VPS Showdown VPS Showdown

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

vs.

New day, new benchmarks. Today I spun up fresh instances from DigitalOcean and did some benchmarking. All instances were spun up with Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 and were created in the New York area (or close to it). Time to see who showed up today.

Overview

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Last Benchmarked Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:28:23 GMT Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:34:21 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 New York, NY
Monthly Price $6.00 $8.00
RAM (GB) 1 1
CPU Cores 1 1
Storage (TB) 25 35
Storage Type SSD NVMe
Transfer (TB) 1 1

Head-to-head

Category winners from the latest benchmarks.

CategoryWinner
CPU (events/sec)DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Memory (read MiB/s)DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Disk I/O (MiB/s)DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
MySQL (read/write tps)DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Redis (GET/sec)DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Value (CPU events per $/mo)DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) takes 5 of 6 categories.

CPU

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Vendor GenuineIntel GenuineIntel
Model Name DO-Regular DO-Premium-Intel
Clock Speed (MHz) 2,294.60 1,995.31
CPU Cache Size (KB) 4,096.00 4,096.00
BogoMips 4,589.20 3,990.62
Events per Second 843.27 1,569.73
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.05 0.5
Average Latency (ms) 1.18 0.63
Maximum Latency (ms) 2.34 8.89
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.47 1.01

Memory

Memory Read

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Operations per second 3,368,867.41 3,257,050.99
Mebibytes per second 3,289.91 3,180.71
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.83 2.04
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Operations per second 3,248,162.62 3,792,553.48
Mebibytes per second 3,172.03 3,703.67
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 4.26 0.49
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Reads per Second 545.13 2,083.32
Writes per Second 363.42 1,388.85
Fsyncs per Second 1,169.66 4,445.91
Read Mebibytes per Second 8.52 32.55
Written Mebibytes per Second 5.68 21.70
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.48 0.13
Maximum Latency (ms) 78.76 4.6
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.79 0.43

Mutex

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms) 2,099.34 3,034.96
Average Latency (ms) 2,145.49 3,055.67
Maximum Latency (ms) 2,160.95 3,070.73
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2,159.29 3,095.38

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 5,001.00 7,028.00
Queries per second 50,010.00 70,280.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.21 1.03
Average Latency (ms) 2 1.42
Maximum Latency (ms) 17.66 12.04
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.66 2

MySQL Write-only

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 738.00 4,496.00
Queries per second 7,380.00 44,960.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 4.83 1.09
Average Latency (ms) 13.55 2.22
Maximum Latency (ms) 58.05 31.7
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 25.28 3.13

MySQL Read/Write

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 613.00 2,100.00
Queries per second 6,130.00 21,000.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 7.34 2.57
Average Latency (ms) 16.32 4.76
Maximum Latency (ms) 67.72 25.06
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 30.81 6.79

MySQL INSERT

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 1,035.00 6,996.00
Queries per second 10,350.00 69,960.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 3.79 0.64
Average Latency (ms) 9.65 1.42
Maximum Latency (ms) 48.93 47.81
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 16.71 2.48

MySQL Bulk INSERT

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 734,741.00 964,103.00
Queries per second 7,347,410.00 9,641,030.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.01 0.01
Maximum Latency (ms) 888.59 564.3
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 128,886.00 194,738.00
Queries per second 1,288,860.00 1,947,380.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.05 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.08 0.05
Maximum Latency (ms) 4.52 1.75
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.12 0.08

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 2,691.00 3,978.00
Queries per second 26,910.00 39,780.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.22 0.71
Average Latency (ms) 3.71 2.51
Maximum Latency (ms) 15.34 7.86
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 5.28 4.18

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 3,433.00 6,387.00
Queries per second 34,330.00 63,870.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.79 0.54
Average Latency (ms) 2.91 1.56
Maximum Latency (ms) 7.06 10.51
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 5 2.61

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 1,000.00 4,587.00
Queries per second 10,000.00 45,870.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 3.62 0.73
Average Latency (ms) 9.99 2.18
Maximum Latency (ms) 38.48 49.21
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 18.28 4.49

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 835.00 7,624.00
Queries per second 8,350.00 76,240.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 3.33 0.6
Average Latency (ms) 11.98 1.31
Maximum Latency (ms) 340.24 27.61
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 24.38 2.18

MySQL DELETE

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 3,488.00 71,987.00
Queries per second 34,880.00 719,870.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 2.87 0.14
Maximum Latency (ms) 57.43 10.22
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 14.73 0.83

Redis

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second 32,051.28 50,581.69
PING_MBULK per Second 29,629.63 52,714.81
SET per Second 30,571.69 56,211.35
GET per Second 26,511.13 56,401.58
INCR per Second 36,469.73 59,101.65
LPUSH per Second 26,709.40 41,084.63
RPUSH per Second 23,741.69 41,186.16
LPOP per Second 29,700.03 42,643.92
RPOP per Second 28,985.51 44,642.86
SADD per Second 29,700.03 44,072.28
HSET per Second 29,770.77 46,663.56
SPOP per Second 28,473.80 47,505.94
ZADD per Second 29,806.26 41,407.87
ZPOPMIN per Second 31,104.20 34,459.00
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 17,519.27 29,446.41
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 7,340.53 13,106.16
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 5,113.52 10,968.52
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 4,561.42 8,992.00
MSET (10 keys) per Second 30,562.35 46,620.05

Redis Average Latency (ms)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
PING_INLINE0.970.63
PING_MBULK1.030.60
SET1.030.57
GET1.180.57
INCR0.850.55
LPUSH1.180.79
RPUSH1.310.78
LPOP1.050.77
RPOP1.080.73
SADD1.040.73
HSET1.050.69
SPOP1.080.67
ZADD1.050.78
ZPOPMIN0.990.91
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)1.841.14
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)4.072.48
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)5.663.00
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)6.313.51
MSET (10 keys)1.250.85

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

The Premium Intel (1 GB) instance outperforms the Regular (1 GB) in nearly all benchmarks, especially in Redis commands where it achieves significantly higher request rates per second, such as 50,581.69 RPS for PING_INLINE compared to 32,051.28 RPS. CPU performance also excels with 1,569.73 events per second versus 843.27, and MySQL bulk insert transactions reach 92,686.57 TPS compared to 71,020.85 TPS. Despite the higher cost, the superior benchmarks suggest it is better suited for CPU-intensive and high-throughput applications.

From the friendly human:

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