DigitalOcean Premium Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) vs. Vultr Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Same showdown, different day. Today I've spun up brand new instance from DigitalOcean and Vultr and did some benchmarking. All instances were running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and were created in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Time to see who showed up today.
Overview
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Mon, 11 May 2026 22:00:52 GMT | Mon, 11 May 2026 04:00:52 GMT |
| Linux Distro | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 |
| Kernel Version | 6.8.0-71-generic | 6.8.0-111-generic |
| MySQL Version | 8.0.45-0ubuntu0.24.04.1 | 8.0.45-0ubuntu0.24.04.1 |
| Redis Version | 7.0.15 | 7.0.15 |
| Location | New York, NY | Newark, NJ |
| Monthly Price | $32.00 | $15.00 |
| RAM (GB) | 4 | 2 |
| CPU Cores | 2 | 2 |
| Storage (TB) | 120 | 65 |
| Storage Type | NVMe | SSD |
| Transfer (TB) | 4 | 3 |
CPU
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | GenuineIntel | GenuineIntel |
| Model Name | DO-Premium-Intel | Intel Core Processor (Skylake, IBRS, no TSX) |
| Clock Speed (MHz) | 2,494.14 | 3,792.00 |
| CPU Cache Size (KB) | 4,096.00 | 16,384.00 |
| BogoMips | 4,988.27 | 7,583.99 |
| Events per Second | 992.83 | 1,481.60 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.86 | 0.63 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.01 | 0.67 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 7.23 | 1.95 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.25 | 0.77 |
Memory
Memory Read
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 4,905,242.82 | 6,401,389.08 |
| Mebibytes per second | 4,790.28 | 6,251.36 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.19 | 0.23 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 4,815,991.25 | 6,411,085.35 |
| Mebibytes per second | 4,703.12 | 6,260.83 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.18 | 0.18 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
File I/O
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 4,785.00 | 4,345.71 |
| Writes per Second | 3,190.00 | 2,897.07 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 10,212.70 | 9,273.19 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 74.77 | 67.90 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 49.84 | 45.27 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.05 | 0.06 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 7.33 | 2.92 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.18 | 0.17 |
Mutex
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 822.70 | 214.63 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 935.98 | 569.72 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 1,001.22 | 636.55 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 995.51 | 634.66 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 7,787.00 | 8,015.00 |
| Queries per second | 77,870.00 | 80,150.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.11 | 0.92 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.28 | 1.25 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 2.84 | 5.5 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.44 | 1.86 |
MySQL Write-only
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 6,999.00 | 8,497.00 |
| Queries per second | 69,990.00 | 84,970.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.79 | 0.76 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.43 | 1.17 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 13.84 | 3.04 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2 | 1.55 |
MySQL Read/Write
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,678.00 | 3,726.00 |
| Queries per second | 36,780.00 | 37,260.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.93 | 1.78 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.72 | 2.68 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 12.01 | 5.82 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.68 | 3.43 |
MySQL INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 12,193.00 | 15,028.00 |
| Queries per second | 121,930.00 | 150,280.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.46 | 0.41 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.82 | 0.66 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 14.57 | 2.42 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.18 | 0.86 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,550,592.00 | 1,696,217.00 |
| Queries per second | 15,505,920.00 | 16,962,170.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0.01 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 364.28 | 283.37 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 201,090.00 | 201,989.00 |
| Queries per second | 2,010,900.00 | 2,019,890.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.03 | 0.03 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.05 | 0.05 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 1.3 | 0.51 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.07 | 0.07 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 7,612.00 | 8,025.00 |
| Queries per second | 76,120.00 | 80,250.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.46 | 0.35 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.31 | 1.24 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 4.34 | 3.55 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.67 | 2.07 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 7,371.00 | 8,336.00 |
| Queries per second | 73,710.00 | 83,360.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.46 | 0.4 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.36 | 1.2 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.43 | 4.25 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.82 | 2.22 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 11,702.00 | 13,858.00 |
| Queries per second | 117,020.00 | 138,580.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.47 | 0.42 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.85 | 0.72 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 18.97 | 6.33 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.21 | 0.95 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 11,879.00 | 14,587.00 |
| Queries per second | 118,790.00 | 145,870.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.45 | 0.4 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.84 | 0.68 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 13.93 | 11.69 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.16 | 0.9 |
MySQL DELETE
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 123,827.00 | 129,013.00 |
| Queries per second | 1,238,270.00 | 1,290,130.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.03 | 0.03 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.08 | 0.08 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 15.57 | 2.61 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.1 | 0.09 |
Redis
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 91,157.70 | 78,247.26 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 97,847.36 | 74,738.41 |
| SET per Second | 102,774.92 | 77,041.60 |
| GET per Second | 102,040.81 | 83,333.33 |
| INCR per Second | 102,354.15 | 80,971.66 |
| LPUSH per Second | 100,908.17 | 79,113.92 |
| RPUSH per Second | 100,704.94 | 77,160.49 |
| LPOP per Second | 98,619.32 | 81,499.59 |
| RPOP per Second | 97,847.36 | 82,440.23 |
| SADD per Second | 99,403.58 | 80,192.46 |
| HSET per Second | 99,502.48 | 83,612.04 |
| SPOP per Second | 99,009.90 | 85,034.02 |
| ZADD per Second | 102,564.10 | 83,263.95 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 102,354.15 | 82,987.55 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 65,445.03 | 55,555.56 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 30,571.69 | 28,851.70 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 19,650.22 | 19,391.12 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 16,854.88 | 17,211.71 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 106,837.61 | 80,256.82 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 0.28 | 0.34 |
| PING_MBULK | 0.27 | 0.35 |
| SET | 0.26 | 0.34 |
| GET | 0.26 | 0.32 |
| INCR | 0.26 | 0.32 |
| LPUSH | 0.26 | 0.34 |
| RPUSH | 0.26 | 0.34 |
| LPOP | 0.26 | 0.32 |
| RPOP | 0.32 | 0.32 |
| SADD | 0.26 | 0.32 |
| HSET | 0.26 | 0.31 |
| SPOP | 0.27 | 0.30 |
| ZADD | 0.26 | 0.31 |
| ZPOPMIN | 0.25 | 0.31 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 0.44 | 0.54 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 0.95 | 1.11 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 1.50 | 1.62 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 1.71 | 1.84 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 0.31 | 0.38 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
In benchmarking, the DigitalOcean Premium Intel instance showed higher performance across most metrics, achieving notably better results in Redis operations, CPU events, file I/O, memory operations, and MySQL OLTP tasks. The Vultr Cloud Compute instance, while competitive, showed slightly lower benchmarks in most categories, indicating it may struggle with larger data sets or more intensive workloads compared to DigitalOcean. Therefore, the DigitalOcean instance would be more suitable for CPU-intensive or I/O-heavy workloads where higher performance is crucial, whereas the Vultr instance may suffice for lighter workloads or cost-sensitive applications.
From the friendly human:
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