DigitalOcean Regular (1 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Regular (2 GB)

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New day, new benchmarks. Today I've spun up some brand new instance from DigitalOcean and ran some benchmarks. All instances were 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 – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Last Benchmarked Thu, 25 Dec 2025 17:00:52 GMT Wed, 24 Dec 2025 07:00:52 GMT
Linux Distro Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64
Kernel Version 6.8.0-71-generic 6.8.0-71-generic
MySQL Version 8.0.44-0ubuntu0.24.04.2 8.0.44-0ubuntu0.24.04.2
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 2,294.61
CPU Cache Size (KB) 4,096.00 4,096.00
BogoMips 4,988.27 4,589.21
Events per Second 658.25 473.02
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.91 0.97
Average Latency (ms) 1.52 2.11
Maximum Latency (ms) 4.37 16.3
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.76 3.36

Memory

Memory Read

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Operations per second 4,590,506.96 1,895,257.82
Mebibytes per second 4,482.92 1,850.84
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 1.47 3.82
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Operations per second 4,461,825.89 2,510,285.50
Mebibytes per second 4,357.25 2,451.45
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 1.05 3.02
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Reads per Second 2,902.70 1,160.00
Writes per Second 1,935.13 773.33
Fsyncs per Second 6,204.32 2,474.87
Read Mebibytes per Second 45.35 18.13
Written Mebibytes per Second 30.24 12.08
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.09 0.23
Maximum Latency (ms) 31.01 19.17
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.24 0.81

Mutex

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms) 1,886.90 1,798.85
Average Latency (ms) 1,902.88 1,814.60
Maximum Latency (ms) 1,917.74 1,822.09
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1,903.57 1,836.24

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 6,616.00 6,593.00
Queries per second 66,160.00 65,930.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.13 1.2
Average Latency (ms) 1.51 1.51
Maximum Latency (ms) 6.91 4.77
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.22 2.03

MySQL Write-only

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 5,741.00 1,650.00
Queries per second 57,410.00 16,500.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.97 3.5
Average Latency (ms) 1.74 6.06
Maximum Latency (ms) 25.7 25.95
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.61 9.22

MySQL Read/Write

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 2,490.00 1,176.00
Queries per second 24,900.00 11,760.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 2.67 5.63
Average Latency (ms) 4.01 8.5
Maximum Latency (ms) 26.68 30.4
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 5.67 11.87

MySQL INSERT

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 9,069.00 2,208.00
Queries per second 90,690.00 22,080.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.48 3.09
Average Latency (ms) 1.1 4.55
Maximum Latency (ms) 80.73 80.9
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.73 6.91

MySQL Bulk INSERT

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 1,055,467.00 931,337.00
Queries per second 10,554,670.00 9,313,370.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.01 0.01
Maximum Latency (ms) 1012.19 668.4
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 188,955.00 173,090.00
Queries per second 1,889,550.00 1,730,900.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.05 0.06
Maximum Latency (ms) 1.59 2.52
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.08 0.09

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 5,352.00 4,760.00
Queries per second 53,520.00 47,600.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.55 0.77
Average Latency (ms) 1.87 2.1
Maximum Latency (ms) 6.67 15.87
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.97 3.19

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 5,879.00 4,403.00
Queries per second 58,790.00 44,030.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.5 0.51
Average Latency (ms) 1.7 2.27
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.23 8.23
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.02 4.33

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 9,925.00 2,029.00
Queries per second 99,250.00 20,290.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.47 3.06
Average Latency (ms) 1.01 4.93
Maximum Latency (ms) 48.42 18.74
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.67 7.98

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 9,177.00 1,959.00
Queries per second 91,770.00 19,590.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.46 3.04
Average Latency (ms) 1.09 5.1
Maximum Latency (ms) 103.03 228.92
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.73 8.28

MySQL DELETE

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 77,722.00 11,363.00
Queries per second 777,220.00 113,630.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.13 0.88
Maximum Latency (ms) 27.76 15.84
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.48 5

Redis

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second 41,597.34 49,091.80
PING_MBULK per Second 42,826.55 47,892.72
SET per Second 45,516.61 46,860.36
GET per Second 44,923.63 51,387.46
INCR per Second 46,317.74 49,850.45
LPUSH per Second 47,348.48 49,925.11
RPUSH per Second 45,106.00 50,050.05
LPOP per Second 42,444.82 46,533.27
RPOP per Second 43,271.31 47,505.94
SADD per Second 42,087.54 50,581.69
HSET per Second 37,509.38 45,167.12
SPOP per Second 40,567.95 51,759.83
ZADD per Second 37,369.21 46,274.87
ZPOPMIN per Second 41,823.50 43,066.32
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 20,128.82 19,607.84
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 10,488.78 8,440.24
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 6,303.18 5,740.53
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 5,894.49 4,831.15
MSET (10 keys) per Second 38,461.54 37,551.63

Redis Average Latency (ms)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
PING_INLINE0.800.67
PING_MBULK0.770.69
SET0.740.71
GET0.740.64
INCR0.720.67
LPUSH0.710.67
RPUSH0.750.66
LPOP0.790.72
RPOP0.780.71
SADD0.790.65
HSET0.890.75
SPOP0.810.63
ZADD0.900.73
ZPOPMIN0.790.77
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)1.801.80
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)3.474.10
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)5.675.96
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)6.066.96
MSET (10 keys)0.920.97

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

Comparing the benchmarks of DigitalOcean's Regular (1 GB) and Regular (2 GB) instances, the latter clearly exhibits better performance across the board, reflecting the benefits of its additional RAM. While both instances perform well with Redis operations, the Regular (2 GB) excels in handling more complex commands like LRANGE, showing higher throughput and lower latencies for larger datasets. For CPU-intensive tasks and database operations, the Regular (2 GB) also outperforms the 1 GB variant with lower latency and higher request rates per second, demonstrating its superiority in handling more demanding workloads. Consequently, the Regular (2 GB) is better suited for applications requiring higher computational power, larger memory, and more robust I/O performance, making it ideal for developers and sysadmins who prioritize performance over cost in a cloud environment.

From the friendly human:

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