DigitalOcean Premium Intel (2 GB) vs. Vultr Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Fresh benchmarks coming at ya. Today I've spun up some brand new instance from DigitalOcean and Vultr and ran my world famous suite of benchmarking scripts. Each instance was running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and were created in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Enough talk. Here's the data.
Overview
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Fri, 12 Jun 2026 04:00:52 GMT | Thu, 11 Jun 2026 09:00:52 GMT |
| Linux Distro | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 |
| Kernel Version | 6.8.0-71-generic | 6.8.0-124-generic |
| MySQL Version | 8.0.46-0ubuntu0.24.04.2 | 8.0.46-0ubuntu0.24.04.2 |
| Redis Version | 7.0.15 | 7.0.15 |
| Location | New York, NY | Newark, NJ |
| Monthly Price | $16.00 | $20.00 |
| RAM (GB) | 2 | 4 |
| CPU Cores | 1 | 2 |
| Storage (TB) | 70 | 80 |
| Storage Type | NVMe | SSD |
| Transfer (TB) | 2 | 3 |
CPU
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | GenuineIntel | GenuineIntel |
| Model Name | DO-Premium-Intel | Intel Xeon Processor (Skylake, IBRS) |
| Clock Speed (MHz) | 1,995.31 | 2,593.91 |
| CPU Cache Size (KB) | 4,096.00 | 16,384.00 |
| BogoMips | 3,990.62 | 5,187.81 |
| Events per Second | 1,027.09 | 1,022.39 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.46 | 0.88 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.97 | 0.98 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 4.51 | 1.77 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.14 | 1.21 |
Memory
Memory Read
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 2,181,111.62 | 3,523,809.57 |
| Mebibytes per second | 2,129.99 | 3,441.22 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 13.69 | 0.22 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 4,323,974.85 | 3,568,203.77 |
| Mebibytes per second | 4,222.63 | 3,484.57 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 2.88 | 1.02 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
File I/O
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 2,992.53 | 2,972.63 |
| Writes per Second | 1,994.95 | 1,981.75 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 6,394.72 | 6,347.81 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 46.76 | 46.45 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 31.17 | 30.96 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.09 | 0.09 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 14.96 | 17.12 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.32 | 0.33 |
Mutex
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 2,155.63 | 899.28 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2,163.26 | 935.93 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 2,172.26 | 969.92 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2,159.29 | 977.74 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 8,281.00 | 3,779.00 |
| Queries per second | 82,810.00 | 37,790.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.07 | 1.84 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.21 | 2.64 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 2.58 | 24.55 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.64 | 3.82 |
MySQL Write-only
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 5,763.00 | 4,044.00 |
| Queries per second | 57,630.00 | 40,440.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.94 | 1.4 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.73 | 2.47 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 19.18 | 13.46 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.52 | 3.3 |
MySQL Read/Write
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 2,858.00 | 1,798.00 |
| Queries per second | 28,580.00 | 17,980.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 2.28 | 3.86 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.5 | 5.56 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 22.67 | 27.33 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4.91 | 6.91 |
MySQL INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 9,641.00 | 6,405.00 |
| Queries per second | 96,410.00 | 64,050.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.57 | 0.99 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.03 | 1.56 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 5.34 | 15.15 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.55 | 2.03 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,317,592.00 | 865,805.00 |
| Queries per second | 13,175,920.00 | 8,658,050.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0.01 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 396.35 | 538.25 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 242,749.00 | 126,618.00 |
| Queries per second | 2,427,490.00 | 1,266,180.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.05 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.08 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.92 | 2.46 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.05 | 0.11 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 6,775.00 | 3,674.00 |
| Queries per second | 67,750.00 | 36,740.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.48 | 1.07 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.47 | 2.72 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 7.51 | 6.45 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.96 | 3.55 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 7,929.00 | 2,728.00 |
| Queries per second | 79,290.00 | 27,280.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.33 | 1.3 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.26 | 3.66 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.28 | 11.85 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.67 | 5 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 9,250.00 | 5,438.00 |
| Queries per second | 92,500.00 | 54,380.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.58 | 0.99 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.08 | 1.84 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 15.07 | 13.86 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.61 | 2.71 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 9,383.00 | 6,370.00 |
| Queries per second | 93,830.00 | 63,700.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.57 | 1.01 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.06 | 1.57 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 19.85 | 8.99 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.55 | 2.07 |
MySQL DELETE
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 119,158.00 | 51,180.00 |
| Queries per second | 1,191,580.00 | 511,800.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.03 | 0.05 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.08 | 0.19 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 39.35 | 6.11 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.11 | 1.39 |
Redis
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 67,476.38 | 49,677.10 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 69,013.11 | 45,372.05 |
| SET per Second | 67,385.45 | 45,392.64 |
| GET per Second | 68,728.52 | 53,163.21 |
| INCR per Second | 67,750.68 | 48,732.94 |
| LPUSH per Second | 68,446.27 | 50,327.12 |
| RPUSH per Second | 68,775.79 | 48,285.85 |
| LPOP per Second | 67,294.75 | 48,355.90 |
| RPOP per Second | 66,181.34 | 51,413.88 |
| SADD per Second | 67,114.09 | 48,332.53 |
| HSET per Second | 65,274.15 | 49,285.36 |
| SPOP per Second | 68,212.83 | 48,332.53 |
| ZADD per Second | 67,613.25 | 51,229.51 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 69,108.50 | 45,085.66 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 37,064.49 | 27,122.32 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 18,632.38 | 12,442.45 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 11,570.06 | 7,930.21 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 10,074.55 | 6,902.74 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 58,513.75 | 45,146.73 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 0.48 | 0.53 |
| PING_MBULK | 0.46 | 0.57 |
| SET | 0.48 | 0.57 |
| GET | 0.47 | 0.49 |
| INCR | 0.48 | 0.53 |
| LPUSH | 0.48 | 0.51 |
| RPUSH | 0.47 | 0.54 |
| LPOP | 0.49 | 0.54 |
| RPOP | 0.50 | 0.52 |
| SADD | 0.48 | 0.55 |
| HSET | 0.50 | 0.54 |
| SPOP | 0.47 | 0.54 |
| ZADD | 0.48 | 0.52 |
| ZPOPMIN | 0.46 | 0.57 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 0.96 | 1.02 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 1.90 | 2.29 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 3.01 | 3.27 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 3.49 | 3.91 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 0.60 | 0.78 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
Upon analyzing the benchmark results for both instances, it is clear that the DigitalOcean Premium Intel (2 GB) instance shows superior performance in terms of Redis operations, CPU events per second, and file I/O throughput compared to the Vultr Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) instance. However, Vultr's instance has higher CPU MHz and better memory throughput and latency. While the DigitalOcean instance excels in individual high-throughput Redis operations and file I/O, the Vultr instance offers more cores and better memory handling, making it a good choice for workloads that benefit from multiple CPU cores and lower memory latency. Therefore, DigitalOcean's instance would be better for CPU and I/O-intensive tasks requiring high data throughput, while Vultr's instance might be more suitable for applications that require more CPU cores and better memory performance.
From the friendly human:
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