Performance: remote vs local db hosting

Currently, I’m hosting a client’s Meteor app at Xervo, and since Xervo doesn’t offer automated backups, we’re using mLab for the mongodb. As you may know, however, Xervo is shutting down its services next week so I’m forced to relocate and will now be hosting the app at Nodechef.

Thing is, NodeChef offers automated backups on their DBs, which leaves me wondering:
Should I stick with mLab or should I ditch it and use NodeChef for both the app and the db hosting?

Price is not a big difference either way, nor was setup difficult, so the real issue is performance. The NodeChef technicians suggested hosting with them to avoid the latency of the remote db calls. But of course you might expect them to tout their own services. I haven’t asked the same question at mLab, but I’m guessing they would say I should stick with them because of some performance benefit of having the db on a separate server.

I’d like an unbiased opinion. What do you people think? It’s not a high-traffic app, nor is it a big db; the main collection will have ~1000 records when it’s all filled out.