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DigitalOcean Premium Intel (2 GB) vs. Vultr High Frequency Intel (2 GB)

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New day, new benchmarks. Today I spun up fresh instances from DigitalOcean and Vultr and did some benchmarking. All instances were spun up with Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 and were created in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Let's get into the numbers.

Overview

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Last Benchmarked Thu, 01 Oct 2026 05:08:17 GMT Tue, 01 Sep 2026 05:09:02 GMT
Linux Distro Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64
Kernel Version 7.0.0-31-generic 7.0.0-29-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 Newark, NJ
Monthly Price $16.00 $12.00
RAM (GB) 2 2
CPU Cores 1 1
Storage (TB) 70 64
Storage Type NVMe NVMe
Transfer (TB) 2 2

Head-to-head

Category winners from the latest benchmarks.

CategoryWinner
CPU (events/sec)Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Memory (read MiB/s)Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Disk I/O (MiB/s)Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
MySQL (read/write tps)Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Redis (GET/sec)DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Value (CPU events per $/mo)Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB) takes 5 of 6 categories.

CPU

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Vendor GenuineIntel GenuineIntel
Model Name DO-Premium-Intel Intel Core Processor (Skylake, IBRS, no TSX)
Clock Speed (MHz) 1,995.31 3,792.05
CPU Cache Size (KB) 4,096.00 16,384.00
BogoMips 3,990.62 7,584.10
Events per Second 1,383.84 1,433.50
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.5 0.67
Average Latency (ms) 0.72 0.7
Maximum Latency (ms) 26.1 3.42
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.35 0.73

Memory

Memory Read

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Operations per second 4,333,625.92 6,381,196.95
Mebibytes per second 4,232.06 6,231.64
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 2.09 0.38
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Operations per second 4,219,640.73 7,590,256.83
Mebibytes per second 4,120.74 7,412.36
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 1.16 0.75
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Reads per Second 2,349.38 4,797.61
Writes per Second 1,566.26 3,198.41
Fsyncs per Second 5,019.91 10,240.61
Read Mebibytes per Second 36.71 74.96
Written Mebibytes per Second 24.47 49.98
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.11 0.05
Maximum Latency (ms) 3.32 19.53
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.41 0.15

Mutex

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms) 2,294.95 1,120.95
Average Latency (ms) 2,302.17 1,127.36
Maximum Latency (ms) 2,308.09 1,132.28
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2,320.55 1,129.24

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 8,290.00 10,238.00
Queries per second 82,900.00 102,380.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.02 0.9
Average Latency (ms) 1.2 0.98
Maximum Latency (ms) 3.93 2.33
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.82 1.06

MySQL Write-only

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 4,835.00 12,564.00
Queries per second 48,350.00 125,640.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.03 0.65
Average Latency (ms) 2.06 0.79
Maximum Latency (ms) 28.71 8.86
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.86 0.97

MySQL Read/Write

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 2,440.00 5,279.00
Queries per second 24,400.00 52,790.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 2.47 1.64
Average Latency (ms) 4.09 1.89
Maximum Latency (ms) 34.94 4.39
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 5.77 2.22

MySQL INSERT

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 8,740.00 22,126.00
Queries per second 87,400.00 221,260.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.61 0.37
Average Latency (ms) 1.14 0.45
Maximum Latency (ms) 31.28 2.84
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.86 0.53

MySQL Bulk INSERT

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 1,201,092.00 1,958,342.00
Queries per second 12,010,920.00 19,583,420.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.01 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 416.59 207.7
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 233,729.00 216,335.00
Queries per second 2,337,290.00 2,163,350.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.04 0.05
Maximum Latency (ms) 1.09 1.11
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.06 0.06

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 5,487.00 8,316.00
Queries per second 54,870.00 83,160.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.53 0.4
Average Latency (ms) 1.82 1.2
Maximum Latency (ms) 7.49 3.62
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.76 1.55

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 6,975.00 11,393.00
Queries per second 69,750.00 113,930.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.49 0.24
Average Latency (ms) 1.43 0.88
Maximum Latency (ms) 4.05 2.81
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.11 1.12

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 8,563.00 20,610.00
Queries per second 85,630.00 206,100.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.61 0.36
Average Latency (ms) 1.17 0.48
Maximum Latency (ms) 31.11 4.53
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.86 0.65

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 7,986.00 22,150.00
Queries per second 79,860.00 221,500.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.64 0.37
Average Latency (ms) 1.25 0.45
Maximum Latency (ms) 33.18 9.44
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.96 0.54

MySQL DELETE

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 90,875.00 162,113.00
Queries per second 908,750.00 1,621,130.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.11 0.06
Maximum Latency (ms) 22.2 4.22
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.19 0.09

Redis

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second 65,876.16 50,327.12
PING_MBULK per Second 63,856.96 52,002.08
SET per Second 62,972.29 52,966.10
GET per Second 57,339.45 53,022.27
INCR per Second 61,538.46 53,219.80
LPUSH per Second 66,889.63 52,273.91
RPUSH per Second 64,892.93 52,056.22
LPOP per Second 65,359.48 51,679.59
RPOP per Second 63,572.79 50,890.59
SADD per Second 63,613.23 49,603.17
HSET per Second 66,489.37 51,466.80
SPOP per Second 54,112.55 53,134.96
ZADD per Second 65,487.89 51,948.05
ZPOPMIN per Second 64,557.78 52,742.62
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 38,895.37 36,832.41
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 18,539.12 22,041.00
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 12,931.59 15,622.56
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 11,428.57 13,980.15
MSET (10 keys) per Second 58,105.75 50,025.02

Redis Average Latency (ms)

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
PING_INLINE0.480.61
PING_MBULK0.490.58
SET0.510.59
GET0.550.58
INCR0.510.59
LPUSH0.480.60
RPUSH0.490.60
LPOP0.490.60
RPOP0.500.61
SADD0.500.62
HSET0.480.60
SPOP0.590.58
ZADD0.490.60
ZPOPMIN0.490.59
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)0.850.85
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)1.721.48
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)2.592.02
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)2.862.37
MSET (10 keys)0.690.66

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

The DigitalOcean Premium Intel instance edges out the Vultr High Frequency Intel instance overall based on Redis benchmark results, specifically the GET command achieving 67114.09 RPS vs Vultr's 53022.27 RPS, and lower average latency across most metrics. For use cases that benefit from high read/write speeds and low latency, like database operations or caching, the DigitalOcean instance is more suitable. However, both instances offer comparable performance in other benchmarks, indicating they can cater to various workloads depending on specific needs and budget.

From the friendly human:

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Providers & pricing

DigitalOcean overview Vultr overviewDigitalOcean Premium Intel (2 GB) pricing Vultr High Frequency Intel (2 GB) pricing

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