DigitalOcean Premium Intel (2 GB) vs. Vultr High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Same showdown, different day. Today I spun up fresh instances from DigitalOcean and Vultr and ran my world famous suite of benchmarking scripts. Each instance was 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 – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Last Benchmarked
Sat, 01 Aug 2026 05:08:17 GMT
Sat, 01 Aug 2026 05:07:32 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
$16.00
$6.00
RAM (GB)
2
1
CPU Cores
1
1
Storage (TB)
70
32
Storage Type
NVMe
NVMe
Transfer (TB)
2
1
Head-to-head
Category winners from the latest benchmarks.
Category
Winner
CPU (events/sec)
Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Memory (read MiB/s)
Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Disk I/O (MiB/s)
Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
MySQL (read/write tps)
Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Redis (GET/sec)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Value (CPU events per $/mo)
Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB) takes 5 of 6 categories.
CPU
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Vendor
GenuineIntel
GenuineIntel
Model Name
DO-Premium-Intel
Intel Core Processor (Skylake, IBRS, no TSX)
Clock Speed (MHz)
2,494.14
3,792.05
CPU Cache Size (KB)
4,096.00
16,384.00
BogoMips
4,988.28
7,584.09
Events per Second
599.47
1,418.80
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.98
0.67
Average Latency (ms)
1.67
0.7
Maximum Latency (ms)
12.39
3.97
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.91
0.74
Memory
Memory Read
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Operations per second
4,940,116.70
7,260,754.36
Mebibytes per second
4,824.33
7,090.58
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
0.44
1.81
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
Memory Write
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Operations per second
4,629,786.72
7,520,415.11
Mebibytes per second
4,521.28
7,344.16
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
3.05
0.36
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
File I/O
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Reads per Second
3,843.72
4,675.97
Writes per Second
2,562.48
3,117.32
Fsyncs per Second
8,204.64
9,977.97
Read Mebibytes per Second
60.06
73.06
Written Mebibytes per Second
40.04
48.71
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.07
0.06
Maximum Latency (ms)
5.02
3.47
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.21
0.16
Mutex
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms)
1,668.13
1,149.56
Average Latency (ms)
1,673.77
1,155.82
Maximum Latency (ms)
1,680.60
1,161.84
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1,678.14
1,170.65
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second
8,428.00
10,055.00
Queries per second
84,280.00
100,550.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.02
0.89
Average Latency (ms)
1.18
0.99
Maximum Latency (ms)
6.54
3.72
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.7
1.16
MySQL Write-only
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second
9,581.00
12,149.00
Queries per second
95,810.00
121,490.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.74
0.64
Average Latency (ms)
1.04
0.82
Maximum Latency (ms)
8.19
8.53
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.37
1.03
MySQL Read/Write
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second
3,903.00
4,295.00
Queries per second
39,030.00
42,950.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.98
1.71
Average Latency (ms)
2.56
2.33
Maximum Latency (ms)
11.22
9.32
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
3.25
2.76
MySQL INSERT
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second
15,461.00
21,088.00
Queries per second
154,610.00
210,880.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.45
0.37
Average Latency (ms)
0.64
0.47
Maximum Latency (ms)
10.02
6.56
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.92
0.62
MySQL Bulk INSERT
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second
1,317,592.00
1,783,592.00
Queries per second
13,175,920.00
17,835,920.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.01
0.01
Maximum Latency (ms)
355.01
439.57
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
MySQL SELECT
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second
239,595.00
224,934.00
Queries per second
2,395,950.00
2,249,340.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.03
0.04
Average Latency (ms)
0.04
0.04
Maximum Latency (ms)
1.38
1.18
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.05
0.06
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second
5,471.00
7,840.00
Queries per second
54,710.00
78,400.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.62
0.48
Average Latency (ms)
1.83
1.27
Maximum Latency (ms)
5.61
3.92
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.43
1.67
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second
7,700.00
10,489.00
Queries per second
77,000.00
104,890.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.43
0.3
Average Latency (ms)
1.3
0.95
Maximum Latency (ms)
4.19
4.87
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.73
1.3
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second
15,377.00
20,766.00
Queries per second
153,770.00
207,660.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.45
0.37
Average Latency (ms)
0.65
0.48
Maximum Latency (ms)
5.09
4.23
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.9
0.62
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second
16,540.00
21,906.00
Queries per second
165,400.00
219,060.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.44
0.37
Average Latency (ms)
0.6
0.46
Maximum Latency (ms)
5.98
2.93
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.83
0.55
MySQL DELETE
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second
129,377.00
164,853.00
Queries per second
1,293,770.00
1,648,530.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.04
0.04
Average Latency (ms)
0.08
0.06
Maximum Latency (ms)
5.6
4.54
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.13
0.09
Redis
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second
74,850.30
52,246.60
PING_MBULK per Second
75,075.07
52,826.20
SET per Second
72,202.16
52,083.34
GET per Second
71,174.38
53,134.96
INCR per Second
68,027.21
52,603.89
LPUSH per Second
67,114.09
51,652.89
RPUSH per Second
71,377.59
51,282.05
LPOP per Second
65,189.05
50,684.23
RPOP per Second
66,934.41
51,361.07
SADD per Second
70,521.86
51,413.88
HSET per Second
71,174.38
51,308.36
SPOP per Second
71,479.62
51,948.05
ZADD per Second
68,587.11
50,787.20
ZPOPMIN per Second
72,358.90
51,124.75
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second
33,167.50
35,650.62
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second
17,540.78
21,385.80
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second
12,242.90
15,246.23
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second
10,551.86
13,271.40
MSET (10 keys) per Second
62,421.97
49,603.17
Redis Average Latency (ms)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
PING_INLINE
0.42
0.58
PING_MBULK
0.42
0.58
SET
0.44
0.59
GET
0.44
0.58
INCR
0.47
0.58
LPUSH
0.48
0.59
RPUSH
0.45
0.59
LPOP
0.49
0.61
RPOP
0.48
0.60
SADD
0.45
0.59
HSET
0.45
0.59
SPOP
0.44
0.58
ZADD
0.47
0.60
ZPOPMIN
0.44
0.59
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)
1.01
0.87
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)
1.83
1.51
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)
2.73
2.11
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)
3.06
2.47
MSET (10 keys)
0.65
0.66
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
The DigitalOcean Premium Intel (2 GB) instance outperforms the Vultr High Frequency Intel (1 GB) in both CPU benchmark metrics and overall throughput. The DigitalOcean instance achieves higher Redis requests per second (rps) and lower latencies across several benchmarks, like GET rps of 71174.38 versus Vultr's 53134.96, and overall lower latency in CPU tasks, averaging 1.67ms compared to Vultr's 0.7ms. For use cases requiring high throughput and lower latency, such as CPU-heavy or memory-intensive applications, the DigitalOcean instance is clearly superior.
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.
