DigitalOcean Regular (1 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Regular (2 GB)
New day, new benchmarks. Today I've spun up brand new instance from DigitalOcean 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. Enough talk. Here's the data.
Overview
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Tue, 26 Aug 2025 14:00:52 GMT | Mon, 25 Aug 2025 17:00:52 GMT |
| Linux Distro | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 |
| Kernel Version | 6.8.0-71-generic | 6.8.0-71-generic |
| MySQL Version | 8.0.43-0ubuntu0.24.04.1 | 8.0.43-0ubuntu0.24.04.1 |
| Redis Version | 7.0.15 | 7.0.15 |
| Location | New York, NY | New York, NY |
| Monthly Price | $6.00 | $12.00 |
| RAM (GB) | 1 | 2 |
| CPU Cores | 1 | 1 |
| Storage (TB) | 25 | 50 |
| Storage Type | SSD | SSD |
| Transfer (TB) | 1 | 2 |
CPU
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | GenuineIntel | GenuineIntel |
| Model Name | DO-Regular | DO-Regular |
| Clock Speed (MHz) | 2,494.14 | 1,995.31 |
| CPU Cache Size (KB) | 4,096.00 | 4,096.00 |
| BogoMips | 4,988.28 | 3,990.62 |
| Events per Second | 954.20 | 926.25 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.91 | 0.46 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.05 | 1.08 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 2.11 | 10.82 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.27 | 2.52 |
Memory
Memory Read
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 4,209,859.81 | 2,581,974.32 |
| Mebibytes per second | 4,111.19 | 2,521.46 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 1.49 | 2.99 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 4,189,329.99 | 3,640,120.63 |
| Mebibytes per second | 4,091.14 | 3,554.81 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 1.03 | 2.04 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
File I/O
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 2,467.11 | 1,569.52 |
| Writes per Second | 1,644.74 | 1,046.35 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 5,269.57 | 3,355.60 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 38.55 | 24.52 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 25.70 | 16.35 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.11 | 0.17 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 14.6 | 51.88 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.3 | 0.6 |
Mutex
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 2,239.74 | 3,089.60 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2,269.10 | 3,140.71 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 2,285.87 | 3,175.39 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2,279.14 | 3,151.62 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 6,274.00 | 5,770.00 |
| Queries per second | 62,740.00 | 57,700.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.15 | 1.16 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.59 | 1.73 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 5.02 | 6.58 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.26 | 2.3 |
MySQL Write-only
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 4,050.00 | 2,409.00 |
| Queries per second | 40,500.00 | 24,090.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.18 | 1.69 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.46 | 4.15 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 45.75 | 28.77 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.96 | 6.55 |
MySQL Read/Write
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,942.00 | 1,426.00 |
| Queries per second | 19,420.00 | 14,260.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 3.07 | 3.82 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 5.14 | 7.01 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 40.59 | 23.42 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 7.04 | 9.56 |
MySQL INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 6,791.00 | 3,822.00 |
| Queries per second | 67,910.00 | 38,220.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.58 | 0.93 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.47 | 2.61 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 21.15 | 32.83 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.48 | 4.25 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,026,342.00 | 767,507.00 |
| Queries per second | 10,263,420.00 | 7,675,070.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0.01 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 577.57 | 675.84 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 156,704.00 | 170,982.00 |
| Queries per second | 1,567,040.00 | 1,709,820.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.04 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.06 | 0.06 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 2.29 | 0.99 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.1 | 0.09 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 4,865.00 | 5,001.00 |
| Queries per second | 48,650.00 | 50,010.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.62 | 0.76 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.05 | 2 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 12.45 | 10.34 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.19 | 3.02 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 5,861.00 | 4,841.00 |
| Queries per second | 58,610.00 | 48,410.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.65 | 0.56 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.7 | 2.06 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 5.66 | 5.01 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.76 | 3.07 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 5,999.00 | 3,433.00 |
| Queries per second | 59,990.00 | 34,330.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.61 | 1 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.66 | 2.91 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 43.09 | 19.61 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.91 | 5.09 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 7,513.00 | 3,999.00 |
| Queries per second | 75,130.00 | 39,990.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.54 | 0.79 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.33 | 2.5 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 43.22 | 13.85 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2 | 4.03 |
MySQL DELETE
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 60,867.00 | 19,263.00 |
| Queries per second | 608,670.00 | 192,630.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.04 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.16 | 0.52 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 16.04 | 95.24 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.99 | 2.91 |
Redis
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 49,529.47 | 41,339.40 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 49,067.71 | 42,900.04 |
| SET per Second | 48,007.68 | 41,981.53 |
| GET per Second | 48,520.13 | 38,505.97 |
| INCR per Second | 50,025.02 | 43,365.13 |
| LPUSH per Second | 46,446.82 | 45,289.86 |
| RPUSH per Second | 49,431.54 | 43,252.59 |
| LPOP per Second | 49,164.21 | 38,343.56 |
| RPOP per Second | 48,590.86 | 35,348.18 |
| SADD per Second | 44,642.86 | 41,597.34 |
| HSET per Second | 30,562.35 | 42,069.84 |
| SPOP per Second | 35,739.81 | 45,892.61 |
| ZADD per Second | 42,643.92 | 41,841.00 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 44,782.80 | 46,296.29 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 22,212.35 | 23,501.76 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 9,703.09 | 9,614.46 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 8,345.85 | 8,822.23 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 7,045.73 | 5,211.86 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 38,299.50 | 27,647.22 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 0.67 | 0.83 |
| PING_MBULK | 0.67 | 0.79 |
| SET | 0.70 | 0.82 |
| GET | 0.69 | 0.88 |
| INCR | 0.67 | 0.79 |
| LPUSH | 0.73 | 0.76 |
| RPUSH | 0.68 | 0.79 |
| LPOP | 0.69 | 0.90 |
| RPOP | 0.70 | 0.97 |
| SADD | 0.75 | 0.82 |
| HSET | 1.09 | 0.82 |
| SPOP | 0.93 | 0.74 |
| ZADD | 0.80 | 0.83 |
| ZPOPMIN | 0.75 | 0.74 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 1.61 | 1.52 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 3.73 | 3.68 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 4.31 | 3.95 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 5.03 | 6.52 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 0.93 | 1.32 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
The DigitalOcean Regular (1 GB) instance shows strong performance in Redis operations, with high request rates and low latencies, making it suitable for applications requiring high throughput and low latency, such as caching services. However, its performance in file I/O and MySQL operations is somewhat limited by the lower RAM and CPU resources. In contrast, the Regular (2 GB) instance, while slightly slower in Redis operations, offers better overall performance in file I/O, MySQL operations, and CPU-intensive tasks due to its additional RAM and CPU capabilities. This makes it a better choice for applications that require more memory and processing power, such as database-heavy workloads or applications needing higher file I/O performance. Therefore, the 1 GB instance is ideal for low-resource, high-throughput use cases, while the 2 GB instance is better suited for more demanding applications requiring greater memory and processing capabilities.
From the friendly human:
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