VPS Showdown VPS Showdown

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

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Welcome to another round of the VPS Showdown. 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 or around the New York / New Jersey area. Without further ado, here's the results.

Overview

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Last Benchmarked Sat, 01 Aug 2026 05:06:47 GMT Sat, 01 Aug 2026 05:03:47 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 $8.00 $12.00
RAM (GB) 1 2
CPU Cores 1 1
Storage (TB) 35 50
Storage Type NVMe SSD
Transfer (TB) 1 2

Head-to-head

Category winners from the latest benchmarks.

CategoryWinner
CPU (events/sec)DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Memory (read MiB/s)DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (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 6 of 6 categories.

CPU

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Vendor GenuineIntel GenuineIntel
Model Name DO-Premium-Intel DO-Regular
Clock Speed (MHz) 2,100.00 2,294.61
CPU Cache Size (KB) 4,096.00 4,096.00
BogoMips 4,199.99 4,589.21
Events per Second 2,013.81 337.24
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.48 1.07
Average Latency (ms) 0.5 2.96
Maximum Latency (ms) 0.98 7.98
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.53 4.74

Memory

Memory Read

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Operations per second 4,187,334.90 2,158,838.24
Mebibytes per second 4,089.19 2,108.24
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 1.12 7.22
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Operations per second 4,366,312.99 3,098,478.11
Mebibytes per second 4,263.98 3,025.86
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 0.45 2.23
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Reads per Second 2,182.02 897.65
Writes per Second 1,454.68 598.43
Fsyncs per Second 4,663.66 1,924.36
Read Mebibytes per Second 34.09 14.03
Written Mebibytes per Second 22.73 9.35
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.12 0.29
Maximum Latency (ms) 19.91 30.6
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.42 0.9

Mutex

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms) 2,139.85 2,798.91
Average Latency (ms) 2,170.02 2,816.88
Maximum Latency (ms) 2,181.39 2,827.29
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2,198.52 2,828.87

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 8,593.00 4,209.00
Queries per second 85,930.00 42,090.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.98 1.24
Average Latency (ms) 1.16 2.37
Maximum Latency (ms) 20.7 5.8
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.61 2.91

MySQL Write-only

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 4,104.00 720.00
Queries per second 41,040.00 7,200.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.05 2.26
Average Latency (ms) 2.43 13.89
Maximum Latency (ms) 18.59 898.41
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.3 11.24

MySQL Read/Write

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 2,212.00 914.00
Queries per second 22,120.00 9,140.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 2.65 5.04
Average Latency (ms) 4.51 10.93
Maximum Latency (ms) 14.28 399.05
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 6.32 12.98

MySQL INSERT

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 6,241.00 2,481.00
Queries per second 62,410.00 24,810.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.63 1.76
Average Latency (ms) 1.6 4.02
Maximum Latency (ms) 25.45 209.08
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.66 6.43

MySQL Bulk INSERT

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 1,171,967.00 603,677.00
Queries per second 11,719,670.00 6,036,770.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.01 0.02
Maximum Latency (ms) 459.35 768.14
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 234,610.00 111,711.00
Queries per second 2,346,100.00 1,117,110.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.04 0.09
Maximum Latency (ms) 1.37 4.67
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.06 0.14

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 5,162.00 2,616.00
Queries per second 51,620.00 26,160.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.57 1.4
Average Latency (ms) 1.93 3.82
Maximum Latency (ms) 4.87 19.97
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.81 5.18

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 7,424.00 2,567.00
Queries per second 74,240.00 25,670.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.49 1.01
Average Latency (ms) 1.35 3.89
Maximum Latency (ms) 4.12 8.69
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.89 5.57

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 7,010.00 1,815.00
Queries per second 70,100.00 18,150.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.62 1.76
Average Latency (ms) 1.42 5.5
Maximum Latency (ms) 37.55 1034.92
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.3 6.67

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 6,487.00 3,210.00
Queries per second 64,870.00 32,100.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.6 1.61
Average Latency (ms) 1.54 3.11
Maximum Latency (ms) 13.73 42.13
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.35 5.09

MySQL DELETE

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 67,164.00 18,558.00
Queries per second 671,640.00 185,580.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.03 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.15 0.54
Maximum Latency (ms) 11.58 146.02
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.03 2.91

Redis

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second 68,728.52 32,310.18
PING_MBULK per Second 69,060.77 31,645.57
SET per Second 64,350.06 29,222.68
GET per Second 58,788.95 28,760.43
INCR per Second 66,137.57 34,411.56
LPUSH per Second 65,487.89 31,705.77
RPUSH per Second 68,259.38 30,883.26
LPOP per Second 66,755.67 30,892.80
RPOP per Second 66,800.27 33,602.15
SADD per Second 66,313.00 32,520.32
HSET per Second 66,533.60 34,459.00
SPOP per Second 69,979.01 35,997.12
ZADD per Second 60,938.45 29,197.08
ZPOPMIN per Second 63,411.54 29,403.12
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 38,372.98 14,295.93
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 18,378.97 6,915.15
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 12,220.46 4,855.55
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 11,273.96 4,463.09
MSET (10 keys) per Second 50,000.00 27,631.94

Redis Average Latency (ms)

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
PING_INLINE0.460.96
PING_MBULK0.460.97
SET0.501.06
GET0.541.08
INCR0.480.91
LPUSH0.490.98
RPUSH0.470.99
LPOP0.481.00
RPOP0.480.94
SADD0.480.95
HSET0.480.91
SPOP0.450.86
ZADD0.531.07
ZPOPMIN0.501.05
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)0.872.23
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)1.754.29
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)2.715.91
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)2.896.47
MSET (10 keys)0.801.37

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

The DigitalOcean Premium Intel (1 GB) instance outperforms the Regular (2 GB) in key benchmarks, particularly in Redis operations with notably higher requests per second (e.g., PING_INLINE at 68,729 RPS compared to 32,310 RPS) and lower latencies. It also excels in CPU-bound tasks, as evidenced by higher events per second (2013.81 vs 337.24), making it a better choice for CPU-heavy applications or services requiring high throughput and low latency.

From the friendly human:

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Providers & pricing

DigitalOcean overviewDigitalOcean Regular (2 GB) pricing DigitalOcean Premium Intel (1 GB) pricing

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