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

vs.

Fresh benchmarks coming at ya. Today I've got brand new instances from DigitalOcean and ran some benchmarks. All instances were spun up with Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 and were created in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Time to see who showed up today.

Overview

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Last Benchmarked Sat, 01 Aug 2026 05:09:47 GMT Sat, 01 Aug 2026 05:03:47 GMT
Linux Distro Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64
Kernel Version 7.0.0-27-generic 7.0.0-27-generic
MySQL Version 8.4.10-0ubuntu0.26.04.1 8.4.10-0ubuntu0.26.04.1
Redis Version 8.0.5 8.0.5
Location New York, NY New York, NY
Monthly Price $7.00 $12.00
RAM (GB) 1 2
CPU Cores 1 1
Storage (TB) 25 50
Storage Type NVMe SSD
Transfer (TB) 1 2

Head-to-head

Category winners from the latest benchmarks.

CategoryWinner
CPU (events/sec)DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB)
Memory (read MiB/s)DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB)
Disk I/O (MiB/s)DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB)
MySQL (read/write tps)DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB)
Redis (GET/sec)DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB)
Value (CPU events per $/mo)DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB)

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) takes 6 of 6 categories.

CPU

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Vendor AuthenticAMD GenuineIntel
Model Name DO-Premium-AMD DO-Regular
Clock Speed (MHz) 1,996.25 2,294.61
CPU Cache Size (KB) 512.00 4,096.00
BogoMips 3,992.49 4,589.21
Events per Second 1,324.09 337.24
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.64 1.07
Average Latency (ms) 0.75 2.96
Maximum Latency (ms) 3.68 7.98
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.81 4.74

Memory

Memory Read

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Operations per second 4,911,179.23 2,158,838.24
Mebibytes per second 4,796.07 2,108.24
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 0.42 7.22
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Operations per second 4,739,304.36 3,098,478.11
Mebibytes per second 4,628.23 3,025.86
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 0.68 2.23
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Reads per Second 1,630.22 897.65
Writes per Second 1,086.81 598.43
Fsyncs per Second 3,484.79 1,924.36
Read Mebibytes per Second 25.47 14.03
Written Mebibytes per Second 16.98 9.35
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.16 0.29
Maximum Latency (ms) 7.68 30.6
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.54 0.9

Mutex

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms) 1,821.68 2,798.91
Average Latency (ms) 1,829.83 2,816.88
Maximum Latency (ms) 1,839.40 2,827.29
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1,836.24 2,828.87

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 6,287.00 4,209.00
Queries per second 62,870.00 42,090.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.22 1.24
Average Latency (ms) 1.59 2.37
Maximum Latency (ms) 139.73 5.8
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2 2.91

MySQL Write-only

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 3,386.00 720.00
Queries per second 33,860.00 7,200.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.26 2.26
Average Latency (ms) 2.95 13.89
Maximum Latency (ms) 31.46 898.41
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 5.37 11.24

MySQL Read/Write

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 1,941.00 914.00
Queries per second 19,410.00 9,140.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 2.76 5.04
Average Latency (ms) 5.15 10.93
Maximum Latency (ms) 56.29 399.05
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 8.28 12.98

MySQL INSERT

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 5,930.00 2,481.00
Queries per second 59,300.00 24,810.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.76 1.76
Average Latency (ms) 1.68 4.02
Maximum Latency (ms) 13.82 209.08
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.13 6.43

MySQL Bulk INSERT

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 1,259,342.00 603,677.00
Queries per second 12,593,420.00 6,036,770.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.01 0.02
Maximum Latency (ms) 524.15 768.14
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 132,782.00 111,711.00
Queries per second 1,327,820.00 1,117,110.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.05 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.07 0.09
Maximum Latency (ms) 3.64 4.67
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.11 0.14

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 4,504.00 2,616.00
Queries per second 45,040.00 26,160.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.64 1.4
Average Latency (ms) 2.22 3.82
Maximum Latency (ms) 6.76 19.97
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.3 5.18

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 6,228.00 2,567.00
Queries per second 62,280.00 25,670.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.54 1.01
Average Latency (ms) 1.6 3.89
Maximum Latency (ms) 3.59 8.69
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.3 5.57

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 5,980.00 1,815.00
Queries per second 59,800.00 18,150.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.79 1.76
Average Latency (ms) 1.67 5.5
Maximum Latency (ms) 36.23 1034.92
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.81 6.67

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 6,226.00 3,210.00
Queries per second 62,260.00 32,100.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.8 1.61
Average Latency (ms) 1.6 3.11
Maximum Latency (ms) 29.46 42.13
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.66 5.09

MySQL DELETE

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 57,959.00 18,558.00
Queries per second 579,590.00 185,580.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.05 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.17 0.54
Maximum Latency (ms) 98.1 146.02
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.08 2.91

Redis

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second 62,073.25 32,310.18
PING_MBULK per Second 63,451.78 31,645.57
SET per Second 64,516.13 29,222.68
GET per Second 65,189.05 28,760.43
INCR per Second 60,350.03 34,411.56
LPUSH per Second 60,168.47 31,705.77
RPUSH per Second 60,496.07 30,883.26
LPOP per Second 60,864.27 30,892.80
RPOP per Second 64,557.78 33,602.15
SADD per Second 59,630.29 32,520.32
HSET per Second 60,350.03 34,459.00
SPOP per Second 60,024.01 35,997.12
ZADD per Second 62,034.74 29,197.08
ZPOPMIN per Second 63,211.12 29,403.12
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 33,967.39 14,295.93
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 17,322.02 6,915.15
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 10,161.57 4,855.55
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 9,291.09 4,463.09
MSET (10 keys) per Second 52,548.61 27,631.94

Redis Average Latency (ms)

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
PING_INLINE0.510.96
PING_MBULK0.490.97
SET0.491.06
GET0.481.08
INCR0.520.91
LPUSH0.530.98
RPUSH0.530.99
LPOP0.521.00
RPOP0.490.94
SADD0.530.95
HSET0.530.91
SPOP0.520.86
ZADD0.511.07
ZPOPMIN0.501.05
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)1.012.23
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)1.944.29
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)3.205.91
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)3.486.47
MSET (10 keys)0.751.37

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

The DigitalOcean Premium AMD (1 GB) instance outperforms the Regular (2 GB) in terms of Redis benchmarks and file I/O operations, showing notably higher requests per second and lower latencies. The Premium AMD instance delivers 62,073 RPS for Redis PING_INLINE compared to the Regular's 32,310 RPS, and it has lower average latencies for file I/O operations. This makes the Premium AMD ideal for applications that require high Redis performance and efficient file operations, providing a better balance between headroom and cost for CPU-heavy tasks.

From the friendly human:

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Providers & pricing

DigitalOcean overviewDigitalOcean Regular (2 GB) pricing DigitalOcean Premium AMD (1 GB) pricing

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