DigitalOcean Premium AMD (2 GB) vs. Vultr High Frequency Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Same showdown, different day. Today I've spun up some brand new instance from DigitalOcean and Vultr to run some benchmarks on. Each instance was running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and were created in the New York area (or close to it). Let's get into the numbers.
Overview
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) | Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Sun, 31 May 2026 11:00:52 GMT | Sun, 31 May 2026 13:00:55 GMT |
| Linux Distro | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 |
| Kernel Version | 6.8.0-71-generic | 6.8.0-117-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 | Newark, NJ |
| Monthly Price | $14.00 | $18.00 |
| RAM (GB) | 2 | 2 |
| CPU Cores | 1 | 2 |
| Storage (TB) | 50 | 80 |
| Storage Type | NVMe | NVMe |
| Transfer (TB) | 2 | 3 |
CPU
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) | Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | AuthenticAMD | GenuineIntel |
| Model Name | DO-Premium-AMD | Intel Core Processor (Skylake, IBRS, no TSX) |
| Clock Speed (MHz) | 1,996.25 | 3,791.98 |
| CPU Cache Size (KB) | 512.00 | 16,384.00 |
| BogoMips | 3,992.50 | 7,583.95 |
| Events per Second | 765.55 | 1,552.05 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.6 | 0.62 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.3 | 0.64 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 4.73 | 4.61 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.61 | 0.69 |
Memory
Memory Read
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) | Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 2,419,079.35 | 7,875,668.83 |
| Mebibytes per second | 2,362.38 | 7,691.08 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 6.57 | 0.12 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) | Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 4,589,052.29 | 7,729,812.11 |
| Mebibytes per second | 4,481.50 | 7,548.64 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.42 | 0.16 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
File I/O
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) | Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 1,810.43 | 4,671.85 |
| Writes per Second | 1,206.96 | 3,114.56 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 3,873.45 | 9,976.90 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 28.29 | 73.00 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 18.86 | 48.67 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.14 | 0.06 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 8.03 | 2.76 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.53 | 0.17 |
Mutex
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) | Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1,793.49 | 543.27 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1,809.27 | 554.74 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 1,821.41 | 563.70 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1,836.24 | 559.50 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) | Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 6,304.00 | 10,621.00 |
| Queries per second | 63,040.00 | 106,210.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.4 | 0.86 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.58 | 0.94 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 6.12 | 2.5 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.89 | 1.03 |
MySQL Write-only
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) | Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,856.00 | 10,229.00 |
| Queries per second | 38,560.00 | 102,290.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.5 | 0.64 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.59 | 0.98 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 10.82 | 2.08 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.89 | 1.23 |
MySQL Read/Write
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) | Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,905.00 | 5,072.00 |
| Queries per second | 19,050.00 | 50,720.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 3.43 | 1.59 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 5.25 | 1.97 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 14.57 | 3.94 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 7.17 | 2.39 |
MySQL INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) | Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 6,167.00 | 16,038.00 |
| Queries per second | 61,670.00 | 160,380.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.84 | 0.38 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.62 | 0.62 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 13.98 | 13.18 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.57 | 0.8 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) | Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,171,967.00 | 2,424,342.00 |
| Queries per second | 11,719,670.00 | 24,243,420.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 467.34 | 205.81 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) | Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 138,173.00 | 241,313.00 |
| Queries per second | 1,381,730.00 | 2,413,130.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.06 | 0.03 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.07 | 0.04 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 1.23 | 0.76 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.1 | 0.05 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) | Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 6,788.00 | 12,080.00 |
| Queries per second | 67,880.00 | 120,800.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.4 | 0.21 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.47 | 0.83 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 7.49 | 3.31 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.96 | 1.04 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) | Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 6,804.00 | 10,527.00 |
| Queries per second | 68,040.00 | 105,270.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.38 | 0.16 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.47 | 0.95 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.19 | 3.25 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.93 | 1.23 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) | Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 5,044.00 | 17,123.00 |
| Queries per second | 50,440.00 | 171,230.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.89 | 0.38 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.98 | 0.58 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 27.43 | 2 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.43 | 0.78 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) | Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 5,825.00 | 16,979.00 |
| Queries per second | 58,250.00 | 169,790.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.87 | 0.38 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.72 | 0.59 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 10.75 | 4.13 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.66 | 0.8 |
MySQL DELETE
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) | Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 48,264.00 | 156,424.00 |
| Queries per second | 482,640.00 | 1,564,240.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.06 | 0.03 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.21 | 0.06 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 18.26 | 4.87 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.37 | 0.07 |
Redis
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) | Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 37,850.11 | 88,652.48 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 38,971.16 | 89,605.73 |
| SET per Second | 37,271.71 | 90,171.33 |
| GET per Second | 37,807.18 | 90,579.71 |
| INCR per Second | 38,729.67 | 90,744.10 |
| LPUSH per Second | 35,373.19 | 90,497.73 |
| RPUSH per Second | 38,669.76 | 90,415.91 |
| LPOP per Second | 38,834.95 | 90,909.09 |
| RPOP per Second | 39,651.07 | 90,661.83 |
| SADD per Second | 36,523.01 | 90,252.70 |
| HSET per Second | 37,064.49 | 90,415.91 |
| SPOP per Second | 39,619.65 | 89,928.05 |
| ZADD per Second | 39,123.63 | 90,415.91 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 38,153.38 | 90,009.01 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 26,253.61 | 66,533.60 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 14,598.54 | 36,179.45 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 10,203.04 | 26,239.83 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 8,869.97 | 22,547.91 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 35,625.22 | 88,105.73 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) | Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 0.90 | 0.30 |
| PING_MBULK | 0.87 | 0.29 |
| SET | 0.92 | 0.29 |
| GET | 0.90 | 0.29 |
| INCR | 0.88 | 0.28 |
| LPUSH | 0.96 | 0.29 |
| RPUSH | 0.89 | 0.29 |
| LPOP | 0.89 | 0.28 |
| RPOP | 0.87 | 0.28 |
| SADD | 0.93 | 0.29 |
| HSET | 0.92 | 0.29 |
| SPOP | 0.86 | 0.29 |
| ZADD | 0.88 | 0.29 |
| ZPOPMIN | 0.89 | 0.29 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 1.34 | 0.39 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 2.48 | 0.71 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 3.51 | 0.97 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 4.03 | 1.14 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 0.99 | 0.30 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
In conclusion, the Vultr High Frequency Intel instance benchmarks significantly outperform the DigitalOcean Premium AMD instance in terms of Redis operations, CPU throughput, file I/O operations, and MySQL operations, with higher requests per second (rps) and lower latency metrics across the board. This suggests that the Vultr instance is better suited for CPU-intensive, I/O-heavy workloads, and applications requiring high throughput and low latency, like real-time analytics, gaming servers, or high-performance databases. Conversely, the DigitalOcean instance, while still capable, may be more appropriate for less demanding workloads where cost is a primary concern, or when specific use cases benefit slightly from AMD's architecture.
From the friendly human:
If you found this VPS Showdown helpful in your search for a hosting provider, please consider supporting my efforts by signing up using my referral links for DigitalOcean and Vultr.
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