DigitalOcean Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) vs. Vultr High Performance Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Welcome to another round of the VPS Showdown. Today I've spun up brand new instance from DigitalOcean and Vultr and ran my world famous suite of benchmarking scripts. Each instance was running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and all resided in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Enough talk. Here's the data.
Overview
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Sun, 31 May 2026 20:00:52 GMT | Sun, 31 May 2026 20:00:51 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 | $56.00 | $18.00 |
| RAM (GB) | 8 | 2 |
| CPU Cores | 4 | 2 |
| Storage (TB) | 160 | 60 |
| Storage Type | NVMe | NVMe |
| Transfer (TB) | 5 | 4 |
CPU
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | AuthenticAMD | GenuineIntel |
| Model Name | DO-Premium-AMD | Intel Xeon Processor (Cascadelake) |
| Clock Speed (MHz) | 1,996.25 | 2,893.17 |
| CPU Cache Size (KB) | 512.00 | 16,384.00 |
| BogoMips | 3,992.50 | 5,786.33 |
| Events per Second | 1,535.42 | 1,140.16 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.59 | 0.83 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.65 | 0.88 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.89 | 5.04 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.69 | 0.95 |
Memory
Memory Read
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 4,867,578.39 | 5,101,642.66 |
| Mebibytes per second | 4,753.49 | 4,982.07 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.19 | 0.8 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 4,347,879.44 | 5,260,565.97 |
| Mebibytes per second | 4,245.98 | 5,137.27 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.56 | 1.09 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
File I/O
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 2,384.51 | 4,398.81 |
| Writes per Second | 1,589.67 | 2,932.54 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 5,095.64 | 9,388.60 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 37.26 | 68.73 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 24.84 | 45.82 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.11 | 0.06 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 9.42 | 3.17 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.58 | 0.18 |
Mutex
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 325.10 | 749.20 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 435.66 | 793.98 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 487.90 | 843.04 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 484.44 | 846.57 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 5,392.00 | 7,145.00 |
| Queries per second | 53,920.00 | 71,450.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.37 | 1.12 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.85 | 1.4 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3 | 3.41 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.35 | 1.79 |
MySQL Write-only
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,296.00 | 8,110.00 |
| Queries per second | 32,960.00 | 81,100.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.47 | 0.77 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.03 | 1.23 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 19.45 | 3.33 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4.41 | 1.67 |
MySQL Read/Write
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,930.00 | 3,631.00 |
| Queries per second | 19,300.00 | 36,310.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 3.41 | 2.09 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 5.18 | 2.75 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 26.77 | 6.05 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 6.55 | 3.55 |
MySQL INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 4,756.00 | 14,582.00 |
| Queries per second | 47,560.00 | 145,820.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.08 | 0.43 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.1 | 0.68 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 40.66 | 11.71 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.25 | 0.92 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,434,092.00 | 1,492,342.00 |
| Queries per second | 14,340,920.00 | 14,923,420.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0.01 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 418.16 | 314.04 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 125,686.00 | 197,860.00 |
| Queries per second | 1,256,860.00 | 1,978,600.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.05 | 0.03 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.08 | 0.05 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.84 | 0.62 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.11 | 0.07 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 7,055.00 | 6,871.00 |
| Queries per second | 70,550.00 | 68,710.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.33 | 0.57 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.42 | 1.45 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 7.12 | 4.9 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.07 | 1.96 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 6,592.00 | 7,407.00 |
| Queries per second | 65,920.00 | 74,070.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.43 | 0.53 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.52 | 1.35 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.28 | 3.5 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.03 | 1.82 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 5,138.00 | 13,481.00 |
| Queries per second | 51,380.00 | 134,810.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.07 | 0.45 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.94 | 0.74 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 39.78 | 3.61 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.81 | 1.03 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 4,781.00 | 14,448.00 |
| Queries per second | 47,810.00 | 144,480.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.13 | 0.43 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.09 | 0.69 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 19.23 | 3.44 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.07 | 0.92 |
MySQL DELETE
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 41,513.00 | 121,404.00 |
| Queries per second | 415,130.00 | 1,214,040.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.05 | 0.03 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.24 | 0.08 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 11.7 | 4.39 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.67 | 0.12 |
Redis
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 62,073.25 | 62,189.05 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 58,719.91 | 60,606.06 |
| SET per Second | 54,171.18 | 62,034.74 |
| GET per Second | 64,308.68 | 62,344.14 |
| INCR per Second | 55,648.30 | 61,349.70 |
| LPUSH per Second | 55,493.89 | 61,274.51 |
| RPUSH per Second | 52,938.06 | 63,816.21 |
| LPOP per Second | 62,539.09 | 63,291.14 |
| RPOP per Second | 66,269.05 | 62,814.07 |
| SADD per Second | 62,189.05 | 62,073.25 |
| HSET per Second | 55,157.20 | 59,559.26 |
| SPOP per Second | 54,674.69 | 60,496.07 |
| ZADD per Second | 55,035.77 | 62,150.41 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 55,035.77 | 62,539.09 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 37,355.25 | 47,125.36 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 21,715.53 | 26,143.79 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 16,084.93 | 17,905.10 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 14,990.26 | 15,535.19 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 57,770.08 | 61,576.36 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 0.42 | 0.42 |
| PING_MBULK | 0.44 | 0.42 |
| SET | 0.48 | 0.42 |
| GET | 0.40 | 0.41 |
| INCR | 0.47 | 0.42 |
| LPUSH | 0.47 | 0.42 |
| RPUSH | 0.49 | 0.40 |
| LPOP | 0.42 | 0.41 |
| RPOP | 0.39 | 0.41 |
| SADD | 0.42 | 0.42 |
| HSET | 0.47 | 0.45 |
| SPOP | 0.47 | 0.43 |
| ZADD | 0.48 | 0.43 |
| ZPOPMIN | 0.47 | 0.41 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 0.78 | 0.57 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 1.26 | 1.04 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 1.71 | 1.47 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 1.91 | 1.72 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 0.47 | 0.44 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
Comparing the benchmarks of DigitalOcean's Premium AMD instance and Vultr's High Performance Intel instance, the DigitalOcean instance provides superior performance across most metrics due to its higher core count and RAM, resulting in better handling of CPU-intensive tasks, higher throughput in memory operations, and more robust I/O performance. Vultr's instance, while capable, lags behind in terms of raw computational power and memory operations, especially noticeable in CPU-bound and memory-intensive workloads. However, Vultr's instance offers better performance in specific MySQL benchmarks and slightly lower latency in file IO operations. Ideal use cases for DigitalOcean's instance would be for applications requiring high CPU and memory usage, such as large-scale data processing or high-concurrency web services. Conversely, Vultr's instance could be more suitable for applications with moderate computational demands and benefits from its lower price point, making it a cost-effective choice for smaller projects or less resource-intensive workloads.
From the friendly human:
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