DigitalOcean Regular (1 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Regular (2 GB)

Same showdown, different day. Today I've spun up brand new instance from DigitalOcean and did some benchmarking. All instances were running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and all resided in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Enough talk. Here's the data.

Overview

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Last Benchmarked	Sun, 15 Jun 2025 09:00:28 GMT	Sun, 15 Jun 2025 09:00:34 GMT
Linux Distro	Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64	Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64
Kernel Version	6.8.0-51-generic	6.8.0-51-generic
MySQL Version	8.0.42-0ubuntu0.24.04.1	8.0.42-0ubuntu0.24.04.1
Redis Version	7.0.15	7.0.15
Location	New York, NY	New York, NY
Monthly Price	$6.00	$12.00
RAM (GB)	1	2
CPU Cores	1	1
Storage (TB)	25	50
Storage Type	SSD	SSD
Transfer (TB)	1	2

CPU

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Vendor	GenuineIntel	GenuineIntel
Model Name	DO-Regular	DO-Regular
Clock Speed (MHz)	2,494.14	2,494.14
CPU Cache Size (KB)	4,096.00	4,096.00
BogoMips	4,988.27	4,988.28
Events per Second	781.12	611.35
Minimum Latency (ms)	0.92	0.91
Average Latency (ms)	1.28	1.63
Maximum Latency (ms)	5.15	11.47
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	2	3.13

Memory Read

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Operations per second	3,900,667.66	4,386,829.64
Mebibytes per second	3,809.25	4,284.01
Minimum Latency (ms)	0	0
Average Latency (ms)	0	0
Maximum Latency (ms)	2.74	0.29
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	0	0

Memory Write

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Operations per second	3,761,798.48	4,458,954.18
Mebibytes per second	3,673.63	4,354.45
Minimum Latency (ms)	0	0
Average Latency (ms)	0	0
Maximum Latency (ms)	2.85	1.5
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	0	0

File I/O

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Reads per Second	1,948.26	2,437.83
Writes per Second	1,298.78	1,625.22
Fsyncs per Second	4,165.03	5,205.17
Read Mebibytes per Second	30.44	38.09
Written Mebibytes per Second	20.29	25.39
Minimum Latency (ms)	0	0
Average Latency (ms)	0.13	0.11
Maximum Latency (ms)	23.66	40.18
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	0.36	0.31

Mutex

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms)	2,456.66	1,937.12
Average Latency (ms)	2,486.28	1,945.97
Maximum Latency (ms)	2,508.28	1,954.05
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	2,493.86	1,938.16

MySQL Read-only

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second	2,813.00	5,880.00
Queries per second	28,130.00	58,800.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	1.61	1.18
Average Latency (ms)	3.55	1.7
Maximum Latency (ms)	26.05	7.51
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	6.09	2.3

MySQL Write-only

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second	2,303.00	3,271.00
Queries per second	23,030.00	32,710.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	1.57	1.17
Average Latency (ms)	4.33	3.05
Maximum Latency (ms)	26.31	43.62
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	8.13	5.47

MySQL Read/Write

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second	759.00	1,426.00
Queries per second	7,590.00	14,260.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	5.43	3.41
Average Latency (ms)	13.17	7.01
Maximum Latency (ms)	44.46	31.03
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	23.1	11.24

MySQL INSERT

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second	4,405.00	6,840.00
Queries per second	44,050.00	68,400.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	0.86	0.54
Average Latency (ms)	2.26	1.46
Maximum Latency (ms)	23.49	41.96
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	3.96	2.43

MySQL Bulk INSERT

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second	835,750.00	898,571.00
Queries per second	8,357,500.00	8,985,710.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	0	0
Average Latency (ms)	0.01	0.01
Maximum Latency (ms)	554.15	573.23
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	0	0

MySQL SELECT

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second	87,090.00	156,260.00
Queries per second	870,900.00	1,562,600.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	0.04	0.04
Average Latency (ms)	0.11	0.06
Maximum Latency (ms)	13.78	2.79
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	0.28	0.1

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second	82.00	1,197.00
Queries per second	820.00	11,970.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	62.94	3.05
Average Latency (ms)	122.64	8.35
Maximum Latency (ms)	189.27	22.25
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	164.45	11.45

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second	3,110.00	4,783.00
Queries per second	31,100.00	47,830.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	1.06	0.64
Average Latency (ms)	3.21	2.09
Maximum Latency (ms)	18.7	4.78
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	4.74	2.97

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second	3,203.00	2,421.00
Queries per second	32,030.00	24,210.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	0.92	0.89
Average Latency (ms)	3.12	4.13
Maximum Latency (ms)	36.64	400.43
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	5.99	6.91

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second	5,254.00	6,600.00
Queries per second	52,540.00	66,000.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	0.81	0.59
Average Latency (ms)	1.9	1.51
Maximum Latency (ms)	21.28	21.96
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	3.02	2.48

MySQL DELETE

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second	5,710.00	5,144.00
Queries per second	57,100.00	51,440.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	0.05	0.05
Average Latency (ms)	1.75	1.94
Maximum Latency (ms)	40.56	98.13
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	3.43	3.75

Redis

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second	31,645.57	51,177.07
PING_MBULK per Second	32,425.42	50,556.12
SET per Second	32,690.42	52,631.58
GET per Second	35,919.54	53,022.27
INCR per Second	32,776.14	52,002.08
LPUSH per Second	31,036.62	48,146.37
RPUSH per Second	30,349.01	53,447.35
LPOP per Second	30,721.96	49,875.31
RPOP per Second	30,193.24	46,382.19
SADD per Second	35,310.73	50,125.31
HSET per Second	35,855.14	47,709.93
SPOP per Second	35,174.11	46,168.05
ZADD per Second	33,944.33	41,928.72
ZPOPMIN per Second	35,026.27	46,576.62
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second	19,102.20	26,028.11
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second	8,449.51	11,889.19
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second	6,010.34	7,652.87
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second	4,945.60	6,880.42
MSET (10 keys) per Second	27,956.39	48,100.05

Redis Average Latency (ms)

	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)	DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
PING_INLINE	1.04	0.64
PING_MBULK	1.01	0.65
SET	1.01	0.63
GET	0.92	0.62
INCR	1.01	0.63
LPUSH	1.07	0.69
RPUSH	1.08	0.62
LPOP	1.09	0.67
RPOP	1.10	0.72
SADD	0.94	0.66
HSET	0.93	0.70
SPOP	0.94	0.72
ZADD	0.98	0.80
ZPOPMIN	0.94	0.71
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)	1.90	1.34
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)	4.27	3.09
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)	5.92	4.75
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)	7.23	5.30
MSET (10 keys)	1.26	0.74

Conclusion

The DigitalOcean Regular (1 GB) instance shows strong performance in Redis operations, with high request rates and low latencies, but struggles with larger LRANGE operations, indicating potential bottlenecks in I/O-heavy tasks. The Regular (2 GB) instance, while slightly behind in raw Redis performance, excels in handling larger data sets through LRANGE benchmarks, suggesting better memory handling and I/O capabilities. The 2 GB instance also performs better in MySQL bulk inserts and overall file I/O operations, indicating it is better suited for workloads that require more memory and I/O throughput. For CPU-intensive tasks with moderate memory needs, the 1 GB instance is more cost-effective, whereas the 2 GB instance is ideal for memory- and I/O-heavy workloads.

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