DigitalOcean Premium Intel (1 GB) vs. Vultr Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores)
Welcome to another round of the VPS Showdown. Today I've spun up brand new instance from DigitalOcean and Vultr and did some benchmarking. Each instance was spun up with 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 (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Fri, 22 May 2026 22:00:53 GMT | Sat, 23 May 2026 11:00:52 GMT |
| Linux Distro | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 |
| Kernel Version | 6.8.0-71-generic | 6.8.0-117-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 | $40.00 |
| RAM (GB) | 1 | 8 |
| CPU Cores | 1 | 4 |
| Storage (TB) | 35 | 160 |
| Storage Type | NVMe | SSD |
| Transfer (TB) | 1 | 4 |
CPU
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | GenuineIntel | GenuineIntel |
| Model Name | DO-Premium-Intel | Intel Xeon Processor (Skylake, IBRS) |
| Clock Speed (MHz) | 2,494.15 | 2,593.90 |
| CPU Cache Size (KB) | 4,096.00 | 16,384.00 |
| BogoMips | 4,988.29 | 5,187.80 |
| Events per Second | 808.34 | 1,100.82 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.91 | 0.88 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.24 | 0.91 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.8 | 1.56 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.22 | 0.97 |
Memory
Memory Read
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 4,952,535.02 | 3,685,781.23 |
| Mebibytes per second | 4,836.46 | 3,599.40 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.26 | 1.03 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 4,909,311.62 | 3,590,629.63 |
| Mebibytes per second | 4,794.25 | 3,506.47 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.93 | 1.16 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
File I/O
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 3,537.75 | 4,999.39 |
| Writes per Second | 2,358.50 | 3,332.93 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 7,556.09 | 10,670.47 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 55.28 | 78.12 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 36.85 | 52.08 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.07 | 0.05 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 6.19 | 37.52 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.21 | 0.18 |
Mutex
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1,660.95 | 369.37 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1,668.18 | 416.22 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 1,676.37 | 441.77 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1,678.14 | 442.73 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 8,295.00 | 5,144.00 |
| Queries per second | 82,950.00 | 51,440.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.06 | 1.72 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.2 | 1.94 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 7.27 | 7.67 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.39 | 2.35 |
MySQL Write-only
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 7,508.00 | 5,108.00 |
| Queries per second | 75,080.00 | 51,080.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.8 | 1.15 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.33 | 1.96 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 6.8 | 12.52 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2 | 2.71 |
MySQL Read/Write
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,422.00 | 2,247.00 |
| Queries per second | 34,220.00 | 22,470.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 2.26 | 3.08 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.92 | 4.45 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 7.75 | 29.7 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.82 | 5.28 |
MySQL INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 9,975.00 | 7,630.00 |
| Queries per second | 99,750.00 | 76,300.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.46 | 0.71 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1 | 1.31 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 41.98 | 29.81 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.25 | 1.55 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,434,092.00 | 898,571.00 |
| Queries per second | 14,340,920.00 | 8,985,710.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0.01 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 317.7 | 505.86 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 234,043.00 | 149,465.00 |
| Queries per second | 2,340,430.00 | 1,494,650.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.03 | 0.05 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.07 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 1.61 | 1.22 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.06 | 0.09 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 6,822.00 | 4,249.00 |
| Queries per second | 68,220.00 | 42,490.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.52 | 0.83 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.46 | 2.35 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 5.29 | 6.6 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.89 | 3.02 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 7,313.00 | 2,637.00 |
| Queries per second | 73,130.00 | 26,370.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.4 | 0.94 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.37 | 3.79 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.79 | 6.3 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.79 | 5.09 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 11,990.00 | 7,166.00 |
| Queries per second | 119,900.00 | 71,660.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.46 | 0.7 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.83 | 1.39 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 9.26 | 28.84 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.3 | 1.79 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 14,026.00 | 7,661.00 |
| Queries per second | 140,260.00 | 76,610.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.44 | 0.7 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.71 | 1.3 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.27 | 33.97 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.99 | 1.58 |
MySQL DELETE
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 138,063.00 | 69,690.00 |
| Queries per second | 1,380,630.00 | 696,900.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.03 | 0.05 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.07 | 0.14 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 8.64 | 27.73 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.11 | 0.87 |
Redis
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 68,775.79 | 54,436.58 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 73,909.83 | 48,828.12 |
| SET per Second | 69,881.20 | 51,572.98 |
| GET per Second | 72,939.46 | 48,239.27 |
| INCR per Second | 69,930.07 | 52,328.62 |
| LPUSH per Second | 67,294.75 | 45,454.54 |
| RPUSH per Second | 69,541.03 | 49,751.24 |
| LPOP per Second | 72,046.11 | 53,390.28 |
| RPOP per Second | 71,787.51 | 53,648.07 |
| SADD per Second | 72,674.41 | 48,285.85 |
| HSET per Second | 72,358.90 | 51,493.30 |
| SPOP per Second | 75,187.97 | 52,910.05 |
| ZADD per Second | 70,077.09 | 53,504.55 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 73,691.97 | 53,590.57 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 36,751.20 | 28,645.09 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 16,843.52 | 13,131.98 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 10,808.47 | 8,529.51 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 9,228.50 | 7,479.99 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 62,073.25 | 49,212.60 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 0.47 | 0.47 |
| PING_MBULK | 0.43 | 0.53 |
| SET | 0.47 | 0.50 |
| GET | 0.44 | 0.54 |
| INCR | 0.46 | 0.49 |
| LPUSH | 0.49 | 0.58 |
| RPUSH | 0.47 | 0.52 |
| LPOP | 0.46 | 0.49 |
| RPOP | 0.45 | 0.48 |
| SADD | 0.44 | 0.54 |
| HSET | 0.45 | 0.53 |
| SPOP | 0.43 | 0.49 |
| ZADD | 0.46 | 0.48 |
| ZPOPMIN | 0.43 | 0.48 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 0.99 | 0.91 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 2.20 | 1.94 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 3.37 | 3.00 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 3.94 | 3.43 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 0.57 | 0.77 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
Comparing the benchmarks of the two instances, Vultr's Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) outperforms DigitalOcean's Premium Intel (1 GB) across a variety of metrics, particularly in terms of CPU performance, as evidenced by higher RPS (requests per second) rates in Redis benchmarks and better overall throughput and latency in MySQL benchmarks. The Vultr instance has a more powerful CPU, offering better performance for CPU-intensive tasks and multi-threaded applications. However, DigitalOcean's instance shows very low latencies in memory and file I/O operations, which can be advantageous for applications requiring high speed data access. For users prioritizing CPU performance and multi-core processing, the Vultr instance is superior, while DigitalOcean's instance might be preferred for applications that benefit from fast memory and storage operations with lower overall computational requirements.
From the friendly human:
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