DigitalOcean Premium AMD (1 GB) vs. Vultr Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Same showdown, different day. Today I've spun up some brand new instance from DigitalOcean and Vultr and did some benchmarking. All instances were running Ubuntu 24.04 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) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Thu, 11 Jun 2026 08:00:52 GMT | Thu, 11 Jun 2026 09:00:52 GMT |
| Linux Distro | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 |
| Kernel Version | 6.8.0-71-generic | 6.8.0-124-generic |
| MySQL Version | 8.0.46-0ubuntu0.24.04.2 | 8.0.46-0ubuntu0.24.04.2 |
| Redis Version | 7.0.15 | 7.0.15 |
| Location | New York, NY | Newark, NJ |
| Monthly Price | $7.00 | $20.00 |
| RAM (GB) | 1 | 4 |
| CPU Cores | 1 | 2 |
| Storage (TB) | 25 | 80 |
| Storage Type | NVMe | SSD |
| Transfer (TB) | 1 | 3 |
CPU
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | AuthenticAMD | GenuineIntel |
| Model Name | DO-Premium-AMD | Intel Xeon Processor (Skylake, IBRS) |
| Clock Speed (MHz) | 1,996.25 | 2,593.91 |
| CPU Cache Size (KB) | 512.00 | 16,384.00 |
| BogoMips | 3,992.49 | 5,187.81 |
| Events per Second | 726.77 | 1,022.39 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.59 | 0.88 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.37 | 0.98 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 5.22 | 1.77 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.19 | 1.21 |
Memory
Memory Read
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 513,307.17 | 3,523,809.57 |
| Mebibytes per second | 501.28 | 3,441.22 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.37 | 0.22 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 824,356.27 | 3,568,203.77 |
| Mebibytes per second | 805.04 | 3,484.57 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 1.06 | 1.02 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
File I/O
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 1,080.27 | 2,972.63 |
| Writes per Second | 720.18 | 1,981.75 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 2,309.05 | 6,347.81 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 16.88 | 46.45 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 11.25 | 30.96 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.24 | 0.09 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 12.99 | 17.12 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.81 | 0.33 |
Mutex
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1,975.87 | 899.28 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1,984.41 | 935.93 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 1,992.76 | 969.92 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2,009.23 | 977.74 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 5,229.00 | 3,779.00 |
| Queries per second | 52,290.00 | 37,790.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.54 | 1.84 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.91 | 2.64 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 13.96 | 24.55 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.43 | 3.82 |
MySQL Write-only
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 2,200.00 | 4,044.00 |
| Queries per second | 22,000.00 | 40,440.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 2.14 | 1.4 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 4.54 | 2.47 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 58.91 | 13.46 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 7.43 | 3.3 |
MySQL Read/Write
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,353.00 | 1,798.00 |
| Queries per second | 13,530.00 | 17,980.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 4.12 | 3.86 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 7.39 | 5.56 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 55.63 | 27.33 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 10.46 | 6.91 |
MySQL INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,173.00 | 6,405.00 |
| Queries per second | 31,730.00 | 64,050.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.66 | 0.99 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.15 | 1.56 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 19.06 | 15.15 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 5.18 | 2.03 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 931,337.00 | 865,805.00 |
| Queries per second | 9,313,370.00 | 8,658,050.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0.01 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 580.44 | 538.25 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 111,311.00 | 126,618.00 |
| Queries per second | 1,113,110.00 | 1,266,180.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.06 | 0.05 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.09 | 0.08 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 4.25 | 2.46 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.13 | 0.11 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 5,796.00 | 3,674.00 |
| Queries per second | 57,960.00 | 36,740.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.51 | 1.07 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.72 | 2.72 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 11.76 | 6.45 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.48 | 3.55 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 6,487.00 | 2,728.00 |
| Queries per second | 64,870.00 | 27,280.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.35 | 1.3 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.54 | 3.66 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 4.66 | 11.85 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.18 | 5 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,244.00 | 5,438.00 |
| Queries per second | 32,440.00 | 54,380.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.31 | 0.99 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.08 | 1.84 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 15.17 | 13.86 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 5.28 | 2.71 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,565.00 | 6,370.00 |
| Queries per second | 35,650.00 | 63,700.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.38 | 1.01 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.8 | 1.57 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 15.81 | 8.99 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4.49 | 2.07 |
MySQL DELETE
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 17,959.00 | 51,180.00 |
| Queries per second | 179,590.00 | 511,800.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.06 | 0.05 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.55 | 0.19 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 19.49 | 6.11 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.19 | 1.39 |
Redis
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 33,200.53 | 49,677.10 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 34,989.50 | 45,372.05 |
| SET per Second | 34,188.04 | 45,392.64 |
| GET per Second | 35,893.75 | 53,163.21 |
| INCR per Second | 35,273.37 | 48,732.94 |
| LPUSH per Second | 35,211.27 | 50,327.12 |
| RPUSH per Second | 35,625.22 | 48,285.85 |
| LPOP per Second | 33,909.80 | 48,355.90 |
| RPOP per Second | 34,952.81 | 51,413.88 |
| SADD per Second | 35,778.18 | 48,332.53 |
| HSET per Second | 35,198.87 | 49,285.36 |
| SPOP per Second | 34,928.40 | 48,332.53 |
| ZADD per Second | 35,014.01 | 51,229.51 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 35,323.21 | 45,085.66 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 20,571.90 | 27,122.32 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 12,938.28 | 12,442.45 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 9,363.30 | 7,930.21 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 8,297.38 | 6,902.74 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 32,797.64 | 45,146.73 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 1.01 | 0.53 |
| PING_MBULK | 0.96 | 0.57 |
| SET | 0.99 | 0.57 |
| GET | 0.95 | 0.49 |
| INCR | 0.96 | 0.53 |
| LPUSH | 0.96 | 0.51 |
| RPUSH | 0.95 | 0.54 |
| LPOP | 1.00 | 0.54 |
| RPOP | 0.97 | 0.52 |
| SADD | 0.95 | 0.55 |
| HSET | 0.97 | 0.54 |
| SPOP | 0.97 | 0.54 |
| ZADD | 0.97 | 0.52 |
| ZPOPMIN | 0.96 | 0.57 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 1.68 | 1.02 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 2.74 | 2.29 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 3.74 | 3.27 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 4.26 | 3.91 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 1.07 | 0.78 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
After analyzing the provided benchmarks, it's evident that Vultr's Cloud Compute instance with 2 cores and 4GB of RAM significantly outperforms DigitalOcean's Premium AMD instance with 1 core and 1GB of RAM in most metrics, particularly in CPU-intensive operations and overall throughput, as demonstrated by the substantially higher requests per second for Redis commands and overall better file I/O performance. The Vultr instance excels in handling multiple simultaneous operations with lower latency and higher throughput, making it ideal for CPU-intensive workloads, high-concurrency applications, and scenarios requiring substantial data transfer. Conversely, the DigitalOcean instance, while adequate for lighter workloads, shows weaker performance in high-concurrency and data-intensive tasks but could be sufficient for more modest requirements or where the lower price point is a significant consideration.
From the friendly human:
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