 1 vCPU, 1 GB, 25 GB SSD, 1 TB transfer, with a 40 Gbps inbound / 1 Gbps outbound port.[3] So the “$6 droplet” headline really maps to DigitalOcean and Vultr; Linode’s closest equivalent is a dollar cheaper.
That difference doesn’t sound like much, but for a box you’ll keep running for a year it builds up, and the transfer delta matters if you’re serving media. Scaled up, the pattern holds:
| Size | DigitalOcean (Basic) | Vultr (High Performance) | Linode (Shared) |
|---|---|---|---|
| ~1 GB | $6.00 | $6.00 | $5.00 |
| ~2 GB | $12.00 | $12.00 | $12.00 |
| ~4 GB | $24.00 | $24.00 | $24.00 |
| ~8 GB | $48.00 | $48.00 | $48.00 |
The prices track each other closely through the mid range; the interesting divergences are at the extremes and in the add-ons. Prices move, so confirm on the provider’s own page before you commit — these figures were read off the pages above on the date this was written.[1][2][3]
Start with a $6 droplet — this is a genuinely fine place to begin for a side project, and you can scale up or out later without changing the plan family:
CPU & memory benchmarks (single / multi-core)
All three of these are shared vCPU plans. That’s the single most important thing to understand about entry-tier pricing: you’re buying a slice of a physical core that other customers also use, not a dedicated core. On the $4–$6 tier, none of the three give you a guaranteed dedicated thread.
What that means in practice:
- Burst capacity differs. A shared vCPU can deliver a short burst well above its “fair share,” then throttle when the host is busy. This is why single-core numbers drift between runs and why we repeat them at different hours.
- The host generation matters more than the brand. Vultr’s High Performance line runs recent AMD EPYC or Intel Xeon on NVMe,[2] and DigitalOcean’s Basic plans sit on shared CPUs. The gap between “last-gen shared” and “current-gen shared” is usually bigger than the gap between any two providers at the same price.
- For a single-threaded workload (a web request, a Node process, PHP-FPM) the single-core score is what decides whether requests feel snappy. For builds, image processing, or database queries you care about the multi-core number.
Within the budget, the workflow that matters for most readers — a small Node or PHP app — is single-threaded most of the time. That’s why we weight the single-core result heavily in the verdicts.
Security note for the small box: at 1 GB, memory pressure is the real enemy. A 1 GB instance will run a small app, but it will swap, and swap on a VPS is painful. If you’re deploying a Node or Next.js app, 2 GB is the comfortable floor — our deploy guide walks through sizing and the exact next build memory check.
We publish the recorded single- and multi-core results here once the repeated runs at different times of day are finished, with the command and date per our methodology. Until a figure is recorded, we won’t print one.
Network: US / EU / LATAM / Asia
This is where the three genuinely diverge, and it’s the part most comparison posts gloss over.
DigitalOcean offers Basic Droplets across 16 datacenters — several in the US (New York, San Francisco, Atlanta, Richmond, Kansas City, Memphis), Toronto, three in Europe (Amsterdam, London, Frankfurt), Singapore and Sydney, and Bangalore in India.[4] Notably, there is no Latin America Droplet region — a São Paulo or Buenos Aires user will always cross a long haul link.
Vultr has the widest footprint of the three, with 33 cloud data center regions.[5] That includes Latin America (São Paulo, Santiago, Mexico City) and Africa (Johannesburg), places the other two don’t cover, plus a Europe/Asia spread that’s broader than DigitalOcean’s.
Linode (Akamai) sits in between on coverage but is strong where it matters: regions across North America, Europe, Asia, and South America (São Paulo), plus Oceania.[6] For a Latin American audience, both Vultr and Linode give you an in-region option; DigitalOcean doesn’t.
| Geography | DigitalOcean | Vultr | Linode |
|---|---|---|---|
| US/Canada | Yes (multiple) | Yes (multiple) | Yes (multiple) |
| Europe | 3 regions | Multiple | Multiple |
| Asia | Singapore, Sydney, Bangalore | Multiple | Singapore, Tokyo, Osaka, Chennai, Mumbai, Jakarta |
| Latin America | No | São Paulo, Santiago, Mexico City | São Paulo |
| Africa | No | Johannesburg | No |
Transfer allowance at the entry tier also differs: 1,000 GiB on DigitalOcean,[1] 2 TB on Vultr High Performance,[2] and 1 TB on the Linode Nanode.[3] If you’re serving video, images, or large downloads, Vultr’s 2 TB at the same price is the headroom win. Beyond the included transfer, Vultr charges a flat $0.01/GB for egress overage.[10] Check the provider’s own page for the current overage rate before you plan a high-egress workload.
Latency is a measurement, not a spec, so we don’t quote round-trip numbers from memory. We record iperf3 throughput and ICMP latency to the nearest region per geography on the live accounts; those results fill in as the runs complete.
API, CLI & developer experience
All three are developer-first and ship a full public API, an official CLI, and a Terraform provider, so you can deploy from the terminal or code. That’s the real reason they beat a random shared host for anyone who ships.
- DigitalOcean —
doctlis the official CLI, with a mature API and marketplace. The control panel is clean, and the docs are among the friendliest in the category.[7] - Vultr —
vultr-clicovers the same ground, and the API is straightforward. Its billing is hourly with a 672-hour monthly cap, which makes it easy to spin up a box for a job and tear it down without overspending.[2] - Linode (Akamai) — the Linode CLI and Akamai Cloud Manager are strong, and the technical documentation has always been a standout. The pricing is flat and predictable; combined with the cheapest egress overage in the group, that makes forecasting a bill easier.
For an agency juggling many client boxes, CLI and API quality stops being a nice-to-have and becomes the whole point. Any of the three will do; the deciding factor tends to be how much you value the docs (Linode) versus the widest region coverage (Vultr).
Uptime & support observation window
We don’t publish an uptime percentage we haven’t observed, and we haven’t run any of these boxes for months yet — so there’s no fabricated 99.99% claim here. What we can say honestly:
- All three are mature, widely-used providers and publish an SLA and a public status page.
- We monitor our instances and log downtime and support response times on the live accounts. That data builds over the observation window and is published alongside the benchmarks when it’s meaningful.
- For an entry-tier side project, uptime between these three is not a meaningfully different risk; the bigger risk is infra misconfiguration on your side.
Support quality matters most when something breaks at an awkward hour. We record response and resolution times from real tickets rather than quoting marketing promises. Where a provider’s documented support tier matters (e.g., Linode’s 24/7 human support included by default), we cite that as a feature, not as a measured response time.
Managed add-ons (databases, Kubernetes, object storage)
The entry-tier compute is cheap, but the moment you need a database, a cache, or an orchestrator, the ecosystem decides a lot.
- DigitalOcean — Managed PostgreSQL/MySQL/Redis/MongoDB from $15/mo for a single node,[8][9] managed Kubernetes (DOKS) with a free control plane, Spaces object storage, and block volumes. This is the most finished managed ecosystem of the three.
- Vultr — Managed Databases from $15/mo, managed Kubernetes (VKE), and object storage. Pair with 33 regions and you can place the database close to users.[11]
- Linode (Akamai) — Managed MySQL/PostgreSQL at $16/mo for a single 1 GB node, managed Kubernetes (LKE), Object Storage, and backups. Its managed database pricing for shared nodes is competitive; dedicated/HA tiers are pricier.[3]
For a Node app you’ll grow, a managed Postgres at $15–$16/mo on top of a $6 droplet is a reasonable first step, and it removes the backup/patching/availability work that owning a database on a 1 GB box would otherwise force on you.
Verdict by use case
| Workload | Pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Node / Next.js app | DigitalOcean or Vultr | Same price, good docs, and a finished managed-ecosystem path when you outgrow the droplet. |
| WordPress blog or brochure site | Linode (Akamai) | Cheapest entry, flat predictable pricing, and the best docs for a single-site owner. |
| Side project / learning to deploy | Vultr | Widest region coverage, hourly billing, and $6 gets you NVMe plus 2 TB transfer. |
| Agency client box (many sites) | Linode or DigitalOcean | Strong CLI/API and predictable billing; pick Linode for the cheapest egress and docs, DigitalOcean for the managed add-on breadth. |
| Latency-sensitive users in LATAM | Vultr or Linode | Both have São Paulo; DigitalOcean has no Latin America region. |
| High-egress / media serving | Vultr | 2 TB at the entry tier and $0.01/GB overage.[10] |
The honest bottom line: none of the three is “the best.” For a single $6 box, the decision is mostly about where your users are and whether you’ll grow into managed add-ons. If you need a Latin America region, that alone removes DigitalOcean. If you want the cheapest entry and flat pricing, Linode. If you want the widest choice of where to deploy, Vultr.
Migrating between them
Switching providers is a real thing you’ll do at least once, and it’s not scary.
- Same OS, same workload. Since all three run standard Linux images, a migration is mostly moving the data and pointing DNS.
rsyncthe app and database out, import it on the new box, then repoint the DNS record. - Use the snapshot/images path. All three let you take a snapshot of your instance; you can often download it and upload it to the other provider’s import. That’s the least-fiddly route for a simple box.
- Grab the IP sooner rather than later. Move the database first, then the app, then cut DNS. The moment you control the DNS TTL, you can move with a tiny cutover window.
We’ve published a full VPS deployment walkthrough and a Docker vs raw VPS decision guide if you’re figuring out the target setup before you move. If you’re still deciding between a VPS and a shared plan at all, our VPS vs shared hosting comparison covers the real difference.[12]
Sources
- DigitalOcean — Droplet pricing (Basic: 1 vCPU / 1 GiB / 25 GiB SSD / 1,000 GiB transfer, $6/mo). https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets — checked 2026-09-27
- Vultr — Cloud Compute pricing (High Performance: 1 vCPU / 1 GB / 25 GB NVMe / 2 TB, $6/mo; 672-hour monthly cap; egress overage $0.01/GB). https://www.vultr.com/pricing/ — checked 2026-09-27
- Akamai Cloud (Linode) — Compute pricing (Nanode 1 GB: 1 CPU / 1 GB / 25 GB / 1 TB, $5/mo, 40 Gbps in / 1 Gbps out; managed MySQL/PostgreSQL Shared 1 GB node $16/mo). https://www.akamai.com/cloud/pricing/north-america — checked 2026-09-27
- DigitalOcean — Droplet availability (16 datacenters for Basic Droplets: NYC, AMS, SFO, SGP, LON, FRA, TOR, BLR, SYD, ATL, RIC, MKC, MEM). https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/droplets/details/availability/ — checked 2026-09-27
- Vultr — Data center regions (33 regions; São Paulo, Santiago, Mexico City, Johannesburg, Seoul, and more). https://www.vultr.com/features/datacenter-regions/ — checked 2026-09-27
- Akamai Cloud — Distributed cloud computing by region. https://www.linode.com/global-infrastructure/availability — checked 2026-09-27
- DigitalOcean — CLI (
doctl) and documentation. https://docs.digitalocean.com/reference/doctl/ — checked 2026-09-27 - DigitalOcean — Managed Databases pricing (PostgreSQL single-node from $15/mo). https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/databases/postgresql/details/pricing/ — checked 2026-09-27
- DigitalOcean — Managed Databases pricing page. https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/managed-databases — checked 2026-09-27
- Vultr — Regular Performance Compute (egress overage $0.01/GB worldwide). https://www.vultr.com/products/regular-performance-compute/ — checked 2026-09-27
- Vultr — Managed Databases (starting at $15/mo). https://www.vultr.com/products/managed-databases/ — checked 2026-09-27
- DeploySmith — VPS vs Shared Hosting. https://deploysmith.dev/hosting/vps-vs-shared-hosting/ — 2026-09-27
- DigitalOcean — Affiliate program. https://www.digitalocean.com/affiliates — checked 2026-09-27
- Akamai Cloud — Referral program. https://www.linode.com/referral-program — checked 2026-09-27