VPS Showdown VPS Showdown

DigitalOcean Premium AMD (2 GB) vs. Vultr High Frequency Intel (2 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. Each instance was running Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 and were created in the New York area (or close to it). Without further ado, here's the results.

Overview

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Last Benchmarked Sat, 01 Aug 2026 05:11:17 GMT Sat, 01 Aug 2026 05:09:02 GMT
Linux Distro Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64
Kernel Version 7.0.0-27-generic 7.0.0-28-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 $14.00 $12.00
RAM (GB) 2 2
CPU Cores 1 1
Storage (TB) 50 64
Storage Type NVMe NVMe
Transfer (TB) 2 2

Head-to-head

Category winners from the latest benchmarks.

CategoryWinner
CPU (events/sec)Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Memory (read MiB/s)Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Disk I/O (MiB/s)Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
MySQL (read/write tps)Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Redis (GET/sec)DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB)
Value (CPU events per $/mo)Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB) takes 5 of 6 categories.

CPU

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Vendor AuthenticAMD GenuineIntel
Model Name DO-Premium-AMD Intel Core Processor (Skylake, IBRS, no TSX)
Clock Speed (MHz) 1,996.25 3,696.00
CPU Cache Size (KB) 512.00 16,384.00
BogoMips 3,992.50 7,391.99
Events per Second 726.05 1,429.28
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.64 0.67
Average Latency (ms) 1.37 0.7
Maximum Latency (ms) 12.5 3.93
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.57 0.8

Memory

Memory Read

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Operations per second 3,124,321.03 7,573,259.47
Mebibytes per second 3,051.09 7,395.76
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 3.2 0.29
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Operations per second 5,198,576.87 7,520,809.77
Mebibytes per second 5,076.74 7,344.54
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 2.33 0.33
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Reads per Second 1,786.48 4,743.82
Writes per Second 1,190.99 3,162.54
Fsyncs per Second 3,820.35 10,128.84
Read Mebibytes per Second 27.91 74.12
Written Mebibytes per Second 18.61 49.41
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.15 0.05
Maximum Latency (ms) 15.23 2.43
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.54 0.16

Mutex

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms) 1,705.40 1,135.02
Average Latency (ms) 1,717.24 1,145.46
Maximum Latency (ms) 1,725.62 1,150.95
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1,739.68 1,149.76

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 7,218.00 10,014.00
Queries per second 72,180.00 100,140.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.2 0.91
Average Latency (ms) 1.38 1
Maximum Latency (ms) 2.84 2.96
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.67 1.14

MySQL Write-only

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 4,665.00 11,181.00
Queries per second 46,650.00 111,810.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.12 0.58
Average Latency (ms) 2.14 0.89
Maximum Latency (ms) 24.52 7.24
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.43 1.16

MySQL Read/Write

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 2,351.00 4,056.00
Queries per second 23,510.00 40,560.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 2.54 1.7
Average Latency (ms) 4.25 2.46
Maximum Latency (ms) 29.54 19.4
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 6.21 3.82

MySQL INSERT

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 7,702.00 20,663.00
Queries per second 77,020.00 206,630.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.73 0.32
Average Latency (ms) 1.3 0.48
Maximum Latency (ms) 39.5 5.62
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.22 0.64

MySQL Bulk INSERT

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 1,317,592.00 1,870,967.00
Queries per second 13,175,920.00 18,709,670.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.01 0.01
Maximum Latency (ms) 403.62 227.33
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 161,910.00 229,513.00
Queries per second 1,619,100.00 2,295,130.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.05 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.06 0.04
Maximum Latency (ms) 1.19 1.03
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.09 0.05

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 5,673.00 7,697.00
Queries per second 56,730.00 76,970.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.55 0.42
Average Latency (ms) 1.76 1.3
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.81 4.34
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.48 1.67

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 7,133.00 10,600.00
Queries per second 71,330.00 106,000.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.45 0.37
Average Latency (ms) 1.4 0.94
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.08 2.67
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.89 1.25

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 7,358.00 19,067.00
Queries per second 73,580.00 190,670.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.76 0.32
Average Latency (ms) 1.36 0.52
Maximum Latency (ms) 32.59 3.86
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.22 0.73

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 7,941.00 20,161.00
Queries per second 79,410.00 201,610.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.73 0.32
Average Latency (ms) 1.26 0.5
Maximum Latency (ms) 24.84 11.21
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2 0.67

MySQL DELETE

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 67,880.00 155,087.00
Queries per second 678,800.00 1,550,870.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.05 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.15 0.06
Maximum Latency (ms) 18.82 3.89
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.94 0.09

Redis

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second 68,306.01 57,937.43
PING_MBULK per Second 67,294.75 57,670.13
SET per Second 66,979.23 60,096.15
GET per Second 68,352.70 60,938.45
INCR per Second 66,225.16 58,105.75
LPUSH per Second 67,024.13 59,453.03
RPUSH per Second 68,728.52 60,827.25
LPOP per Second 67,340.07 60,864.27
RPOP per Second 67,521.95 61,312.08
SADD per Second 69,589.42 59,066.75
HSET per Second 67,430.88 59,066.75
SPOP per Second 69,252.08 59,276.82
ZADD per Second 69,252.08 58,105.75
ZPOPMIN per Second 68,212.83 59,594.76
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 36,023.05 38,986.36
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 18,308.31 22,753.13
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 12,436.26 15,583.61
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 10,716.96 14,130.28
MSET (10 keys) per Second 55,679.29 54,674.69

Redis Average Latency (ms)

DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
PING_INLINE0.460.52
PING_MBULK0.460.51
SET0.480.51
GET0.460.49
INCR0.480.51
LPUSH0.470.51
RPUSH0.460.50
LPOP0.480.51
RPOP0.470.50
SADD0.450.51
HSET0.470.51
SPOP0.450.50
ZADD0.460.52
ZPOPMIN0.460.50
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)0.960.81
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)1.831.44
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)2.782.06
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)3.092.35
MSET (10 keys)0.730.59

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

DigitalOcean's Premium AMD instance outperforms Vultr's High Frequency Intel instance in most benchmarks, especially in CPU and Redis throughput. DigitalOcean's instance registers higher RPS in Redis commands like SET and GET, and superior MySQL OLTP operations. While Vultr's CPU benchmark scores are competitive, DigitalOcean's overall higher performance suggests it is better suited for CPU-heavy tasks and applications requiring fast data access, making it an optimal choice for such use cases.

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.

You can also support me next time you shop on Amazon.

Providers & pricing

DigitalOcean overview Vultr overviewDigitalOcean Premium AMD (2 GB) pricing Vultr High Frequency Intel (2 GB) pricing

Related comparisons

vs. DigitalOcean Regular (1 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Regular (1 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Regular (2 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Regular (2 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Premium Intel (1 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Premium Intel (1 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Premium Intel (2 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Premium Intel (2 GB)