VPS Showdown VPS Showdown

DigitalOcean Premium Intel (2 GB) vs. Vultr High Performance Intel (1 GB)

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Welcome to another round of the VPS Showdown. Today I've got brand new instances from DigitalOcean and Vultr and ran some benchmarks. Each instance was spun up with Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 and were created in the New York area (or close to it). Time to see who showed up today.

Overview

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Last Benchmarked Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:35:51 GMT Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:21 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 Newark, NJ
Monthly Price $16.00 $6.00
RAM (GB) 2 1
CPU Cores 1 1
Storage (TB) 70 25
Storage Type NVMe NVMe
Transfer (TB) 2 2

Head-to-head

Category winners from the latest benchmarks.

CategoryWinner
CPU (events/sec)Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Memory (read MiB/s)Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Disk I/O (MiB/s)DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
MySQL (read/write tps)Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Redis (GET/sec)DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Value (CPU events per $/mo)Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)

Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB) takes 4 of 6 categories.

CPU

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Vendor GenuineIntel GenuineIntel
Model Name DO-Premium-Intel Intel Xeon Processor (Cascadelake)
Clock Speed (MHz) 2,494.15 2,893.20
CPU Cache Size (KB) 4,096.00 16,384.00
BogoMips 4,988.29 5,786.40
Events per Second 562.17 1,049.60
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.93 0.9
Average Latency (ms) 1.78 0.95
Maximum Latency (ms) 10.62 4.73
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.13 1.12

Memory

Memory Read

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Operations per second 4,915,996.46 5,247,794.58
Mebibytes per second 4,800.78 5,124.80
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 0.43 2.07
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Operations per second 4,788,946.98 5,230,407.37
Mebibytes per second 4,676.71 5,107.82
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 2.26 1.11
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Reads per Second 4,376.99 4,064.54
Writes per Second 2,917.99 2,709.66
Fsyncs per Second 9,337.68 8,672.51
Read Mebibytes per Second 68.39 63.51
Written Mebibytes per Second 45.59 42.34
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.06 0.06
Maximum Latency (ms) 6.27 6.95
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.21 0.19

Mutex

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms) 1,688.69 1,611.76
Average Latency (ms) 1,696.46 1,623.75
Maximum Latency (ms) 1,701.64 1,635.20
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1,708.63 1,648.20

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 8,936.00 8,324.00
Queries per second 89,360.00 83,240.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.01 1.06
Average Latency (ms) 1.12 1.2
Maximum Latency (ms) 2.9 5.85
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.3 1.5

MySQL Write-only

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 7,876.00 9,781.00
Queries per second 78,760.00 97,810.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.79 0.77
Average Latency (ms) 1.27 1.02
Maximum Latency (ms) 9.88 10.58
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.79 1.39

MySQL Read/Write

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 2,982.00 4,006.00
Queries per second 29,820.00 40,060.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 2.04 2.02
Average Latency (ms) 3.35 2.49
Maximum Latency (ms) 65.11 8.48
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 6.43 3.13

MySQL INSERT

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 15,748.00 17,670.00
Queries per second 157,480.00 176,700.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.45 0.42
Average Latency (ms) 0.63 0.56
Maximum Latency (ms) 11.93 8.68
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.92 0.72

MySQL Bulk INSERT

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 1,404,967.00 1,317,592.00
Queries per second 14,049,670.00 13,175,920.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.01 0.01
Maximum Latency (ms) 298.75 320.74
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 202,254.00 214,470.00
Queries per second 2,022,540.00 2,144,700.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.03 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.05 0.05
Maximum Latency (ms) 4.24 3.23
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.08 0.07

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 4,187.00 5,913.00
Queries per second 41,870.00 59,130.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.65 0.53
Average Latency (ms) 2.38 1.69
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.81 6.4
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.75 2.22

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 6,928.00 8,048.00
Queries per second 69,280.00 80,480.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.51 0.5
Average Latency (ms) 1.44 1.24
Maximum Latency (ms) 3.75 3.52
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.43 1.7

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 14,135.00 17,291.00
Queries per second 141,350.00 172,910.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.47 0.44
Average Latency (ms) 0.71 0.58
Maximum Latency (ms) 12.96 7.39
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.01 0.75

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 14,372.00 18,069.00
Queries per second 143,720.00 180,690.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.46 0.41
Average Latency (ms) 0.69 0.55
Maximum Latency (ms) 8.98 5.51
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.97 0.7

MySQL DELETE

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 161,486.00 154,947.00
Queries per second 1,614,860.00 1,549,470.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.03 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.06 0.06
Maximum Latency (ms) 6.57 9.7
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.09 0.11

Redis

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second 66,533.60 45,766.59
PING_MBULK per Second 67,159.17 44,424.70
SET per Second 61,087.36 45,045.04
GET per Second 72,568.94 45,065.34
INCR per Second 69,396.25 46,663.56
LPUSH per Second 46,168.05 44,603.03
RPUSH per Second 50,916.50 46,146.75
LPOP per Second 51,894.13 44,903.46
RPOP per Second 47,348.48 44,523.60
SADD per Second 60,060.06 45,392.64
HSET per Second 68,587.11 46,468.40
SPOP per Second 67,249.50 47,036.69
ZADD per Second 71,377.59 45,682.96
ZPOPMIN per Second 71,684.59 45,871.56
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 37,523.45 31,387.32
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 17,708.52 17,470.30
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 11,918.95 12,192.15
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 9,573.04 10,672.36
MSET (10 keys) per Second 53,248.14 44,503.79

Redis Average Latency (ms)

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
PING_INLINE0.470.67
PING_MBULK0.470.67
SET0.530.68
GET0.440.68
INCR0.460.66
LPUSH0.700.69
RPUSH0.640.67
LPOP0.650.69
RPOP0.700.70
SADD0.530.68
HSET0.470.67
SPOP0.470.65
ZADD0.450.68
ZPOPMIN0.440.67
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)0.890.99
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)1.841.78
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)2.792.68
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)3.342.99
MSET (10 keys)0.760.75

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

The DigitalOcean Premium Intel (2 GB) instance outperforms the Vultr High Performance Intel (1 GB) in overall performance based on the benchmark results, especially in Redis benchmark metrics like the GET operation achieving a remarkable 72,568.94 requests per second (rps) with an average latency of 0.435 ms compared to Vultr’s 45,065.34 rps with an average latency of 0.675 ms. While Vultr offers competitive benchmarks in CPU and file I/O operations, the DigitalOcean instance edges out with higher memory read throughput at 68.39 MiB per second compared to Vultr’s 63.51 MiB per second, making it a superior choice for memory-intensive applications requiring high throughput and low latency.

From the friendly human:

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Related comparisons

vs. DigitalOcean Regular (1 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Regular (1 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Regular (2 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Regular (2 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Premium Intel (1 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Premium Intel (1 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Premium AMD (1 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Premium AMD (2 GB)