DigitalOcean Premium Intel (1 GB) vs. Vultr Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Fresh benchmarks coming at ya. Today I've spun up some brand new instance from DigitalOcean and Vultr and ran my world famous suite of benchmarking scripts. All instances were running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and were created in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Let's get into the numbers.
Overview
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Sun, 10 May 2026 12:00:52 GMT | Mon, 11 May 2026 04:00:52 GMT |
| Linux Distro | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 |
| Kernel Version | 6.8.0-71-generic | 6.8.0-111-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 | $8.00 | $15.00 |
| RAM (GB) | 1 | 2 |
| CPU Cores | 1 | 2 |
| Storage (TB) | 35 | 65 |
| Storage Type | NVMe | SSD |
| Transfer (TB) | 1 | 3 |
CPU
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | GenuineIntel | GenuineIntel |
| Model Name | DO-Premium-Intel | Intel Core Processor (Skylake, IBRS, no TSX) |
| Clock Speed (MHz) | 2,100.00 | 3,792.00 |
| CPU Cache Size (KB) | 4,096.00 | 16,384.00 |
| BogoMips | 4,200.00 | 7,583.99 |
| Events per Second | 1,123.72 | 1,481.60 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.44 | 0.63 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.89 | 0.67 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.74 | 1.95 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.07 | 0.77 |
Memory
Memory Read
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 4,675,020.48 | 6,401,389.08 |
| Mebibytes per second | 4,565.45 | 6,251.36 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.2 | 0.23 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 4,732,484.18 | 6,411,085.35 |
| Mebibytes per second | 4,621.57 | 6,260.83 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.16 | 0.18 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
File I/O
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 2,649.98 | 4,345.71 |
| Writes per Second | 1,766.65 | 2,897.07 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 5,662.79 | 9,273.19 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 41.41 | 67.90 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 27.60 | 45.27 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.1 | 0.06 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 5.52 | 2.92 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.34 | 0.17 |
Mutex
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 2,214.49 | 214.63 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2,221.55 | 569.72 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 2,227.60 | 636.55 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2,238.47 | 634.66 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 8,882.00 | 8,015.00 |
| Queries per second | 88,820.00 | 80,150.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.01 | 0.92 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.12 | 1.25 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.83 | 5.5 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.61 | 1.86 |
MySQL Write-only
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 5,611.00 | 8,497.00 |
| Queries per second | 56,110.00 | 84,970.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.94 | 0.76 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.78 | 1.17 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 15.35 | 3.04 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.66 | 1.55 |
MySQL Read/Write
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 2,734.00 | 3,726.00 |
| Queries per second | 27,340.00 | 37,260.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 2.2 | 1.78 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.65 | 2.68 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 45.15 | 5.82 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 5.37 | 3.43 |
MySQL INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 9,168.00 | 15,028.00 |
| Queries per second | 91,680.00 | 150,280.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.56 | 0.41 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.09 | 0.66 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 17.78 | 2.42 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.73 | 0.86 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,375,842.00 | 1,696,217.00 |
| Queries per second | 13,758,420.00 | 16,962,170.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0.01 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 392.83 | 283.37 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 254,408.00 | 201,989.00 |
| Queries per second | 2,544,080.00 | 2,019,890.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.03 | 0.03 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.05 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 1.24 | 0.51 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.05 | 0.07 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 6,839.00 | 8,025.00 |
| Queries per second | 68,390.00 | 80,250.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.48 | 0.35 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.46 | 1.24 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 4.84 | 3.55 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.93 | 2.07 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 8,318.00 | 8,336.00 |
| Queries per second | 83,180.00 | 83,360.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.42 | 0.4 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.2 | 1.2 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.52 | 4.25 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.58 | 2.22 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 9,033.00 | 13,858.00 |
| Queries per second | 90,330.00 | 138,580.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.55 | 0.42 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.11 | 0.72 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 10.79 | 6.33 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.76 | 0.95 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 9,456.00 | 14,587.00 |
| Queries per second | 94,560.00 | 145,870.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.53 | 0.4 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.06 | 0.68 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 9.47 | 11.69 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.55 | 0.9 |
MySQL DELETE
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 123,722.00 | 129,013.00 |
| Queries per second | 1,237,220.00 | 1,290,130.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.03 | 0.03 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.08 | 0.08 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 15.71 | 2.61 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.12 | 0.09 |
Redis
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 71,428.57 | 78,247.26 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 73,583.52 | 74,738.41 |
| SET per Second | 71,326.68 | 77,041.60 |
| GET per Second | 73,421.44 | 83,333.33 |
| INCR per Second | 74,183.98 | 80,971.66 |
| LPUSH per Second | 72,463.77 | 79,113.92 |
| RPUSH per Second | 72,568.94 | 77,160.49 |
| LPOP per Second | 71,942.45 | 81,499.59 |
| RPOP per Second | 72,411.30 | 82,440.23 |
| SADD per Second | 72,992.70 | 80,192.46 |
| HSET per Second | 71,994.23 | 83,612.04 |
| SPOP per Second | 72,833.21 | 85,034.02 |
| ZADD per Second | 71,890.73 | 83,263.95 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 72,992.70 | 82,987.55 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 40,749.80 | 55,555.56 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 20,149.10 | 28,851.70 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 12,981.96 | 19,391.12 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 11,043.62 | 17,211.71 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 63,331.22 | 80,256.82 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 0.46 | 0.34 |
| PING_MBULK | 0.44 | 0.35 |
| SET | 0.45 | 0.34 |
| GET | 0.44 | 0.32 |
| INCR | 0.44 | 0.32 |
| LPUSH | 0.45 | 0.34 |
| RPUSH | 0.45 | 0.34 |
| LPOP | 0.46 | 0.32 |
| RPOP | 0.46 | 0.32 |
| SADD | 0.45 | 0.32 |
| HSET | 0.45 | 0.31 |
| SPOP | 0.44 | 0.30 |
| ZADD | 0.46 | 0.31 |
| ZPOPMIN | 0.45 | 0.31 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 0.88 | 0.54 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 1.79 | 1.11 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 2.76 | 1.62 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 3.21 | 1.84 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 0.56 | 0.38 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
After analyzing the benchmarks, the DigitalOcean Premium Intel (1 GB) instance shows higher Redis throughput and lower latency for most Redis operations compared to the Vultr Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) instance, indicating superior performance for memory-intensive tasks. The DigitalOcean instance also excels in MySQL OLTP operations and file I/O performance, boasting faster read/write operations and lower latencies. However, the Vultr instance performs marginally better in CPU benchmark tests and shows competitive Redis, MySQL, and file I/O performance, suggesting it might be better suited for CPU-intensive workloads and environments where higher RAM and multiple CPU cores are advantageous. Therefore, the DigitalOcean instance is ideal for applications emphasizing low latency and high throughput for memory operations, while the Vultr instance may be preferred for applications where CPU power and additional memory are critical.
From the friendly human:
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