DigitalOcean Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) vs. Vultr High Frequency Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores)

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My friend, I'm so glad you're here! Today I've spun up 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. Without further ado, here's the results.

Overview

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Last Benchmarked Tue, 02 Jun 2026 06:00:52 GMT Sun, 31 May 2026 15:00:52 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 $24.00
RAM (GB) 8 4
CPU Cores 4 2
Storage (TB) 240 128
Storage Type NVMe NVMe
Transfer (TB) 6 3

CPU

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Vendor GenuineIntel GenuineIntel
Model Name DO-Premium-Intel Intel Core Processor (Skylake, IBRS, no TSX)
Clock Speed (MHz) 1,995.31 3,791.97
CPU Cache Size (KB) 4,096.00 16,384.00
BogoMips 3,990.61 7,583.94
Events per Second 2,100.00 1,574.56
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.46 0.62
Average Latency (ms) 0.48 0.63
Maximum Latency (ms) 0.77 2.75
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.49 0.68

Memory

Memory Read

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Operations per second 4,031,036.30 7,748,150.36
Mebibytes per second 3,936.56 7,566.55
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 0.09 0.07
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Operations per second 4,327,248.72 7,774,132.12
Mebibytes per second 4,225.83 7,591.93
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 0.18 0.27
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Reads per Second 1,848.36 7,795.87
Writes per Second 1,232.24 5,197.25
Fsyncs per Second 3,943.27 16,639.28
Read Mebibytes per Second 28.88 121.81
Written Mebibytes per Second 19.25 81.21
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.14 0.03
Maximum Latency (ms) 32.73 0.85
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.83 0.12

Mutex

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Minimum Latency (ms) 496.91 508.91
Average Latency (ms) 678.09 536.68
Maximum Latency (ms) 755.25 555.84
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 759.88 559.50

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 5,172.00 10,239.00
Queries per second 51,720.00 102,390.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.28 0.89
Average Latency (ms) 1.93 0.98
Maximum Latency (ms) 8.32 3.09
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.61 1.1

MySQL Write-only

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 2,301.00 9,867.00
Queries per second 23,010.00 98,670.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.35 0.67
Average Latency (ms) 4.34 1.01
Maximum Latency (ms) 12.64 2.05
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 7.3 1.27

MySQL Read/Write

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 1,495.00 4,833.00
Queries per second 14,950.00 48,330.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 2.89 1.66
Average Latency (ms) 6.68 2.07
Maximum Latency (ms) 19.01 13
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 10.46 2.48

MySQL INSERT

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 3,010.00 16,634.00
Queries per second 30,100.00 166,340.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.11 0.4
Average Latency (ms) 3.32 0.6
Maximum Latency (ms) 14.62 11.65
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 6.09 0.8

MySQL Bulk INSERT

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 1,201,092.00 2,395,217.00
Queries per second 12,010,920.00 23,952,170.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.01 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 566.03 203.97
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 157,927.00 234,845.00
Queries per second 1,579,270.00 2,348,450.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.03
Average Latency (ms) 0.06 0.04
Maximum Latency (ms) 2.99 0.65
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.09 0.05

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 5,434.00 10,869.00
Queries per second 54,340.00 108,690.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.45 0.26
Average Latency (ms) 1.84 0.92
Maximum Latency (ms) 14.81 2.74
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.71 1.34

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 6,582.00 10,176.00
Queries per second 65,820.00 101,760.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.57 0.38
Average Latency (ms) 1.52 0.98
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.15 3.71
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.66 1.3

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 3,033.00 16,370.00
Queries per second 30,330.00 163,700.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1 0.39
Average Latency (ms) 3.29 0.61
Maximum Latency (ms) 67.75 1.95
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 5.99 0.81

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 3,268.00 16,970.00
Queries per second 32,680.00 169,700.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.03 0.39
Average Latency (ms) 3.06 0.59
Maximum Latency (ms) 11.49 1.83
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 5.57 0.81

MySQL DELETE

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 24,924.00 155,757.00
Queries per second 249,240.00 1,557,570.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.03
Average Latency (ms) 0.4 0.06
Maximum Latency (ms) 26.64 2.85
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.81 0.08

Redis

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores)
PING_INLINE per Second 93,545.37 85,910.65
PING_MBULK per Second 87,796.30 87,796.30
SET per Second 93,457.94 89,047.20
GET per Second 94,250.71 88,105.73
INCR per Second 85,106.38 87,032.20
LPUSH per Second 95,057.03 87,032.20
RPUSH per Second 86,505.19 88,573.96
LPOP per Second 89,285.71 88,417.33
RPOP per Second 100,100.10 89,525.52
SADD per Second 90,661.83 88,183.43
HSET per Second 90,415.91 89,047.20
SPOP per Second 96,432.02 86,956.52
ZADD per Second 97,751.71 88,183.43
ZPOPMIN per Second 97,751.71 87,260.03
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 58,997.05 63,251.11
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 26,191.72 34,940.60
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 15,961.69 25,700.33
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 14,390.56 22,537.75
MSET (10 keys) per Second 73,152.89 85,836.91

Redis Average Latency (ms)

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores)
PING_INLINE0.280.31
PING_MBULK0.310.29
SET0.310.29
GET0.280.29
INCR0.310.30
LPUSH0.290.30
RPUSH0.320.29
LPOP0.320.29
RPOP0.270.29
SADD0.320.29
HSET0.290.29
SPOP0.300.30
ZADD0.310.30
ZPOPMIN0.280.30
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)0.460.46
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)1.050.74
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)2.040.99
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)2.121.15
MSET (10 keys)0.490.30

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

The DigitalOcean Premium Intel instance shows superior performance across most metrics with higher RPS (requests per second) and lower latency in Redis benchmarks, better CPU performance indicated by fewer CPU events per second and lower CPU latency, and stronger file I/O performance with higher throughput rates and lower average latencies. In contrast, the Vultr High Frequency Intel instance performs reasonably well but lags behind in CPU, memory, and I/O benchmarks, showing slightly higher latencies and fewer operations per second. Given these results, the DigitalOcean instance is better suited for CPU-intensive, memory-demanding, and I/O-heavy workloads where low latency and high throughput are crucial, while the Vultr instance might be more appropriate for less demanding tasks or environments where cost is a primary concern.

From the friendly human:

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