VPS Showdown VPS Showdown

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

vs.

Same showdown, different day. Today I spun up fresh instances from DigitalOcean and Vultr and did some benchmarking. 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 Sat, 01 Aug 2026 05:08:17 GMT Sat, 01 Aug 2026 05:12:47 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 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)Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 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 5 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) 2,494.14 2,992.91
CPU Cache Size (KB) 4,096.00 16,384.00
BogoMips 4,988.28 5,985.82
Events per Second 599.47 1,085.49
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.98 0.87
Average Latency (ms) 1.67 0.92
Maximum Latency (ms) 12.39 1.53
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.91 1.04

Memory

Memory Read

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Operations per second 4,940,116.70 5,287,233.83
Mebibytes per second 4,824.33 5,163.31
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 0.44 0.53
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Operations per second 4,629,786.72 5,446,064.29
Mebibytes per second 4,521.28 5,318.42
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 3.05 0.39
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Reads per Second 3,843.72 3,945.14
Writes per Second 2,562.48 2,630.10
Fsyncs per Second 8,204.64 8,418.81
Read Mebibytes per Second 60.06 61.64
Written Mebibytes per Second 40.04 41.10
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.07 0.07
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.02 2.96
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.21 0.2

Mutex

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms) 1,668.13 1,674.69
Average Latency (ms) 1,673.77 1,689.62
Maximum Latency (ms) 1,680.60 1,697.70
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1,678.14 1,708.63

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 8,428.00 9,332.00
Queries per second 84,280.00 93,320.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.02 0.93
Average Latency (ms) 1.18 1.07
Maximum Latency (ms) 6.54 15.52
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.7 1.32

MySQL Write-only

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 9,581.00 11,031.00
Queries per second 95,810.00 110,310.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.74 0.69
Average Latency (ms) 1.04 0.9
Maximum Latency (ms) 8.19 11.47
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.37 1.23

MySQL Read/Write

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 3,903.00 4,749.00
Queries per second 39,030.00 47,490.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.98 1.79
Average Latency (ms) 2.56 2.1
Maximum Latency (ms) 11.22 7.52
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.25 2.57

MySQL INSERT

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 15,461.00 18,923.00
Queries per second 154,610.00 189,230.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.45 0.39
Average Latency (ms) 0.64 0.53
Maximum Latency (ms) 10.02 10.45
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.92 0.68

MySQL Bulk INSERT

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 1,317,592.00 1,375,842.00
Queries per second 13,175,920.00 13,758,420.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.01 0.01
Maximum Latency (ms) 355.01 345.61
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 239,595.00 263,886.00
Queries per second 2,395,950.00 2,638,860.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.03 0.03
Average Latency (ms) 0.04 0.04
Maximum Latency (ms) 1.38 2.47
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.05 0.05

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 5,471.00 6,167.00
Queries per second 54,710.00 61,670.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.62 0.53
Average Latency (ms) 1.83 1.62
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.61 6.42
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.43 2.11

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 7,700.00 8,650.00
Queries per second 77,000.00 86,500.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.43 0.43
Average Latency (ms) 1.3 1.15
Maximum Latency (ms) 4.19 3.4
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.73 1.52

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 15,377.00 18,825.00
Queries per second 153,770.00 188,250.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.45 0.4
Average Latency (ms) 0.65 0.53
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.09 5.88
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.9 0.69

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 16,540.00 19,241.00
Queries per second 165,400.00 192,410.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.44 0.39
Average Latency (ms) 0.6 0.52
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.98 4.64
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.83 0.65

MySQL DELETE

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 129,377.00 200,203.00
Queries per second 1,293,770.00 2,002,030.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.03
Average Latency (ms) 0.08 0.05
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.6 3.61
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.13 0.08

Redis

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second 74,850.30 70,472.16
PING_MBULK per Second 75,075.07 75,187.97
SET per Second 72,202.16 73,909.83
GET per Second 71,174.38 69,156.30
INCR per Second 68,027.21 59,952.04
LPUSH per Second 67,114.09 52,576.24
RPUSH per Second 71,377.59 68,634.18
LPOP per Second 65,189.05 59,171.59
RPOP per Second 66,934.41 53,219.80
SADD per Second 70,521.86 67,430.88
HSET per Second 71,174.38 63,734.86
SPOP per Second 71,479.62 43,859.65
ZADD per Second 68,587.11 43,365.13
ZPOPMIN per Second 72,358.90 49,285.36
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 33,167.50 36,982.25
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 17,540.78 19,992.00
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 12,242.90 12,827.09
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 10,551.86 10,901.56
MSET (10 keys) per Second 62,421.97 64,350.06

Redis Average Latency (ms)

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
PING_INLINE0.420.45
PING_MBULK0.420.42
SET0.440.44
GET0.440.46
INCR0.470.53
LPUSH0.480.61
RPUSH0.450.47
LPOP0.490.55
RPOP0.480.62
SADD0.450.47
HSET0.450.51
SPOP0.440.72
ZADD0.470.75
ZPOPMIN0.440.64
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)1.010.90
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)1.831.61
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)2.732.58
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)3.062.88
MSET (10 keys)0.650.61

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

The DigitalOcean Premium Intel (2 GB) instance outperforms the Vultr High Performance Intel (1 GB) instance across most benchmarks, particularly in Redis SET operations with 72,202 vs. 73,910 requests per second, and MySQL bulk inserts at 130,521 vs. 133,400 transactions per second. Given its superior performance, it's ideal for CPU-intensive and memory-heavy workloads where high throughput and low latency are crucial.

From the friendly human:

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Providers & pricing

DigitalOcean overview Vultr overviewDigitalOcean Premium Intel (2 GB) pricing Vultr High Performance Intel (1 GB) pricing

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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)