DigitalOcean Regular (1 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Premium Intel (2 GB)
Last updated on July 8, 2026
New day, new benchmarks. Today I spun up fresh instances from DigitalOcean and ran some benchmarks. All instances were running Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 and were created in the New York area (or close to it). Enough talk. Here's the data.
Overview
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Last Benchmarked
Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:28:23 GMT
Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:35:51 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
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 – Regular (1 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 4 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)
2,294.60
2,494.15
CPU Cache Size (KB)
4,096.00
4,096.00
BogoMips
4,589.20
4,988.29
Events per Second
843.27
562.17
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.05
0.93
Average Latency (ms)
1.18
1.78
Maximum Latency (ms)
2.34
10.62
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.47
3.13
Memory
Memory Read
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Operations per second
3,368,867.41
4,915,996.46
Mebibytes per second
3,289.91
4,800.78
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
5.83
0.43
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
Memory Write
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Operations per second
3,248,162.62
4,788,946.98
Mebibytes per second
3,172.03
4,676.71
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
4.26
2.26
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
File I/O
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Reads per Second
545.13
4,376.99
Writes per Second
363.42
2,917.99
Fsyncs per Second
1,169.66
9,337.68
Read Mebibytes per Second
8.52
68.39
Written Mebibytes per Second
5.68
45.59
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.48
0.06
Maximum Latency (ms)
78.76
6.27
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.79
0.21
Mutex
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms)
2,099.34
1,688.69
Average Latency (ms)
2,145.49
1,696.46
Maximum Latency (ms)
2,160.95
1,701.64
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2,159.29
1,708.63
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second
5,001.00
8,936.00
Queries per second
50,010.00
89,360.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.21
1.01
Average Latency (ms)
2
1.12
Maximum Latency (ms)
17.66
2.9
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.66
1.3
MySQL Write-only
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second
738.00
7,876.00
Queries per second
7,380.00
78,760.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
4.83
0.79
Average Latency (ms)
13.55
1.27
Maximum Latency (ms)
58.05
9.88
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
25.28
1.79
MySQL Read/Write
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second
613.00
2,982.00
Queries per second
6,130.00
29,820.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
7.34
2.04
Average Latency (ms)
16.32
3.35
Maximum Latency (ms)
67.72
65.11
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
30.81
6.43
MySQL INSERT
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second
1,035.00
15,748.00
Queries per second
10,350.00
157,480.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
3.79
0.45
Average Latency (ms)
9.65
0.63
Maximum Latency (ms)
48.93
11.93
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
16.71
0.92
MySQL Bulk INSERT
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second
734,741.00
1,404,967.00
Queries per second
7,347,410.00
14,049,670.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.01
0.01
Maximum Latency (ms)
888.59
298.75
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
MySQL SELECT
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second
128,886.00
202,254.00
Queries per second
1,288,860.00
2,022,540.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.05
0.03
Average Latency (ms)
0.08
0.05
Maximum Latency (ms)
4.52
4.24
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.12
0.08
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second
2,691.00
4,187.00
Queries per second
26,910.00
41,870.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.22
0.65
Average Latency (ms)
3.71
2.38
Maximum Latency (ms)
15.34
5.81
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
5.28
3.75
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second
3,433.00
6,928.00
Queries per second
34,330.00
69,280.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.79
0.51
Average Latency (ms)
2.91
1.44
Maximum Latency (ms)
7.06
3.75
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
5
2.43
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second
1,000.00
14,135.00
Queries per second
10,000.00
141,350.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
3.62
0.47
Average Latency (ms)
9.99
0.71
Maximum Latency (ms)
38.48
12.96
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
18.28
1.01
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second
835.00
14,372.00
Queries per second
8,350.00
143,720.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
3.33
0.46
Average Latency (ms)
11.98
0.69
Maximum Latency (ms)
340.24
8.98
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
24.38
0.97
MySQL DELETE
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second
3,488.00
161,486.00
Queries per second
34,880.00
1,614,860.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.04
0.03
Average Latency (ms)
2.87
0.06
Maximum Latency (ms)
57.43
6.57
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
14.73
0.09
Redis
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second
32,051.28
66,533.60
PING_MBULK per Second
29,629.63
67,159.17
SET per Second
30,571.69
61,087.36
GET per Second
26,511.13
72,568.94
INCR per Second
36,469.73
69,396.25
LPUSH per Second
26,709.40
46,168.05
RPUSH per Second
23,741.69
50,916.50
LPOP per Second
29,700.03
51,894.13
RPOP per Second
28,985.51
47,348.48
SADD per Second
29,700.03
60,060.06
HSET per Second
29,770.77
68,587.11
SPOP per Second
28,473.80
67,249.50
ZADD per Second
29,806.26
71,377.59
ZPOPMIN per Second
31,104.20
71,684.59
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second
17,519.27
37,523.45
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second
7,340.53
17,708.52
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second
5,113.52
11,918.95
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second
4,561.42
9,573.04
MSET (10 keys) per Second
30,562.35
53,248.14
Redis Average Latency (ms)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
PING_INLINE 0.97 0.47 PING_MBULK 1.03 0.47 SET 1.03 0.53 GET 1.18 0.44 INCR 0.85 0.46 LPUSH 1.18 0.70 RPUSH 1.31 0.64 LPOP 1.05 0.65 RPOP 1.08 0.70 SADD 1.04 0.53 HSET 1.05 0.47 SPOP 1.08 0.47 ZADD 1.05 0.45 ZPOPMIN 0.99 0.44 LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) 1.84 0.89 LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) 4.07 1.84 LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) 5.66 2.79 LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) 6.31 3.34 MSET (10 keys) 1.25 0.76
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
The DigitalOcean Premium Intel (2 GB) instance clearly outperforms the Regular (1 GB) in both Redis benchmark results and CPU performance. For example, the Premium instance achieves a Redis GET requests per second (rps) of 72,568.94 compared to the Regular's 26,511.13, and its CPU events per second are significantly higher at 562.17 versus 843.27. This superior performance, especially in CPU-intensive and I/O operations, makes the Premium instance a better choice for demanding applications that require higher headroom and faster execution speeds.
From the friendly human:
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