DigitalOcean Regular (2 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Premium AMD (2 GB)
Same showdown, different day. Today I've spun up brand new instance from DigitalOcean and ran my world famous suite of benchmarking scripts. All instances were spun up with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and were created in the New York area (or close to it). Without further ado, here's the results.
Overview
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Tue, 12 May 2026 23:00:52 GMT | Tue, 12 May 2026 21:00:52 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 | $12.00 | $14.00 |
| RAM (GB) | 2 | 2 |
| CPU Cores | 1 | 1 |
| Storage (TB) | 50 | 50 |
| Storage Type | SSD | NVMe |
| Transfer (TB) | 2 | 2 |
CPU
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | GenuineIntel | AuthenticAMD |
| Model Name | DO-Regular | DO-Premium-AMD |
| Clock Speed (MHz) | 2,294.61 | 1,996.25 |
| CPU Cache Size (KB) | 4,096.00 | 512.00 |
| BogoMips | 4,589.21 | 3,992.50 |
| Events per Second | 408.72 | 773.24 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.98 | 0.59 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.44 | 1.29 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 30.57 | 9.33 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4.1 | 2.52 |
Memory
Memory Read
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 1,633,276.41 | 2,488,460.19 |
| Mebibytes per second | 1,595.00 | 2,430.14 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.35 | 4.04 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 1,592,941.48 | 4,683,187.88 |
| Mebibytes per second | 1,555.61 | 4,573.43 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 5.53 | 2.71 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
File I/O
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 1,584.78 | 1,845.04 |
| Writes per Second | 1,056.52 | 1,230.03 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 3,385.97 | 3,937.98 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 24.76 | 28.83 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 16.51 | 19.22 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.16 | 0.14 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 20.31 | 17.63 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.51 | 0.52 |
Mutex
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 2,434.32 | 1,667.72 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2,473.55 | 1,679.59 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 2,489.41 | 1,689.52 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2,493.86 | 1,678.14 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 4,752.00 | 6,277.00 |
| Queries per second | 47,520.00 | 62,770.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.23 | 1.39 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.1 | 1.59 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 5.76 | 3.05 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.66 | 2 |
MySQL Write-only
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,930.00 | 3,904.00 |
| Queries per second | 19,300.00 | 39,040.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 2.65 | 1.49 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 5.18 | 2.56 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 56.83 | 16.24 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 7.98 | 3.75 |
MySQL Read/Write
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,306.00 | 2,018.00 |
| Queries per second | 13,060.00 | 20,180.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 4.6 | 3.18 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 7.65 | 4.95 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 28.54 | 20.02 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 10.09 | 6.91 |
MySQL INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,148.00 | 5,620.00 |
| Queries per second | 31,480.00 | 56,200.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.72 | 1.05 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.17 | 1.78 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 32.67 | 16.02 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4.41 | 2.97 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 669,209.00 | 1,259,342.00 |
| Queries per second | 6,692,090.00 | 12,593,420.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.02 | 0.01 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 772.1 | 470.38 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 136,020.00 | 139,730.00 |
| Queries per second | 1,360,200.00 | 1,397,300.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.06 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.07 | 0.07 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.33 | 0.87 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.11 | 0.1 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,617.00 | 6,629.00 |
| Queries per second | 36,170.00 | 66,290.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.82 | 0.52 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.76 | 1.51 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 12.27 | 7.6 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.82 | 2.14 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,087.00 | 7,182.00 |
| Queries per second | 30,870.00 | 71,820.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.67 | 0.45 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.23 | 1.39 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 8.52 | 3.32 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 5.18 | 1.82 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 2,586.00 | 5,947.00 |
| Queries per second | 25,860.00 | 59,470.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.8 | 0.88 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.86 | 1.68 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 45.13 | 23.74 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 6.21 | 2.57 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,094.00 | 6,209.00 |
| Queries per second | 30,940.00 | 62,090.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.83 | 1.06 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.23 | 1.61 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 35.75 | 20.85 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4.65 | 2.39 |
MySQL DELETE
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 19,562.00 | 44,794.00 |
| Queries per second | 195,620.00 | 447,940.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.06 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.51 | 0.22 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 32.94 | 16.86 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.02 | 1.42 |
Redis
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 39,729.84 | 39,729.84 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 42,176.30 | 41,000.41 |
| SET per Second | 40,833.00 | 39,824.77 |
| GET per Second | 34,590.11 | 39,984.01 |
| INCR per Second | 35,410.77 | 39,184.95 |
| LPUSH per Second | 39,184.95 | 40,257.65 |
| RPUSH per Second | 36,509.68 | 39,936.10 |
| LPOP per Second | 36,791.76 | 39,777.25 |
| RPOP per Second | 38,834.95 | 38,865.14 |
| SADD per Second | 35,727.05 | 40,176.78 |
| HSET per Second | 35,790.98 | 36,995.93 |
| SPOP per Second | 39,478.88 | 39,184.95 |
| ZADD per Second | 38,850.04 | 39,339.10 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 40,338.84 | 41,050.90 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 17,461.15 | 26,702.27 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 7,711.29 | 14,887.60 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 4,860.50 | 10,069.48 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 4,094.67 | 9,017.13 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 32,041.01 | 35,816.62 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 0.83 | 0.86 |
| PING_MBULK | 0.78 | 0.83 |
| SET | 0.82 | 0.86 |
| GET | 0.94 | 0.85 |
| INCR | 0.93 | 0.87 |
| LPUSH | 0.85 | 0.85 |
| RPUSH | 0.91 | 0.85 |
| LPOP | 0.92 | 0.86 |
| RPOP | 0.87 | 0.88 |
| SADD | 0.92 | 0.85 |
| HSET | 0.93 | 0.92 |
| SPOP | 0.84 | 0.87 |
| ZADD | 0.86 | 0.88 |
| ZPOPMIN | 0.82 | 0.83 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 2.05 | 1.31 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 4.59 | 2.40 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 7.19 | 3.52 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 8.42 | 3.96 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 1.12 | 0.98 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
Both DigitalOcean instances provide solid performance, but the Premium AMD (2 GB) instance stands out in most benchmarks, particularly in Redis operations and overall throughput, likely due to its AMD CPU's enhanced performance features and higher frequency compared to the Regular (2 GB) instance. The Premium instance shows better results in Redis RPS and lower latency across most commands, as well as superior CPU event handling and file I/O operations. The memory benchmarks also favor the Premium instance with higher operations per second and throughput. However, the Regular instance is cheaper and has competitive latency and throughput metrics for CPU, file I/O, and memory operations. The Premium AMD instance is ideal for workloads that benefit from higher CPU frequency and better overall throughput, such as high-traffic web applications, data processing, and intensive database operations, while the Regular instance is suitable for more budget-conscious users or less demanding applications.
From the friendly human:
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