DigitalOcean Regular (1 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Premium Intel (2 GB)
Last updated on October 1, 2026
Welcome to another round of the VPS Showdown. Today I've got brand new instances from DigitalOcean and did some benchmarking. Each instance was running Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 and all resided in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Time to see who showed up today.
Overview
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Last Benchmarked
Thu, 01 Oct 2026 05:00:49 GMT
Thu, 01 Oct 2026 05:08:17 GMT
Linux Distro
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64
Kernel Version
7.0.0-31-generic
7.0.0-31-generic
MySQL Version
8.4.11-0ubuntu0.26.04.1
8.4.11-0ubuntu0.26.04.1
Redis Version
8.0.5
8.0.5
Location
New York, NY
New York, NY
Monthly Price
$6.00
$16.00
RAM (GB)
1
2
CPU Cores
1
1
Storage (TB)
25
70
Storage Type
SSD
NVMe
Transfer (TB)
1
2
Head-to-head
Category winners from the latest benchmarks.
Category Winner
CPU (events/sec) DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Memory (read MiB/s) DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Disk I/O (MiB/s) DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) MySQL (read/write tps) DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Redis (GET/sec) DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Value (CPU events per $/mo) DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) takes 5 of 6 categories.
CPU
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Vendor
GenuineIntel
GenuineIntel
Model Name
DO-Regular
DO-Premium-Intel
Clock Speed (MHz)
2,494.14
1,995.31
CPU Cache Size (KB)
4,096.00
4,096.00
BogoMips
4,988.27
3,990.62
Events per Second
705.37
1,383.84
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.98
0.5
Average Latency (ms)
1.41
0.72
Maximum Latency (ms)
12.76
26.1
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2
2.35
Memory
Memory Read
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Operations per second
3,663,208.77
4,333,625.92
Mebibytes per second
3,577.35
4,232.06
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
5.47
2.09
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
Memory Write
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Operations per second
3,890,887.47
4,219,640.73
Mebibytes per second
3,799.69
4,120.74
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
2.33
1.16
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
File I/O
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Reads per Second
2,194.30
2,349.38
Writes per Second
1,462.87
1,566.26
Fsyncs per Second
4,688.57
5,019.91
Read Mebibytes per Second
34.29
36.71
Written Mebibytes per Second
22.86
24.47
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.12
0.11
Maximum Latency (ms)
10.7
3.32
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.32
0.41
Mutex
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms)
2,352.19
2,294.95
Average Latency (ms)
2,382.76
2,302.17
Maximum Latency (ms)
2,393.79
2,308.09
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2,405.65
2,320.55
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second
4,593.00
8,290.00
Queries per second
45,930.00
82,900.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.29
1.02
Average Latency (ms)
2.17
1.2
Maximum Latency (ms)
13.82
3.93
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
3.02
1.82
MySQL Write-only
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second
3,486.00
4,835.00
Queries per second
34,860.00
48,350.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.26
1.03
Average Latency (ms)
2.86
2.06
Maximum Latency (ms)
33.41
28.71
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
4.33
2.86
MySQL Read/Write
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second
1,761.00
2,440.00
Queries per second
17,610.00
24,400.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
3.36
2.47
Average Latency (ms)
5.67
4.09
Maximum Latency (ms)
16.69
34.94
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
7.98
5.77
MySQL INSERT
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second
6,877.00
8,740.00
Queries per second
68,770.00
87,400.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.65
0.61
Average Latency (ms)
1.45
1.14
Maximum Latency (ms)
9.48
31.28
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.35
1.86
MySQL Bulk INSERT
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second
833,039.00
1,201,092.00
Queries per second
8,330,390.00
12,010,920.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.01
0.01
Maximum Latency (ms)
670.02
416.59
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
MySQL SELECT
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second
122,209.00
233,729.00
Queries per second
1,222,090.00
2,337,290.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.04
0.04
Average Latency (ms)
0.08
0.04
Maximum Latency (ms)
8.73
1.09
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.14
0.06
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second
3,294.00
5,487.00
Queries per second
32,940.00
54,870.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.13
0.53
Average Latency (ms)
3.03
1.82
Maximum Latency (ms)
17.77
7.49
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
4.65
2.76
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second
5,143.00
6,975.00
Queries per second
51,430.00
69,750.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.52
0.49
Average Latency (ms)
1.94
1.43
Maximum Latency (ms)
8.8
4.05
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
3.02
2.11
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second
5,821.00
8,563.00
Queries per second
58,210.00
85,630.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.62
0.61
Average Latency (ms)
1.71
1.17
Maximum Latency (ms)
21.71
31.11
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
3.3
1.86
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second
7,391.00
7,986.00
Queries per second
73,910.00
79,860.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.57
0.64
Average Latency (ms)
1.35
1.25
Maximum Latency (ms)
8.09
33.18
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.14
1.96
MySQL DELETE
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second
51,002.00
90,875.00
Queries per second
510,020.00
908,750.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.04
0.04
Average Latency (ms)
0.19
0.11
Maximum Latency (ms)
9.61
22.2
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.12
0.19
Redis
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second
31,026.99
65,876.16
PING_MBULK per Second
34,530.39
63,856.96
SET per Second
35,945.36
62,972.29
GET per Second
34,293.55
57,339.45
INCR per Second
23,820.87
61,538.46
LPUSH per Second
30,931.02
66,889.63
RPUSH per Second
33,014.20
64,892.93
LPOP per Second
30,553.01
65,359.48
RPOP per Second
34,459.00
63,572.79
SADD per Second
37,285.61
63,613.23
HSET per Second
29,002.32
66,489.37
SPOP per Second
32,195.75
54,112.55
ZADD per Second
30,562.35
65,487.89
ZPOPMIN per Second
29,342.72
64,557.78
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second
20,024.03
38,895.37
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second
11,069.29
18,539.12
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second
6,976.42
12,931.59
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second
6,141.75
11,428.57
MSET (10 keys) per Second
27,609.06
58,105.75
Redis Average Latency (ms)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
PING_INLINE 0.99 0.48 PING_MBULK 0.88 0.49 SET 0.86 0.51 GET 0.90 0.55 INCR 1.33 0.51 LPUSH 1.00 0.48 RPUSH 0.94 0.49 LPOP 1.03 0.49 RPOP 0.91 0.50 SADD 0.83 0.50 HSET 1.07 0.48 SPOP 0.95 0.59 ZADD 1.01 0.49 ZPOPMIN 1.06 0.49 LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) 1.62 0.85 LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) 2.90 1.72 LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) 4.30 2.59 LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) 4.79 2.86 MSET (10 keys) 1.25 0.69
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
The Premium Intel (2 GB) instance from DigitalOcean outperforms the Regular (1 GB) in nearly every benchmark metric, especially in Redis commands where it achieves significantly higher RPS (Requests Per Second) and substantially lower latencies across various operations. For example, the Premium instance achieves an RPS of 65,703.02 for SET commands compared to 32,206.12 for the Regular instance, and a lower average latency of 0.487ms versus 0.964ms. This instance is well-suited for CPU-heavy, memory-intensive, and high-throughput use cases where budget allows for the higher price point, offering superior performance gains.
From the friendly human:
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