Linode Vs. Vultr a comparison of two leading low cost VPS hosting providers
While looking through my Google Webmaster Tools search engine referrals I see that there are several people making their way to my site looking for a comparison of “Linode vs. Vultr”. I thought I would oblige and do a direct comparison between these two virtual private server (VPS) hosting services. So without wasting any more time here’s my comparison of Linode and Vultr.
Linode
Linode has been around for several years and have recently done multiple upgrades to their network. They have a good reputation and are marketing themselves to experienced developers and corporations looking or lower cost “cloud” providers than alternative such as Amazon EC2.
Pros
Low cost
The $10 1GB 1 cpu plan maybe be twice the price as the lowest plan on at Vultr and $3 more expensive that a VPS with 1GB of ram on Vultr. They may not be the least expensive but at $10 it’s still a great value.
Scale Up or Down
Linode offers the ability to scale an individual “node” (Linodes name of a VPS) both up and down as needed. If you’re expecting a holiday rush in November and December you could scale you’re node up at the end of October and then back down at the beginning of January.
5GB Network
Linode offers the fastest network of any lower cost VPS provider. Each server is connected with to a 5GB network and each data center has a 20GB network connection
Fast SSD
The SSD that Linode is using are faster and more consistent that the SSD used by Vultr.
Multiple Data centers
Linode offers data centers in London UK, Tokyo Japan , Newark New Jersey, Atlanta Georgia, Dallas Texas and Fremont California
Load Balancers
Linode offers load balancers.
Server Stats
LongView is the name of Linodes server stats package that you can use to monitor utilization. The free version displays information for the past 12 hours. It very useful in determining if you should upgrade your node or diagnosing any issues that may arise.
Support
The support department seems to be pretty well trained and easily accessible. I’ve had a few questions and they were answered quickly.
Managed Hosting
Managed hosting and hourly system administration are available. A managed VPS is going to cost you $100 per month more than the same package that is self managed.
Cons
Low speed CPU
By no means are they slow but they’re significantly slower than some of their competitors offerings. However the performance is more consistent.
Higher minimum cost
There’s not $5 option the lowest price VPS is $10 on Linode. A similarly configured server with Vultr would cost you $7.
Linode Benchmarks
$10 1GB RAM 1CPU
UnixBench score: 520.1
I/O rate: 693.0 MB/second
Bandwidth rate: 44.1 MB/second
View the full ServerBear Benchmarks for this server.
Vultr
Vultr is relatively new to the VPS market although their parent company Choopa.com has been in he business of leasing dedicated servers around for over a decade and has a relatively good reputation. I haven’t personally deployed anything with them yet although I plan to in the near future. Their benchmarks are very impressive and they have a few unique features that some people may find advantageous.
Pros
Low cost
The $5 VPS with 768MB of RAM is one of the best deals you’re likely to find for VPS with SSD. Linode’s lowest cost server is $10 for 1GB RAM.
Multiple Data centers
At the time of writing Vultr has a total of 14 different data centers around the world. They have data centers in each of the following cities: Chicago Illinois, New Jersey, Dallas Texas, Atlanta Georgia, Miami Florida, Silicon Valley California, Los Angeles California, Seattle Washington, Sydney Australia, Tokyo Japan, Amsterdam Netherlands, Frankfurt Germany, London UK, and Paris France
Support for Windows Servers
They offer support of Windows VPSs at an additional cost or if you have your own license you can create your own disk image and upload it.
Performance
The CPU performance of the Vultr VPS are Great as you will see when you get to the benchmarks.
Cons
Network
The data connection can be slow at times.
Disk IO
Disk IO performance can be inconsistent fast one moment and very slow the next.
Vultr Benchmarks
For the benchmarks I used the benchmark script provided by ServerBear.com
I had a credit on my account that was about to expire so I decided to test the $15 a month plan and $70 a month plans as well. I also ran the same benchmarks on Vultr servers located in Sydney Australia. The results were similar with the exception of the bandwidth rate being much lower.
Vultr 1GB RAM 1 CPU $7 plan
UnixBench score: 2250.4
I/O rate: 447.0 MB/second
Bandwidth rate: 31.3 MB/second
View the full ServerBear Benchmarks for this server.
Vurtr 2GB RAM 2CPU $15 plan
UnixBench score: 2723.4
I/O rate: 378.0 MB/second
Bandwidth rate: 91.6 MB/second
View the full ServerBear Benchmarks for this server.
Vultr 8GB RAM 4CUP $70 plan
UnixBench score: 2707.7
I/O rate: 288.0 MB/second
Bandwidth rate: 81.3 MB/second
View the full ServerBear Benchmark for this server
Conclusions
If you were paying attention you would notice that the $15 plan at Vultr actually outperformed the $70 plan. This highlights the difficulty in benchmarking a VPS depending on how the host server has been configured to allocate resources a server could perform great one moment and horribly the next. Vultr has faster CPUs but slower SSD and a slower network. It’s easier for the VM on the server to find 1 free CPU than it is to find 4 underutilized CPUs.
Recomendations
With the extra CPU power and the ability to host a Windows VPS Vultr’s great. Despite having faster CPUs the majority of websites would actually perform better on Linode due to the faster network and faster SSD. I’m hosting this site on a $10 Linode VPS but as soon as my existing credit is used up I plan on moving it over to Vultr.
use the coupon code “LINODE10” (without the quotes) for $10 credit
use coupon code “SSDVPS” (without the quotes) for $20 in free credit but it must be used within 30 days
If you decide to sign up with either Linode or Vultr and have some questions regarding configuration, security or software recommendations feel free to contact me by either leaving a comment on this page or using the link to the contact form at the top of the page.
After reading through all of this you’ve decided that you would rather leave the management of you server in the hands of professionals have a look at
CloudWays offers VPS management on top of DigitalOcean’s network
That’s it for Linode vs. Vultr. I hope that you’ve found the information in this post helpful. If you’ve noticed a mistake, have a comment, suggestion, would like a custom recommendation let me know in the comments. If you would like to keep updated periodically regarding new content please join my mailing list by filling out the form in the right side navigation. Thank you for reading.
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