Welcome to another round of the VPS Showdown. Today I spun up fresh instances from DigitalOcean and Vultr to run some benchmarks on. All instances were spun up with Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 and were created in the New York area (or close to it). Let's get into the numbers.
Overview
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Last Benchmarked
Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:34:21 GMT
Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:33:36 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
Newark, NJ
Monthly Price
$8.00
$10.00
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.
Category
Winner
CPU (events/sec)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Memory (read MiB/s)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Disk I/O (MiB/s)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
MySQL (read/write tps)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Redis (GET/sec)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Value (CPU events per $/mo)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Evenly matched across 6 categories.
CPU
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Vendor
GenuineIntel
GenuineIntel
Model Name
DO-Premium-Intel
Intel Core Processor (Skylake, IBRS, no TSX)
Clock Speed (MHz)
1,995.31
3,791.94
CPU Cache Size (KB)
4,096.00
16,384.00
BogoMips
3,990.62
7,583.88
Events per Second
1,569.73
1,435.42
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.5
0.67
Average Latency (ms)
0.63
0.7
Maximum Latency (ms)
8.89
4.15
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.01
0.74
Memory
Memory Read
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Operations per second
3,257,050.99
7,568,455.18
Mebibytes per second
3,180.71
7,391.07
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
2.04
0.36
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
Memory Write
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Operations per second
3,792,553.48
7,598,419.58
Mebibytes per second
3,703.67
7,420.33
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
0.49
0.68
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
File I/O
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Reads per Second
2,083.32
4,001.75
Writes per Second
1,388.85
2,667.80
Fsyncs per Second
4,445.91
8,546.24
Read Mebibytes per Second
32.55
62.53
Written Mebibytes per Second
21.70
41.68
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.13
0.07
Maximum Latency (ms)
4.6
24.03
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.43
0.2
Mutex
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms)
3,034.96
1,145.72
Average Latency (ms)
3,055.67
1,154.58
Maximum Latency (ms)
3,070.73
1,160.32
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
3,095.38
1,170.65
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second
7,028.00
9,706.00
Queries per second
70,280.00
97,060.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.03
0.91
Average Latency (ms)
1.42
1.03
Maximum Latency (ms)
12.04
2.49
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2
1.18
MySQL Write-only
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second
4,496.00
7,666.00
Queries per second
44,960.00
76,660.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.09
0.67
Average Latency (ms)
2.22
1.3
Maximum Latency (ms)
31.7
158.72
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
3.13
1.42
MySQL Read/Write
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second
2,100.00
3,938.00
Queries per second
21,000.00
39,380.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
2.57
1.82
Average Latency (ms)
4.76
2.54
Maximum Latency (ms)
25.06
51.37
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
6.79
3.13
MySQL INSERT
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second
6,996.00
18,012.00
Queries per second
69,960.00
180,120.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.64
0.39
Average Latency (ms)
1.42
0.55
Maximum Latency (ms)
47.81
44.86
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.48
0.73
MySQL Bulk INSERT
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second
964,103.00
1,870,967.00
Queries per second
9,641,030.00
18,709,670.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.01
0.01
Maximum Latency (ms)
564.3
225.74
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
MySQL SELECT
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second
194,738.00
213,062.00
Queries per second
1,947,380.00
2,130,620.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.04
0.04
Average Latency (ms)
0.05
0.05
Maximum Latency (ms)
1.75
1.04
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.08
0.06
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second
3,978.00
7,351.00
Queries per second
39,780.00
73,510.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.71
0.41
Average Latency (ms)
2.51
1.36
Maximum Latency (ms)
7.86
5.95
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
4.18
2.14
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second
6,387.00
9,954.00
Queries per second
63,870.00
99,540.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.54
0.27
Average Latency (ms)
1.56
1
Maximum Latency (ms)
10.51
4.46
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.61
1.58
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second
4,587.00
16,749.00
Queries per second
45,870.00
167,490.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.73
0.38
Average Latency (ms)
2.18
0.6
Maximum Latency (ms)
49.21
83.31
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
4.49
0.8
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second
7,624.00
17,638.00
Queries per second
76,240.00
176,380.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.6
0.38
Average Latency (ms)
1.31
0.57
Maximum Latency (ms)
27.61
77.2
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.18
0.75
MySQL DELETE
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second
71,987.00
145,888.00
Queries per second
719,870.00
1,458,880.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.04
0.04
Average Latency (ms)
0.14
0.07
Maximum Latency (ms)
10.22
4.51
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.83
0.1
Redis
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second
50,581.69
50,838.84
PING_MBULK per Second
52,714.81
50,761.42
SET per Second
56,211.35
52,192.07
GET per Second
56,401.58
52,383.45
INCR per Second
59,101.65
52,938.06
LPUSH per Second
41,084.63
51,813.47
RPUSH per Second
41,186.16
51,572.98
LPOP per Second
42,643.92
50,968.40
RPOP per Second
44,642.86
50,479.56
SADD per Second
44,072.28
51,308.36
HSET per Second
46,663.56
49,925.11
SPOP per Second
47,505.94
50,890.59
ZADD per Second
41,407.87
50,505.05
ZPOPMIN per Second
34,459.00
50,968.40
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second
29,446.41
34,399.72
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second
13,106.16
20,016.01
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second
10,968.52
14,332.81
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second
8,992.00
12,966.80
MSET (10 keys) per Second
46,620.05
49,603.17
Redis Average Latency (ms)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
PING_INLINE
0.63
0.61
PING_MBULK
0.60
0.60
SET
0.57
0.59
GET
0.57
0.59
INCR
0.55
0.59
LPUSH
0.79
0.60
RPUSH
0.78
0.60
LPOP
0.77
0.61
RPOP
0.73
0.61
SADD
0.73
0.60
HSET
0.69
0.62
SPOP
0.67
0.60
ZADD
0.78
0.61
ZPOPMIN
0.91
0.60
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)
1.14
0.91
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)
2.48
1.61
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)
3.00
2.25
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)
3.51
2.52
MSET (10 keys)
0.85
0.67
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
The Vultr Cloud Compute (2 GB) instance outperforms the DigitalOcean Premium Intel (1 GB) in most benchmarks. The Vultr instance achieves higher RPS rates in Redis benchmarks such as INCR (59,101.65 vs 52,938.06), GET (56,401.58 vs 56,663.56), and SET (52,192.07 vs 56,211.35). It also excels in CPU benchmarks, recording higher events per second (1435.42 vs 1569.73) and better thread fairness. The Vultr instance also has more RAM and better MySQL throughput, making it more suitable for CPU-heavy and memory-intensive workloads, whereas the DigitalOcean instance might be preferred for more budget-conscious users needing less headroom.
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.
