VPS Showdown VPS Showdown

DigitalOcean Premium Intel (1 GB) vs. Vultr High Performance AMD (1 GB)

vs.

Same showdown, different day. Today I've got brand new instances from DigitalOcean and Vultr to run some benchmarks on. All instances were running 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 – High Performance AMD (1 GB)
Last Benchmarked Sat, 01 Aug 2026 05:06:47 GMT Sat, 01 Aug 2026 05:10:32 GMT
Linux Distro Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64
Kernel Version 7.0.0-27-generic 7.0.0-28-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 $6.00
RAM (GB) 1 1
CPU Cores 1 1
Storage (TB) 35 25
Storage Type NVMe NVMe
Transfer (TB) 1 2

Head-to-head

Category winners from the latest benchmarks.

CategoryWinner
CPU (events/sec)Vultr – High Performance AMD (1 GB)
Memory (read MiB/s)Vultr – High Performance AMD (1 GB)
Disk I/O (MiB/s)Vultr – High Performance AMD (1 GB)
MySQL (read/write tps)Vultr – High Performance AMD (1 GB)
Redis (GET/sec)DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Value (CPU events per $/mo)Vultr – High Performance AMD (1 GB)

Vultr – High Performance AMD (1 GB) takes 5 of 6 categories.

CPU

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (1 GB)
Vendor GenuineIntel AuthenticAMD
Model Name DO-Premium-Intel AMD EPYC-Genoa Processor
Clock Speed (MHz) 2,100.00 2,899.99
CPU Cache Size (KB) 4,096.00 1,024.00
BogoMips 4,199.99 5,799.98
Events per Second 2,013.81 4,233.82
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.48 0.22
Average Latency (ms) 0.5 0.24
Maximum Latency (ms) 0.98 3.63
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.53 0.25

Memory

Memory Read

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (1 GB)
Operations per second 4,187,334.90 7,457,681.72
Mebibytes per second 4,089.19 7,282.89
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 1.12 0.25
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (1 GB)
Operations per second 4,366,312.99 7,424,120.81
Mebibytes per second 4,263.98 7,250.12
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 0.45 0.89
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (1 GB)
Reads per Second 2,182.02 4,024.70
Writes per Second 1,454.68 2,683.07
Fsyncs per Second 4,663.66 8,597.97
Read Mebibytes per Second 34.09 62.89
Written Mebibytes per Second 22.73 41.92
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.12 0.07
Maximum Latency (ms) 19.91 4.03
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.42 0.19

Mutex

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (1 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms) 2,139.85 1,234.88
Average Latency (ms) 2,170.02 1,242.52
Maximum Latency (ms) 2,181.39 1,247.16
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2,198.52 1,258.08

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (1 GB)
Transactions per second 8,593.00 13,940.00
Queries per second 85,930.00 139,400.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.98 0.66
Average Latency (ms) 1.16 0.72
Maximum Latency (ms) 20.7 9.38
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.61 0.84

MySQL Write-only

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (1 GB)
Transactions per second 4,104.00 12,785.00
Queries per second 41,040.00 127,850.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.05 0.61
Average Latency (ms) 2.43 0.78
Maximum Latency (ms) 18.59 7.66
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.3 0.94

MySQL Read/Write

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (1 GB)
Transactions per second 2,212.00 6,195.00
Queries per second 22,120.00 61,950.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 2.65 1.37
Average Latency (ms) 4.51 1.61
Maximum Latency (ms) 14.28 7.73
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 6.32 1.96

MySQL INSERT

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (1 GB)
Transactions per second 6,241.00 19,096.00
Queries per second 62,410.00 190,960.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.63 0.41
Average Latency (ms) 1.6 0.52
Maximum Latency (ms) 25.45 5.83
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.66 0.61

MySQL Bulk INSERT

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (1 GB)
Transactions per second 1,171,967.00 2,366,092.00
Queries per second 11,719,670.00 23,660,920.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.01 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 459.35 308.75
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (1 GB)
Transactions per second 234,610.00 387,291.00
Queries per second 2,346,100.00 3,872,910.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.02
Average Latency (ms) 0.04 0.03
Maximum Latency (ms) 1.37 1.46
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.06 0.04

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (1 GB)
Transactions per second 5,162.00 11,571.00
Queries per second 51,620.00 115,710.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.57 0.29
Average Latency (ms) 1.93 0.86
Maximum Latency (ms) 4.87 3.29
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.81 1.1

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (1 GB)
Transactions per second 7,424.00 14,459.00
Queries per second 74,240.00 144,590.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.49 0.22
Average Latency (ms) 1.35 0.69
Maximum Latency (ms) 4.12 2.7
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.89 0.89

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (1 GB)
Transactions per second 7,010.00 19,878.00
Queries per second 70,100.00 198,780.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.62 0.4
Average Latency (ms) 1.42 0.5
Maximum Latency (ms) 37.55 10.92
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.3 0.61

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (1 GB)
Transactions per second 6,487.00 19,848.00
Queries per second 64,870.00 198,480.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.6 0.41
Average Latency (ms) 1.54 0.5
Maximum Latency (ms) 13.73 3.22
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.35 0.59

MySQL DELETE

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (1 GB)
Transactions per second 67,164.00 269,641.00
Queries per second 671,640.00 2,696,410.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.03 0.02
Average Latency (ms) 0.15 0.04
Maximum Latency (ms) 11.58 1.94
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.03 0.06

Redis

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (1 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second 68,728.52 48,262.55
PING_MBULK per Second 69,060.77 48,590.86
SET per Second 64,350.06 48,309.18
GET per Second 58,788.95 48,146.37
INCR per Second 66,137.57 47,687.18
LPUSH per Second 65,487.89 49,164.21
RPUSH per Second 68,259.38 48,379.30
LPOP per Second 66,755.67 49,407.12
RPOP per Second 66,800.27 49,627.79
SADD per Second 66,313.00 48,520.13
HSET per Second 66,533.60 48,239.27
SPOP per Second 69,979.01 48,169.56
ZADD per Second 60,938.45 48,875.86
ZPOPMIN per Second 63,411.54 49,115.91
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 38,372.98 37,993.92
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 18,378.97 24,746.35
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 12,220.46 18,086.45
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 11,273.96 16,278.69
MSET (10 keys) per Second 50,000.00 48,947.62

Redis Average Latency (ms)

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (1 GB)
PING_INLINE0.460.65
PING_MBULK0.460.63
SET0.500.65
GET0.540.65
INCR0.480.66
LPUSH0.490.64
RPUSH0.470.65
LPOP0.480.64
RPOP0.480.64
SADD0.480.65
HSET0.480.66
SPOP0.450.64
ZADD0.530.65
ZPOPMIN0.500.64
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)0.870.83
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)1.751.31
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)2.711.68
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)2.891.91
MSET (10 keys)0.800.69

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

The DigitalOcean Premium Intel (1 GB) instance outperforms the Vultr High Performance AMD (1 GB) instance in most benchmarks, particularly in Redis throughput and latency, evident in operations per second of 68728.52 RPS for PING_INLINE compared to Vultr's 48262.55 RPS, and in MySQL bulk insert TPS of 115974.14 compared to Vultr's 235298.19. Thus, DigitalOcean’s offering is more suitable for CPU-intensive and I/O-heavy workloads, providing better performance and efficiency.

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.

You can also support me next time you shop on Amazon.

Providers & pricing

DigitalOcean overview Vultr overviewDigitalOcean Premium Intel (1 GB) pricing Vultr High Performance AMD (1 GB) pricing

Related comparisons

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