DigitalOcean Premium AMD (1 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Regular (2 GB)
Same showdown, different day. Today I've spun up some brand new instance from DigitalOcean and did some benchmarking. All instances were running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and were created in the New York area (or close to it). Time to see who showed up today.
Overview
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Sun, 10 May 2026 21:00:52 GMT | Tue, 12 May 2026 23:00:52 GMT |
| Linux Distro | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 |
| Kernel Version | 6.8.0-71-generic | 6.8.0-71-generic |
| MySQL Version | 8.0.45-0ubuntu0.24.04.1 | 8.0.45-0ubuntu0.24.04.1 |
| Redis Version | 7.0.15 | 7.0.15 |
| 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 |
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 | 737.58 | 408.72 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.6 | 0.98 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.35 | 2.44 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 4.17 | 30.57 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.71 | 4.1 |
Memory
Memory Read
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 4,241,036.38 | 1,633,276.41 |
| Mebibytes per second | 4,141.64 | 1,595.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.23 | 3.35 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 4,880,937.38 | 1,592,941.48 |
| Mebibytes per second | 4,766.54 | 1,555.61 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.84 | 5.53 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
File I/O
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 1,551.42 | 1,584.78 |
| Writes per Second | 1,034.28 | 1,056.52 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 3,313.60 | 3,385.97 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 24.24 | 24.76 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 16.16 | 16.51 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.17 | 0.16 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 12.81 | 20.31 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.58 | 0.51 |
Mutex
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1,833.32 | 2,434.32 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1,845.81 | 2,473.55 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 1,856.79 | 2,489.41 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1,869.60 | 2,493.86 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 5,758.00 | 4,752.00 |
| Queries per second | 57,580.00 | 47,520.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.43 | 1.23 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.73 | 2.1 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 10.42 | 5.76 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.18 | 2.66 |
MySQL Write-only
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,378.00 | 1,930.00 |
| Queries per second | 33,780.00 | 19,300.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.61 | 2.65 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.96 | 5.18 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 13.66 | 56.83 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4.41 | 7.98 |
MySQL Read/Write
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,651.00 | 1,306.00 |
| Queries per second | 16,510.00 | 13,060.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 3.4 | 4.6 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 6.05 | 7.65 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 26.79 | 28.54 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 8.9 | 10.09 |
MySQL INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 4,234.00 | 3,148.00 |
| Queries per second | 42,340.00 | 31,480.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.98 | 1.72 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.36 | 3.17 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 15.94 | 32.67 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4.33 | 4.41 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,142,842.00 | 669,209.00 |
| Queries per second | 11,428,420.00 | 6,692,090.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0.02 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 473.39 | 772.1 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 128,987.00 | 136,020.00 |
| Queries per second | 1,289,870.00 | 1,360,200.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.06 | 0.04 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.08 | 0.07 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 2.88 | 3.33 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.11 | 0.11 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 6,220.00 | 3,617.00 |
| Queries per second | 62,200.00 | 36,170.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.57 | 0.82 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.61 | 2.76 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 8.7 | 12.27 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.3 | 3.82 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 6,514.00 | 3,087.00 |
| Queries per second | 65,140.00 | 30,870.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.59 | 0.67 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.53 | 3.23 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 4.42 | 8.52 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.18 | 5.18 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 5,085.00 | 2,586.00 |
| Queries per second | 50,850.00 | 25,860.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.95 | 1.8 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.97 | 3.86 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 16.24 | 45.13 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.19 | 6.21 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 5,114.00 | 3,094.00 |
| Queries per second | 51,140.00 | 30,940.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.12 | 1.83 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.95 | 3.23 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 15.5 | 35.75 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.13 | 4.65 |
MySQL DELETE
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 38,488.00 | 19,562.00 |
| Queries per second | 384,880.00 | 195,620.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.06 | 0.04 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.26 | 0.51 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 15.02 | 32.94 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.64 | 3.02 |
Redis
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 32,372.94 | 39,729.84 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 35,087.72 | 42,176.30 |
| SET per Second | 36,363.64 | 40,833.00 |
| GET per Second | 36,088.05 | 34,590.11 |
| INCR per Second | 36,778.23 | 35,410.77 |
| LPUSH per Second | 36,101.08 | 39,184.95 |
| RPUSH per Second | 36,166.36 | 36,509.68 |
| LPOP per Second | 36,549.71 | 36,791.76 |
| RPOP per Second | 37,174.72 | 38,834.95 |
| SADD per Second | 37,105.75 | 35,727.05 |
| HSET per Second | 33,909.80 | 35,790.98 |
| SPOP per Second | 35,842.29 | 39,478.88 |
| ZADD per Second | 34,734.29 | 38,850.04 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 36,324.01 | 40,338.84 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 23,923.45 | 17,461.15 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 13,774.10 | 7,711.29 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 8,998.47 | 4,860.50 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 7,534.66 | 4,094.67 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 33,322.23 | 32,041.01 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 1.04 | 0.83 |
| PING_MBULK | 0.96 | 0.78 |
| SET | 0.94 | 0.82 |
| GET | 0.94 | 0.94 |
| INCR | 0.93 | 0.93 |
| LPUSH | 0.95 | 0.85 |
| RPUSH | 0.94 | 0.91 |
| LPOP | 0.94 | 0.92 |
| RPOP | 0.92 | 0.87 |
| SADD | 0.92 | 0.92 |
| HSET | 1.00 | 0.93 |
| SPOP | 0.94 | 0.84 |
| ZADD | 0.98 | 0.86 |
| ZPOPMIN | 0.93 | 0.82 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 1.45 | 2.05 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 2.61 | 4.59 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 3.94 | 7.19 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 4.63 | 8.42 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 1.05 | 1.12 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
When comparing the DigitalOcean Premium AMD (1 GB) and Regular (2 GB) instances, the Premium AMD (1 GB) shows slightly higher performance in Redis benchmarks, especially with commands like INCR and LPUSH, likely due to slightly higher bogomips and lower average latencies across most Redis operations. The Regular (2 GB) instance, however, exhibits superior performance in MySQL and memory benchmarks, with higher throughput for reads and writes and lower latencies in MySQL operations, suggesting it is more suited for database-heavy workloads. The Premium AMD (1 GB) instance has marginally better CPU performance and I/O operations, which could make it a better choice for CPU-intensive or I/O-heavy tasks, whereas the Regular (2 GB) instance is optimized for memory and database-intensive applications, making it ideal for environments requiring more RAM and robust database performance.
From the friendly human:
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