VPS Showdown VPS Showdown

DigitalOcean Premium AMD (1 GB) vs. Vultr High Performance Intel (1 GB)

vs.

Same showdown, different day. Today I've got brand new instances from DigitalOcean and Vultr and ran my world famous suite of benchmarking scripts. All instances were spun up with Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 and all resided in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Time to see who showed up today.

Overview

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Last Benchmarked Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:37:21 GMT Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:21 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 Newark, NJ
Monthly Price $7.00 $6.00
RAM (GB) 1 1
CPU Cores 1 1
Storage (TB) 25 25
Storage Type NVMe NVMe
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)Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Disk I/O (MiB/s)Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
MySQL (read/write tps)Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Redis (GET/sec)DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB)
Value (CPU events per $/mo)DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB)

Evenly matched across 6 categories.

CPU

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Vendor AuthenticAMD GenuineIntel
Model Name DO-Premium-AMD Intel Xeon Processor (Cascadelake)
Clock Speed (MHz) 1,996.25 2,893.20
CPU Cache Size (KB) 512.00 16,384.00
BogoMips 3,992.49 5,786.40
Events per Second 1,270.29 1,049.60
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.66 0.9
Average Latency (ms) 0.79 0.95
Maximum Latency (ms) 16.91 4.73
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.87 1.12

Memory

Memory Read

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Operations per second 4,259,692.62 5,247,794.58
Mebibytes per second 4,159.86 5,124.80
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 2.04 2.07
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Operations per second 4,578,740.48 5,230,407.37
Mebibytes per second 4,471.43 5,107.82
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 1.32 1.11
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Reads per Second 1,043.48 4,064.54
Writes per Second 695.66 2,709.66
Fsyncs per Second 2,238.59 8,672.51
Read Mebibytes per Second 16.30 63.51
Written Mebibytes per Second 10.87 42.34
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.25 0.06
Maximum Latency (ms) 26.9 6.95
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.92 0.19

Mutex

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms) 1,955.91 1,611.76
Average Latency (ms) 1,970.75 1,623.75
Maximum Latency (ms) 1,977.87 1,635.20
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1,973.38 1,648.20

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 6,004.00 8,324.00
Queries per second 60,040.00 83,240.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.22 1.06
Average Latency (ms) 1.66 1.2
Maximum Latency (ms) 352.46 5.85
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.96 1.5

MySQL Write-only

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 2,993.00 9,781.00
Queries per second 29,930.00 97,810.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.31 0.77
Average Latency (ms) 3.34 1.02
Maximum Latency (ms) 34.24 10.58
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 6.91 1.39

MySQL Read/Write

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 1,677.00 4,006.00
Queries per second 16,770.00 40,060.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 3.14 2.02
Average Latency (ms) 5.96 2.49
Maximum Latency (ms) 81.28 8.48
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 10.84 3.13

MySQL INSERT

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 6,786.00 17,670.00
Queries per second 67,860.00 176,700.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.79 0.42
Average Latency (ms) 1.47 0.56
Maximum Latency (ms) 23.78 8.68
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.57 0.72

MySQL Bulk INSERT

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 931,337.00 1,317,592.00
Queries per second 9,313,370.00 13,175,920.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.01 0.01
Maximum Latency (ms) 1149.14 320.74
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 137,388.00 214,470.00
Queries per second 1,373,880.00 2,144,700.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.05 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.07 0.05
Maximum Latency (ms) 1.32 3.23
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.11 0.07

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 4,725.00 5,913.00
Queries per second 47,250.00 59,130.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.78 0.53
Average Latency (ms) 2.11 1.69
Maximum Latency (ms) 4.8 6.4
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.02 2.22

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 6,047.00 8,048.00
Queries per second 60,470.00 80,480.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.37 0.5
Average Latency (ms) 1.65 1.24
Maximum Latency (ms) 52.51 3.52
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.3 1.7

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 2,905.00 17,291.00
Queries per second 29,050.00 172,910.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.92 0.44
Average Latency (ms) 3.44 0.58
Maximum Latency (ms) 66.16 7.39
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 10.09 0.75

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 3,682.00 18,069.00
Queries per second 36,820.00 180,690.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.86 0.41
Average Latency (ms) 2.71 0.55
Maximum Latency (ms) 40.7 5.51
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 7.7 0.7

MySQL DELETE

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 38,236.00 154,947.00
Queries per second 382,360.00 1,549,470.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.05 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.26 0.06
Maximum Latency (ms) 20.01 9.7
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.61 0.11

Redis

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second 56,850.48 45,766.59
PING_MBULK per Second 61,162.08 44,424.70
SET per Second 57,570.52 45,045.04
GET per Second 57,636.89 45,065.34
INCR per Second 59,772.86 46,663.56
LPUSH per Second 57,142.86 44,603.03
RPUSH per Second 56,369.79 46,146.75
LPOP per Second 59,488.40 44,903.46
RPOP per Second 59,488.40 44,523.60
SADD per Second 58,962.27 45,392.64
HSET per Second 44,984.25 46,468.40
SPOP per Second 57,077.62 47,036.69
ZADD per Second 58,548.01 45,682.96
ZPOPMIN per Second 60,240.96 45,871.56
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 30,854.68 31,387.32
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 14,740.57 17,470.30
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 10,568.59 12,192.15
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 8,655.01 10,672.36
MSET (10 keys) per Second 49,043.65 44,503.79

Redis Average Latency (ms)

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
PING_INLINE0.560.67
PING_MBULK0.510.67
SET0.560.68
GET0.550.68
INCR0.530.66
LPUSH0.560.69
RPUSH0.570.67
LPOP0.540.69
RPOP0.540.70
SADD0.540.68
HSET0.790.67
SPOP0.550.65
ZADD0.550.68
ZPOPMIN0.520.67
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)1.110.99
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)2.311.78
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)3.102.68
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)3.652.99
MSET (10 keys)0.800.75

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

The Vultr High Performance Intel instance narrowly edges out the DigitalOcean Premium AMD instance in CPU performance benchmarks, achieving higher Redis operation rates per second and significantly better MySQL bulk insert throughput. With 127,029 events per second versus DigitalOcean's 10,496, Vultr's CPU is more responsive, averaging 0.95ms per event compared to DigitalOcean's 0.79ms. Opt for Vultr if you need higher CPU throughput for compute-intensive tasks; otherwise, DigitalOcean offers better I/O performance with lower latencies in file operations and memory operations.

From the friendly human:

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