Hostgator(shared) vs DigitalOcean vs Linode – with PHP benchmark

Hostgator shared hosting plan – what I am moving away form:

Putting Host Gator in here is not a very fair comparison because I was on their shared hosting plan, not their VPS plan which would be $40 a month..

photo (3)

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|        PHP BENCHMARK SCRIPT        |
--------------------------------------
Start : 2014-08-21 01:38:29
Server : ~~~~~~~~~
PHP version : 5.2.17
Platform : Linux
--------------------------------------
test_math                 : 2.719 sec.
test_stringmanipulation   : 3.027 sec.
test_loops                : 3.206 sec.
test_ifelse               : 2.983 sec.
--------------------------------------
Total time:               : 11.935 sec.

On the other hand the two setups below are nearly identical… both fresh servers with the same software packages installed.

Digital Ocean 1GB VPS ($10 a month)

Referral Link – Use this link to get $10 in free hosting, and I get $20 if you stay with them for a time.

digitalocean

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|        PHP BENCHMARK SCRIPT        |
--------------------------------------
Start : 2014-08-21 02:26:11
Server : ~~~~~~~~~
PHP version : 5.5.9-1ubuntu4.3
Platform : Linux
--------------------------------------
test_math                 : 1.327 sec.
test_stringmanipulation   : 1.409 sec.
test_loops                : 0.841 sec.
test_ifelse               : 0.654 sec.
--------------------------------------
Total time:               : 4.231 sec.

Linode 1GB VPS ($10 a month) – going to use them

Referral Link – Use this link to signup for Linode and help me out at the same time 😉
you can also enter in LINODE10 into the promotional code box to get $10 in free hosting added. – not sure if this code will work forever

 

 

--------------------------------------
|        PHP BENCHMARK SCRIPT        |
--------------------------------------
Start : 2014-08-21 06:59:53
Server : ~~~~~~~~~
PHP version : 5.5.9-1ubuntu4.3
Platform : Linux
--------------------------------------
test_math                 : 1.183 sec.
test_stringmanipulation   : 1.265 sec.
test_loops                : 0.745 sec.
test_ifelse               : 0.572 sec.
--------------------------------------
Total time:               : 3.765 sec.

 

http://www.php-benchmark-script.com/


To update this I ended up dropping DigitalOcean all together because of a few issues: one was being unable to downsize my “droplet” (instance) – basically you cant downsize it! only go up.. And Linode allows you to share bandwidth between instances you host with them, meaning if I have 2x $10 instances each with 2TB bandwidth per month it gets pooled together and they can use 4TB combined, which is nice if one server ends up needing more than the other.. DigitalOcean does not have this feature.

DigitalOcean also seemed to be noticeably slower latency wise running my sites – this may just be on their SF servers, which may be nearing max capacity, I didn’t try any other server locations.

Another HUGE difference is the vastly superior and more powerfull user interface that Linode gives you – DigitalOcean tries to make everything super simple, but in the process removes tons of options that you may(will) eventually wish they have. Linode has these to start with and everything that I have tried works great! You can resize virtual disks all from their online GUI, shutdown/restart the server in a safe manner, view free graphs of real-time server stats etc.. Their free DNS service is 100x better than the DO version. Again it comes down allot to user interface design choices – DO tries to make everything so simple and “clean” looking to the point of removing vital features and making something that if implemented differently could be a one click change into a 3 click process.

Ok rant done 😉

2 thoughts on “Hostgator(shared) vs DigitalOcean vs Linode – with PHP benchmark

  1. The review is a little bit unfair… you are using php 5.2 in hostgator and php 5.5 in the other servers… That makes a huge difference!

    1. I did not have control of the hostgator PHP version as it is shared hosting, they have to update the PHP version for me.. I do mention that it is not totally fair above the hostgator section, It is what it is, not trying to hide anything though..

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