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

vs.

Fresh benchmarks coming at ya. Today I've got brand new instances from DigitalOcean to run some benchmarks on. All instances were running Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 and were created in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Enough talk. Here's the data.

Overview

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Last Benchmarked Sat, 01 Aug 2026 05:03:47 GMT Sat, 01 Aug 2026 05:08:17 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 $12.00 $16.00
RAM (GB) 2 2
CPU Cores 1 1
Storage (TB) 50 70
Storage Type SSD NVMe
Transfer (TB) 2 2

Head-to-head

Category winners from the latest benchmarks.

CategoryWinner
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 – Premium Intel (2 GB)

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) takes 6 of 6 categories.

CPU

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Vendor GenuineIntel GenuineIntel
Model Name DO-Regular DO-Premium-Intel
Clock Speed (MHz) 2,294.61 2,494.14
CPU Cache Size (KB) 4,096.00 4,096.00
BogoMips 4,589.21 4,988.28
Events per Second 337.24 599.47
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.07 0.98
Average Latency (ms) 2.96 1.67
Maximum Latency (ms) 7.98 12.39
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 4.74 2.91

Memory

Memory Read

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Operations per second 2,158,838.24 4,940,116.70
Mebibytes per second 2,108.24 4,824.33
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 7.22 0.44
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Operations per second 3,098,478.11 4,629,786.72
Mebibytes per second 3,025.86 4,521.28
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 2.23 3.05
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Reads per Second 897.65 3,843.72
Writes per Second 598.43 2,562.48
Fsyncs per Second 1,924.36 8,204.64
Read Mebibytes per Second 14.03 60.06
Written Mebibytes per Second 9.35 40.04
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.29 0.07
Maximum Latency (ms) 30.6 5.02
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.9 0.21

Mutex

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms) 2,798.91 1,668.13
Average Latency (ms) 2,816.88 1,673.77
Maximum Latency (ms) 2,827.29 1,680.60
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2,828.87 1,678.14

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 4,209.00 8,428.00
Queries per second 42,090.00 84,280.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.24 1.02
Average Latency (ms) 2.37 1.18
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.8 6.54
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.91 1.7

MySQL Write-only

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 720.00 9,581.00
Queries per second 7,200.00 95,810.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 2.26 0.74
Average Latency (ms) 13.89 1.04
Maximum Latency (ms) 898.41 8.19
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 11.24 1.37

MySQL Read/Write

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 914.00 3,903.00
Queries per second 9,140.00 39,030.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 5.04 1.98
Average Latency (ms) 10.93 2.56
Maximum Latency (ms) 399.05 11.22
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 12.98 3.25

MySQL INSERT

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 2,481.00 15,461.00
Queries per second 24,810.00 154,610.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.76 0.45
Average Latency (ms) 4.02 0.64
Maximum Latency (ms) 209.08 10.02
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 6.43 0.92

MySQL Bulk INSERT

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 603,677.00 1,317,592.00
Queries per second 6,036,770.00 13,175,920.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.02 0.01
Maximum Latency (ms) 768.14 355.01
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 111,711.00 239,595.00
Queries per second 1,117,110.00 2,395,950.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.03
Average Latency (ms) 0.09 0.04
Maximum Latency (ms) 4.67 1.38
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.14 0.05

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 2,616.00 5,471.00
Queries per second 26,160.00 54,710.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.4 0.62
Average Latency (ms) 3.82 1.83
Maximum Latency (ms) 19.97 5.61
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 5.18 2.43

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 2,567.00 7,700.00
Queries per second 25,670.00 77,000.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.01 0.43
Average Latency (ms) 3.89 1.3
Maximum Latency (ms) 8.69 4.19
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 5.57 1.73

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 1,815.00 15,377.00
Queries per second 18,150.00 153,770.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.76 0.45
Average Latency (ms) 5.5 0.65
Maximum Latency (ms) 1034.92 5.09
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 6.67 0.9

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 3,210.00 16,540.00
Queries per second 32,100.00 165,400.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.61 0.44
Average Latency (ms) 3.11 0.6
Maximum Latency (ms) 42.13 5.98
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 5.09 0.83

MySQL DELETE

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 18,558.00 129,377.00
Queries per second 185,580.00 1,293,770.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.54 0.08
Maximum Latency (ms) 146.02 5.6
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.91 0.13

Redis

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second 32,310.18 74,850.30
PING_MBULK per Second 31,645.57 75,075.07
SET per Second 29,222.68 72,202.16
GET per Second 28,760.43 71,174.38
INCR per Second 34,411.56 68,027.21
LPUSH per Second 31,705.77 67,114.09
RPUSH per Second 30,883.26 71,377.59
LPOP per Second 30,892.80 65,189.05
RPOP per Second 33,602.15 66,934.41
SADD per Second 32,520.32 70,521.86
HSET per Second 34,459.00 71,174.38
SPOP per Second 35,997.12 71,479.62
ZADD per Second 29,197.08 68,587.11
ZPOPMIN per Second 29,403.12 72,358.90
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 14,295.93 33,167.50
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 6,915.15 17,540.78
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 4,855.55 12,242.90
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 4,463.09 10,551.86
MSET (10 keys) per Second 27,631.94 62,421.97

Redis Average Latency (ms)

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
PING_INLINE0.960.42
PING_MBULK0.970.42
SET1.060.44
GET1.080.44
INCR0.910.47
LPUSH0.980.48
RPUSH0.990.45
LPOP1.000.49
RPOP0.940.48
SADD0.950.45
HSET0.910.45
SPOP0.860.44
ZADD1.070.47
ZPOPMIN1.050.44
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)2.231.01
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)4.291.83
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)5.912.73
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)6.473.06
MSET (10 keys)1.370.65

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

The DigitalOcean Premium Intel (2 GB) instance outperforms the Regular (2 GB) in almost every benchmarked metric, especially in Redis performance with significantly higher requests per second and lower latency across various commands, and in MySQL bulk insert operations showing a substantial increase in TPS. For workloads that are CPU-intensive, I/O-bound, or benefit from faster memory operations, the Premium Intel (2 GB) would be the better choice, despite the higher monthly cost.

From the friendly human:

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Providers & pricing

DigitalOcean overviewDigitalOcean Regular (2 GB) pricing DigitalOcean Premium Intel (2 GB) pricing

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