Cloudways DigitalOcean Vs Vultr Vs Linode: 12 Months Performance Data
This post compares the performance of Cloudways DigitalOcean, Vultr, Vultr HF and Linode by deploying a test site on each cloud provider.
Years back, I signed up with Cloudways and tested their DigitalOcean plan.
Recently, I’ve been getting requests to compare it with other Cloudways hosting providers. So, I bought a hosting account with other services like Linode, Vultr, and Vultr HF and deployed a WordPress site with our custom setup.
I use the following setup on all five sites:
- Twenty Twenty-Four WordPress Theme
- Contact form 7
- Rank Math SEO
- Breeze caching plugin by default.
- Akismet
- PHP 8.1
Now, the test sites are put into five different types of testing, and they are
- Server Response Time (TTFB): The test site is monitored every 60 seconds once from 22 USA locations through the Pingdom synthetic monitoring tool to calculate the average server response time (TTFB).
- Uptime: We use the same Pingdom data above to measure the uptime.
- Load Testing: A 500 constant client load is sent to test the load handling.
- Core Web Vitals: Using Gtmetrix, the scores are calculated.
- Global TTFB: The global TTFB is calculated from 10 different locations.
1. Cloudways Digital Ocean, Vultr, and all other test sites recorded a similar TTFB scores, so there is not much difference in TTFB.
2. We did a 500-constant client load test. Cloudways DigitalOcean Premium and Vultr HF performed equally faster.
3. Vultr HF and Vultr had the highest downtimes compared to others. DigitalOcean had the least downtime of 1-2 minutes.
Core Web Vitals and Global TTFB scores are similar, and everyone is the winner.
Based on the data, I recommend Cloudways DigitalOcean Premium. Don’t forget to use our Cloudways Promo Code for $30 free hosting credits.
Many sites recommend Vultr over DigitalOcean, but there are no statistics to prove it. Our historical performance proves that both DigitalOcean and Vultr are equally good, but Vultr is prone to more downtimes, making Cloudways DigitalOcean the best choice.
Cloudways DigitalOcean Vs Vultr Vs Linode: Performance tests
Test 1 – Server Response Time (TTFB)
The server response time (TTFB) is the first thing to test on any hosting provider. To calculate the average TTFB, all our test sites are pinged 60 seconds once from 22 North American regions.
Based on 12 months of performance data (January 1, 2023 – December 31, 2023), the average response times of different cloud providers are very similar. This is probably due to the optimized WordPress setup provided by Cloudways.
| Cloudways Plans | Response Time (TTFB) |
|---|---|
| DigitalOcean Standard | 332 ms |
| DigitalOcean Premium | 339 ms |
| Vultr | 330 ms |
| Vultr HF | 331 ms |
| Linode | 332 ms |
TTFB reports with screenshots:
Winner: All.
Test 2 – Uptime
Like the TTFB test, the uptime is measured by pinging the test sites every 60 seconds from 22 North American regions. The 12-month average uptime of all the sites is 99.99% (Refer to the above Pingdom data for uptime results.)
| Cloudways Plans | Uptime |
|---|---|
| Digital Ocean Standard | 99.99% |
| Digital Ocean Premium | 99.99% |
| Linode | 99.99% |
| Vultr | 99.99% |
| Vultr HF | 99.99% |
Trivia: In simple numbers, every cloud provider offers 99.99% uptime. But if you look deeply into the outages, DigitalOcean Premium and Standard had just 1-2 minutes of outages during the whole year. However, Vultr had multiple downtimes ranging from 4 to 17 minutes. Cloudways Linode also had two outages, which were not as bad as Vultr. So, Cloudways DigitalOcean is the winner.
Test 3 – Load Testing
Load testing is another critical test to see how well the servers can handle bulk traffic. In this “Maintain Client Load” test, I’ll distribute 500 constant client loads to the site for a minute to measure the average response time. The lower response time means server is faster.
DigitalOcean Premium and Vultr HF secured the top spot with an average response time of 245 ms. Cloudways standard comes third with 275 ms, and Vultr comes fourth with 380 ms. Linode is the only host with a timeout error and got a response time of 1127 ms.
Winner: Cloudways DigitalOcean Premium and Vultr HF.
Test 4 – Core Web Vitals
The sites are tested against Core Web Vitals metrics such as Largest Contentful Paint, Total Blocking Time, and Cumulative Layout Shift.
The results are almost identical. The Cloudways DigitalOcean and Vultr HF secured the top spot with the lesser Largest Contentful Paint score.
| Cloudways Cloud | LCP | TBT | CLS |
|---|---|---|---|
| DigitalOcean Standard | 412 ms | 0ms | 0 |
| DigitalOcean Premium | 389 ms | 0ms | 0 |
| Linode | 491 ms | 0ms | 0 |
| Vultr | 402 ms | 0ms | 0 |
| Vultr HF | 388 ms | 0ms | 0 |
Test 5 – Global TTFB
In this global TTFB test, sites are tested from global locations to measure the TTFB. If your site gets global traffic, then these results are useful for assessing which server is best for you.
The global TTFB results are similar to the USA TTFB test. The Overall global TTFB of each host is Digital Ocean Standard (369.81 ms), Premium (365.07ms), Vultr (359.45 ms), Vultr HF (364.49 ms), and Linode (368.54 ms). There is just a 10 ms difference between each host.
| Data | DO Standard | DO Premium | Vultr | Vultr HF | Linode |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New York | 15.88 | 19.18 | 19.4 | 16.03 | 19.58 |
| Dallas | 132.76 | 138.56 | 124.32 | 139.38 | 145.77 |
| San Francisco | 204.62 | 221.16 | 230.07 | 218.14 | 221.6 |
| London | 219.58 | 242.2 | 227.18 | 243.78 | 237.65 |
| Amsterdam | 252.69 | 255.5 | 255.67 | 251.85 | 249.99 |
| Frankfurt | 284.72 | 280.93 | 272.22 | 263.54 | 272.07 |
| Bangalore | 676.88 | 635.57 | 612.69 | 672.53 | 719.8 |
| Singapore | 743.68 | 683.53 | 681.4 | 645.31 | 656.73 |
| Tokyo | 525.6 | 526.36 | 464.32 | 459.09 | 530.89 |
| Sydney | 641.72 | 647.68 | 707.27 | 735.33 | 631.33 |
| Average (in ms) | 369.81 ms | 365.07ms | 359.45 ms | 364.49 ms | 368.54 ms |
Which Cloud Provider is Good at Cloudways?
Certainly, Cloudways DigitalOcean Premium is the best. Though Vultr HF looks good, equivalent to DO premium, its uptime has not been the best in recent years.
The Linode looks good, but it failed miserably in the load test. This is the first time they’ve shown a timeout in my last few years of testing.
If pricing is a concern, Cloudways standard is an excellent starting option. If you compare Cloudways premium and standard, the Premium excels only in load handling, while the uptime and TTFB are the same for both.
You can support us by getting an account with Cloudways through our links. It helps us to keep running our servers to perform recurring tests. Don’t forget to enter our coupon BIO25 to get $30 free credits applicable on your first billing month. Visit Cloudways.com
Changelog:
September 10, 2024: Improved content accuracy.
April 10, 2024: We tested the latest Cloudways Autonomous plan. They offer greater load handling than any other cloud provider tested above. Check out the reviews.
April 10, 2024: The old 5-month data from August 31, 2022, to January 31, 2023, is replaced with the new 1-year data from January 1, 2023, to December 31, 2023.
April 10, 2024: Removed 1000 constant client load, as it offers similar results to 500 constant client load.
April 10, 2024: New load testing is done on this date to get a refreshed load testing data. The results are updated on the page on the same day.
Ask us about your hosting needs. We’ll match them to our performance data to find the best hosting for you.