DigitalOcean Premium Intel (1 GB) vs. Vultr Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Same showdown, different day. Today I've spun up some 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 were created in the New York area (or close to it). Enough talk. Here's the data.
Overview
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Wed, 10 Jun 2026 12:00:53 GMT | Thu, 11 Jun 2026 09:00:52 GMT |
| Linux Distro | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 |
| Kernel Version | 6.8.0-71-generic | 6.8.0-124-generic |
| MySQL Version | 8.0.46-0ubuntu0.24.04.2 | 8.0.46-0ubuntu0.24.04.2 |
| Redis Version | 7.0.15 | 7.0.15 |
| Location | New York, NY | Newark, NJ |
| Monthly Price | $8.00 | $20.00 |
| RAM (GB) | 1 | 4 |
| CPU Cores | 1 | 2 |
| Storage (TB) | 35 | 80 |
| Storage Type | NVMe | SSD |
| Transfer (TB) | 1 | 3 |
CPU
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | GenuineIntel | GenuineIntel |
| Model Name | DO-Premium-Intel | Intel Xeon Processor (Skylake, IBRS) |
| Clock Speed (MHz) | 2,494.14 | 2,593.91 |
| CPU Cache Size (KB) | 4,096.00 | 16,384.00 |
| BogoMips | 4,988.28 | 5,187.81 |
| Events per Second | 763.21 | 1,022.39 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.81 | 0.88 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.31 | 0.98 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 4.24 | 1.77 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.22 | 1.21 |
Memory
Memory Read
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 5,095,701.24 | 3,523,809.57 |
| Mebibytes per second | 4,976.27 | 3,441.22 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.3 | 0.22 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 5,056,970.51 | 3,568,203.77 |
| Mebibytes per second | 4,938.45 | 3,484.57 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.39 | 1.02 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
File I/O
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 3,882.15 | 2,972.63 |
| Writes per Second | 2,588.07 | 1,981.75 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 8,289.81 | 6,347.81 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 60.66 | 46.45 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 40.44 | 30.96 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.07 | 0.09 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 5.92 | 17.12 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.2 | 0.33 |
Mutex
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1,584.76 | 899.28 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1,592.30 | 935.93 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 1,597.19 | 969.92 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1,589.90 | 977.74 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 9,224.00 | 3,779.00 |
| Queries per second | 92,240.00 | 37,790.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.95 | 1.84 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.08 | 2.64 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 6.54 | 24.55 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.14 | 3.82 |
MySQL Write-only
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 8,445.00 | 4,044.00 |
| Queries per second | 84,450.00 | 40,440.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.75 | 1.4 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.18 | 2.47 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.93 | 13.46 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.64 | 3.3 |
MySQL Read/Write
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,862.00 | 1,798.00 |
| Queries per second | 38,620.00 | 17,980.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 2.04 | 3.86 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.59 | 5.56 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 6.33 | 27.33 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.13 | 6.91 |
MySQL INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 15,998.00 | 6,405.00 |
| Queries per second | 159,980.00 | 64,050.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.41 | 0.99 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.62 | 1.56 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 10.27 | 15.15 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.84 | 2.03 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,492,342.00 | 865,805.00 |
| Queries per second | 14,923,420.00 | 8,658,050.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0.01 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 309.26 | 538.25 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 260,603.00 | 126,618.00 |
| Queries per second | 2,606,030.00 | 1,266,180.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.03 | 0.05 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.08 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 1.85 | 2.46 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.05 | 0.11 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 7,464.00 | 3,674.00 |
| Queries per second | 74,640.00 | 36,740.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.37 | 1.07 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.34 | 2.72 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 5.49 | 6.45 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.73 | 3.55 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 7,848.00 | 2,728.00 |
| Queries per second | 78,480.00 | 27,280.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.43 | 1.3 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.27 | 3.66 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.67 | 11.85 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.67 | 5 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 13,912.00 | 5,438.00 |
| Queries per second | 139,120.00 | 54,380.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.44 | 0.99 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.72 | 1.84 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 4.06 | 13.86 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.04 | 2.71 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 15,298.00 | 6,370.00 |
| Queries per second | 152,980.00 | 63,700.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.42 | 1.01 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.65 | 1.57 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 5.3 | 8.99 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.89 | 2.07 |
MySQL DELETE
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 160,162.00 | 51,180.00 |
| Queries per second | 1,601,620.00 | 511,800.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.03 | 0.05 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.06 | 0.19 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 4.62 | 6.11 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.09 | 1.39 |
Redis
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 72,621.64 | 49,677.10 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 76,569.68 | 45,372.05 |
| SET per Second | 75,187.97 | 45,392.64 |
| GET per Second | 76,103.50 | 53,163.21 |
| INCR per Second | 76,804.91 | 48,732.94 |
| LPUSH per Second | 74,404.77 | 50,327.12 |
| RPUSH per Second | 74,906.37 | 48,285.85 |
| LPOP per Second | 73,152.89 | 48,355.90 |
| RPOP per Second | 73,964.50 | 51,413.88 |
| SADD per Second | 76,219.51 | 48,332.53 |
| HSET per Second | 74,850.30 | 49,285.36 |
| SPOP per Second | 76,687.12 | 48,332.53 |
| ZADD per Second | 74,460.16 | 51,229.51 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 76,982.29 | 45,085.66 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 38,124.29 | 27,122.32 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 17,590.15 | 12,442.45 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 11,552.68 | 7,930.21 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 9,915.72 | 6,902.74 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 65,703.02 | 45,146.73 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 0.44 | 0.53 |
| PING_MBULK | 0.42 | 0.57 |
| SET | 0.43 | 0.57 |
| GET | 0.42 | 0.49 |
| INCR | 0.42 | 0.53 |
| LPUSH | 0.44 | 0.51 |
| RPUSH | 0.43 | 0.54 |
| LPOP | 0.44 | 0.54 |
| RPOP | 0.44 | 0.52 |
| SADD | 0.42 | 0.55 |
| HSET | 0.43 | 0.54 |
| SPOP | 0.42 | 0.54 |
| ZADD | 0.43 | 0.52 |
| ZPOPMIN | 0.41 | 0.57 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 0.95 | 1.02 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 2.09 | 2.29 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 3.16 | 3.27 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 3.68 | 3.91 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 0.53 | 0.78 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
After analyzing the benchmark results from both instances, it's clear that the Vultr Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) excels in handling multi-threaded tasks and has higher CPU event throughput, while the DigitalOcean Premium Intel (1 GB) shows slightly better performance in Redis operations and lower latency in file I/O operations, suggesting it's more suited for memory-intensive workloads with high read/write speeds. The Vultr instance, on the other hand, with its dual-core setup and larger memory, performs better in benchmarks involving more complex database operations and multi-threaded tasks, making it ideal for applications that require higher CPU power and parallelism. Both instances offer competitive latency and throughput figures, but depending on your specific use case—whether it leans more towards CPU-intensive processing, database interactions, or memory-intensive tasks—you should choose the instance that best aligns with your performance needs.
From the friendly human:
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