Benchmark and Performance Testing

Measure your VPS performance: CPU, RAM, disk I/O, network and latency. Practical tools to compare plans.

CPU Benchmark

sysbench (recommended)

apt install sysbench -y   # Debian/Ubuntu
dnf install sysbench -y   # AlmaLinux/CentOS

# Single-thread CPU test
sysbench cpu --threads=1 run

# Multi-thread test (uses all cores)
sysbench cpu --threads=$(nproc) run

Important output:

CPU speed:
    events per second:  4521.23

General statistics:
    total time:         10.0006s
    total number of events: 45217

Higher events per second means better CPU.

stress-ng (prolonged stress test)

apt install stress-ng -y

# CPU stress test for 60 seconds
stress-ng --cpu $(nproc) --timeout 60s --metrics-brief

Disk Benchmark (I/O)

fio (more accurate)

apt install fio -y

# Sequential read test
fio --name=seq-read --rw=read --bs=1M --size=1G --numjobs=1 --runtime=30 --group_reporting

# Sequential write test
fio --name=seq-write --rw=write --bs=1M --size=1G --numjobs=1 --runtime=30 --group_reporting

# Random IOPS test (typical database)
fio --name=rand-rw --rw=randrw --bs=4k --size=512M --numjobs=4 --runtime=30 --group_reporting

dd (fast but approximate)

# Write test
dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/testfile bs=1G count=1 oflag=direct

# Read test
dd if=/tmp/testfile of=/dev/null bs=1G count=1

# Cleanup
rm /tmp/testfile

SSD vs HDD

On NVMe SSD expected: 500-3500 MB/s. On SATA SSD: 300-600 MB/s. Much lower values indicate shared storage or high load.

Network Benchmark

speedtest-cli

pip install speedtest-cli --break-system-packages
speedtest --simple

Output:

Ping: 4.235 ms
Download: 946.84 Mbit/s
Upload: 947.12 Mbit/s

Alternative without Python:

curl -s https://packagecloud.io/ookla/speedtest-cli/gpgkey | apt-key add -
apt install speedtest -y
speedtest

iperf3 (between two servers)

Useful for testing bandwidth between two VPS.

On destination server:

apt install iperf3 -y
iperf3 -s

On source server:

apt install iperf3 -y
iperf3 -c DESTINATION_IP -t 30

Latency to common destinations

# Latency to Google, Cloudflare, Italian servers
ping -c 10 8.8.8.8
ping -c 10 1.1.1.1
ping -c 10 google.com

# MTR (mix ping + traceroute)
apt install mtr -y
mtr --report --report-cycles 20 8.8.8.8

All-in-one script: bench.sh

Widely used open source script in the hosting community:

# CAUTION: only run scripts from trusted sources
wget -qO- bench.sh | bash

This script automatically tests:

System info (CPU, RAM, OS)
Disk speed
Network speed to/from various worldwide locations

Security

Before running scripts from the internet (curl ... | bash), always verify the content by visiting the URL directly.

Monitor resources in real time

# htop (CPU, RAM, processes)
apt install htop -y && htop

# glances (complete overview)
apt install glances -y && glances

# iostat (disk I/O)
apt install sysstat -y
iostat -x 2 10   # every 2 seconds, 10 times

# vmstat (memory, swap, I/O)
vmstat 2 10

# iotop (processes with most I/O)
apt install iotop -y
iotop -o

Table of expected values for DeluxHost VPS

Metric	Standard	SSD	NVMe
Disk read	150-300 MB/s	400-600 MB/s	1-3.5 GB/s
Disk write	100-200 MB/s	300-500 MB/s	800-2000 MB/s
Network	1 Gbps	1 Gbps	1-10 Gbps
Ping EU	< 10 ms	< 10 ms	< 5 ms

If your results are significantly lower, open a support ticket including the test output.

Benchmark and Performance Testing

On this page