DigitalOcean Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) vs. Vultr High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
My friend, I'm so glad you're here! Today I've spun up some brand new instance from DigitalOcean and Vultr to run some benchmarks on. Each instance was running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and were created in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Enough talk. Here's the data.
Overview
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Tue, 02 Jun 2026 06:00:52 GMT | Tue, 02 Jun 2026 07:00:52 GMT |
| Linux Distro | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 |
| Kernel Version | 6.8.0-71-generic | 6.8.0-117-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 | $64.00 | $12.00 |
| RAM (GB) | 8 | 2 |
| CPU Cores | 4 | 1 |
| Storage (TB) | 240 | 64 |
| Storage Type | NVMe | NVMe |
| Transfer (TB) | 6 | 2 |
CPU
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | 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 | 3,791.94 |
| CPU Cache Size (KB) | 4,096.00 | 16,384.00 |
| BogoMips | 3,990.61 | 7,583.88 |
| Events per Second | 2,100.00 | 1,614.29 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.46 | 0.6 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.48 | 0.62 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.77 | 2.64 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.49 | 0.65 |
Memory
Memory Read
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 4,031,036.30 | 7,985,914.58 |
| Mebibytes per second | 3,936.56 | 7,798.74 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.09 | 0.24 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 4,327,248.72 | 7,978,494.69 |
| Mebibytes per second | 4,225.83 | 7,791.50 |
| 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 (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 1,848.36 | 4,908.89 |
| Writes per Second | 1,232.24 | 3,272.56 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 3,943.27 | 10,477.62 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 28.88 | 76.70 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 19.25 | 51.13 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.14 | 0.05 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 32.73 | 2.03 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.83 | 0.17 |
Mutex
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 496.91 | 1,069.98 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 678.09 | 1,074.62 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 755.25 | 1,079.74 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 759.88 | 1,089.30 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 5,172.00 | 10,721.00 |
| Queries per second | 51,720.00 | 107,210.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.28 | 0.88 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.93 | 0.93 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 8.32 | 3.02 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.61 | 0.99 |
MySQL Write-only
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 2,301.00 | 10,441.00 |
| Queries per second | 23,010.00 | 104,410.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.35 | 0.66 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 4.34 | 0.96 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 12.64 | 2.34 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 7.3 | 1.21 |
MySQL Read/Write
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,495.00 | 4,696.00 |
| Queries per second | 14,950.00 | 46,960.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 2.89 | 1.77 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 6.68 | 2.13 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 19.01 | 4.93 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 10.46 | 2.39 |
MySQL INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,010.00 | 16,763.00 |
| Queries per second | 30,100.00 | 167,630.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.11 | 0.37 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.32 | 0.6 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 14.62 | 2.1 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 6.09 | 0.77 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,201,092.00 | 2,163,851.00 |
| Queries per second | 12,010,920.00 | 21,638,510.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 566.03 | 339.49 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 157,927.00 | 241,217.00 |
| Queries per second | 1,579,270.00 | 2,412,170.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.04 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.06 | 0.04 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 2.99 | 1.64 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.09 | 0.05 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 5,434.00 | 11,395.00 |
| Queries per second | 54,340.00 | 113,950.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.45 | 0.38 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.84 | 0.88 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 14.81 | 3.85 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.71 | 1.12 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 6,582.00 | 11,233.00 |
| Queries per second | 65,820.00 | 112,330.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.57 | 0.26 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.52 | 0.89 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 5.15 | 3.45 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.66 | 1.14 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,033.00 | 16,456.00 |
| Queries per second | 30,330.00 | 164,560.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1 | 0.39 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.29 | 0.61 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 67.75 | 2.08 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 5.99 | 0.84 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,268.00 | 17,511.00 |
| Queries per second | 32,680.00 | 175,110.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.03 | 0.38 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.06 | 0.57 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 11.49 | 2.23 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 5.57 | 0.73 |
MySQL DELETE
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 24,924.00 | 155,994.00 |
| Queries per second | 249,240.00 | 1,559,940.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.04 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.4 | 0.06 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 26.64 | 1.33 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.81 | 0.09 |
Redis
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 93,545.37 | 55,279.16 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 87,796.30 | 56,053.81 |
| SET per Second | 93,457.94 | 55,187.64 |
| GET per Second | 94,250.71 | 55,772.45 |
| INCR per Second | 85,106.38 | 55,741.36 |
| LPUSH per Second | 95,057.03 | 55,340.34 |
| RPUSH per Second | 86,505.19 | 55,187.64 |
| LPOP per Second | 89,285.71 | 55,096.42 |
| RPOP per Second | 100,100.10 | 55,187.64 |
| SADD per Second | 90,661.83 | 55,218.11 |
| HSET per Second | 90,415.91 | 55,096.42 |
| SPOP per Second | 96,432.02 | 55,959.71 |
| ZADD per Second | 97,751.71 | 55,309.73 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 97,751.71 | 56,053.81 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 58,997.05 | 37,835.79 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 26,191.72 | 21,088.15 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 15,961.69 | 14,148.27 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 14,390.56 | 12,471.94 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 73,152.89 | 51,894.13 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 0.28 | 0.58 |
| PING_MBULK | 0.31 | 0.57 |
| SET | 0.31 | 0.59 |
| GET | 0.28 | 0.58 |
| INCR | 0.31 | 0.58 |
| LPUSH | 0.29 | 0.58 |
| RPUSH | 0.32 | 0.58 |
| LPOP | 0.32 | 0.59 |
| RPOP | 0.27 | 0.58 |
| SADD | 0.32 | 0.58 |
| HSET | 0.29 | 0.59 |
| SPOP | 0.30 | 0.58 |
| ZADD | 0.31 | 0.59 |
| ZPOPMIN | 0.28 | 0.57 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 0.46 | 0.91 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 1.05 | 1.65 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 2.04 | 2.56 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 2.12 | 2.89 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 0.49 | 0.66 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
After analyzing the benchmark results from both DigitalOcean's Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) and Vultr's High Frequency Intel (2 GB), it's clear that the DigitalOcean instance excels in CPU-intensive and I/O-heavy workloads due to its higher core count, more RAM, and NVMe storage. The DigitalOcean instance demonstrates superior performance in Redis commands, CPU throughput, and file I/O operations. In contrast, Vultr's single-core instance, while more cost-effective, shows lower performance metrics across all benchmarks, making it more suitable for less demanding applications where cost is a primary concern, but raw performance and multi-threaded tasks are less critical.
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.
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