This post compares the performance of Cloudways DigitalOcean Vs Vultr vs Vultr HF Vs Linode by deploying a test site on each cloud provider.
Years back, I signed up with Cloudways and tested their DigitalOcean plan.
In recent times, 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
- PHP 8.1
- Contact form 7
- Rank Math SEO
- Breeze caching plugin by default.
- Akismet
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 Pingdom synthetic monitoring tool to calculate the average server response time (TTFB).
- Uptime: We use the above same Pingdom data to measure the uptime.
- Load Testing: 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.
Quick Summary
- All five test sites recorded a similar TTFB score, so, there is not much difference in terms of TTFB.
- We did a 500 constant client load test. Cloudways DigitalOcean Premium and Vultr HF performed equally faster.
- 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 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.
Contents
Cloudways DigitalOcean Vs Vultr Vs Linode
Test 1 – Server Response Time (TTFB)
The server response time (TTFB) is the first thing one must test before choosing a hosting. For this test, the demo sites are monitored 60 seconds once from 20 USA locations. The scores are averaged from all locations, and the average response time is calculated.
Based on 12 months of performance data (January 1, 2023 – December 31, 2023), the average response time of Cloudways based on the different cloud providers are
| 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:
Summary: Cloudways DigitalOcean, Linode, and Vultr offers a similar TTFB speed.
Winner: All.
Test 2 – Uptime
The test sites are checked every 60 seconds from 22 locations to measure the uptime. Based on the last 12 months of data, the 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% |
Summary: All the Cloudways providers like DigitalOcean, Linode, and Vultr offer 99.99% uptime. However, Cloudways Premium and Standard just had one outage with 1-2 minutes of downtime in the whole year. In the case of Vultr, there are 3-4 outages with downtime ranging from 4-17 minutes. The Cloudways Linode, too, had two outages ranging for 4 minutes, but it was not as bad as Vultr. So, my choices will be DigitalOcean, Linode, and Vultr.
Winner: Cloudways DigitalOcean.
Test 3 – Load Testing
Load testing is the most important parameter for checking the performance of a web server. 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.
Summary: DigitalOcean Premium and Vultr HF secured the top spot with an average response time of 245 ms. Cloudways standard comes third with 275 ms, Vultr comes fourth with 380 ms. Linode is the only host that had a timeout error and got a response time of 1127 ms.
Winner: Cloudways DigitalOcean Premium and Vultr HF.
Changelog:
April 10, 2024: We tested the latest Cloudways Autonomous plan. They offer a greater load handling compared to any other cloud providers tested above. Check out the reviews.
Test 4 – Core Web Vitals
The sites are tested against the Core Web Vitals metrics like 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 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, the sites are tested from global locations to measure the TTFB. If your site gets global traffic, then these results are much useful to assess which server is best for you.
The global TTFB results are similar, just like 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, their uptime are not best in recent years.
The Linode look good but the failed miserably in the load test. This is the first time, they’re showing a timeout in my last few years of testing.
If pricing is a concern, Cloudways standard is a great option to get started. If you compare both Cloudways premium and standard, the Premium excels only in load handling while the uptime and TTFB are 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.comChangelog:
April 10, 2024: The old 5-month data from August 31, 2022 – January 31, 2023, is replaced with the new 1-year data from January 1, 2023 – 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.
