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

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My friend, I'm so glad you're here! Today I've spun up brand new instance from DigitalOcean to run some benchmarks on. Each instance was running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and all resided in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Time to see who showed up today.

Overview

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Last Benchmarked Mon, 08 Jun 2026 21:00:52 GMT Tue, 09 Jun 2026 20:00:52 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 8.0.46-0ubuntu0.24.04.2 8.0.46-0ubuntu0.24.04.2
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) 2,294.61 2,494.14
CPU Cache Size (KB) 4,096.00 4,096.00
BogoMips 4,589.21 4,988.28
Events per Second 426.06 394.67
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.97 0.92
Average Latency (ms) 2.34 2.53
Maximum Latency (ms) 11.13 5.92
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 4.03 3.89

Memory

Memory Read

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Operations per second 3,186,627.49 2,488,947.52
Mebibytes per second 3,111.94 2,430.61
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 3.13 4.41
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Operations per second 3,529,570.35 3,699,319.32
Mebibytes per second 3,446.85 3,612.62
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 0.73 7.52
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Reads per Second 531.03 2,282.77
Writes per Second 354.02 1,521.85
Fsyncs per Second 1,137.44 4,879.00
Read Mebibytes per Second 8.30 35.67
Written Mebibytes per Second 5.53 23.78
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.49 0.11
Maximum Latency (ms) 34.65 7.42
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.14 0.33

Mutex

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms) 2,179.34 2,605.65
Average Latency (ms) 2,192.91 2,631.93
Maximum Latency (ms) 2,199.32 2,646.03
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2,198.52 2,632.28

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 4,443.00 4,818.00
Queries per second 44,430.00 48,180.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.27 1.25
Average Latency (ms) 2.25 2.07
Maximum Latency (ms) 10.86 6.75
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.76 2.52

MySQL Write-only

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 732.00 2,436.00
Queries per second 7,320.00 24,360.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 5.99 1.37
Average Latency (ms) 13.67 4.1
Maximum Latency (ms) 43.33 27.09
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 22.69 8.58

MySQL Read/Write

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 401.00 1,397.00
Queries per second 4,010.00 13,970.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 12.07 3.44
Average Latency (ms) 24.97 7.15
Maximum Latency (ms) 157.04 22.66
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 44.17 11.65

MySQL INSERT

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 867.00 5,042.00
Queries per second 8,670.00 50,420.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 4.9 0.58
Average Latency (ms) 11.54 1.98
Maximum Latency (ms) 78.4 19.17
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 21.89 3.89

MySQL Bulk INSERT

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 701,975.00 767,507.00
Queries per second 7,019,750.00 7,675,070.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.01 0.01
Maximum Latency (ms) 927.69 727.97
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 136,327.00 148,347.00
Queries per second 1,363,270.00 1,483,470.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.07 0.07
Maximum Latency (ms) 8.26 4.37
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.11 0.1

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 3,493.00 3,212.00
Queries per second 34,930.00 32,120.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.97 1.11
Average Latency (ms) 2.86 3.11
Maximum Latency (ms) 30.03 12.29
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.96 4.41

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 2,982.00 4,313.00
Queries per second 29,820.00 43,130.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.73 0.68
Average Latency (ms) 3.35 2.31
Maximum Latency (ms) 7.26 11.81
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 5 3.49

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 471.00 4,253.00
Queries per second 4,710.00 42,530.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 7.73 0.75
Average Latency (ms) 21.3 2.35
Maximum Latency (ms) 316.49 28.16
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 42.61 4.57

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 759.00 5,181.00
Queries per second 7,590.00 51,810.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 5.39 0.64
Average Latency (ms) 13.17 1.93
Maximum Latency (ms) 186.75 24.16
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 24.38 3.55

MySQL DELETE

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 3,484.00 33,451.00
Queries per second 34,840.00 334,510.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 2.87 0.3
Maximum Latency (ms) 53.15 15.97
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 14.46 1.64

Redis

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second 37,936.27 30,534.35
PING_MBULK per Second 29,239.77 33,534.54
SET per Second 31,142.95 34,270.05
GET per Second 37,064.49 32,981.53
INCR per Second 36,886.76 37,009.62
LPUSH per Second 36,403.35 38,669.76
RPUSH per Second 36,310.82 35,919.54
LPOP per Second 35,087.72 32,743.94
RPOP per Second 36,873.16 31,515.91
SADD per Second 37,425.15 35,790.98
HSET per Second 35,448.42 28,810.14
SPOP per Second 31,867.43 38,729.67
ZADD per Second 33,579.59 43,029.26
ZPOPMIN per Second 36,886.76 41,288.19
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 15,003.75 18,070.11
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 6,284.57 9,203.87
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 4,604.48 6,748.09
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 3,898.18 5,126.36
MSET (10 keys) per Second 24,789.29 35,880.88

Redis Average Latency (ms)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
PING_INLINE0.881.07
PING_MBULK1.120.97
SET1.060.97
GET0.901.00
INCR0.900.89
LPUSH0.920.87
RPUSH0.920.92
LPOP0.961.02
RPOP0.921.05
SADD0.890.92
HSET0.941.14
SPOP1.020.85
ZADD0.990.78
ZPOPMIN0.890.80
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)2.402.01
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)5.554.00
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)7.485.38
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)8.757.10
MSET (10 keys)1.510.98

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

After analyzing the benchmark results from the two DigitalOcean instances, it's clear that the Regular (2 GB) instance offers significantly better performance in most metrics compared to the Regular (1 GB) instance. The 2 GB instance demonstrates higher rates of requests per second for Redis operations, slightly better CPU performance with lower latencies, and superior file I/O operations with higher throughput. It also has improved memory bandwidth and latency, and MySQL operations show better handling of bulk inserts and OLTP operations. While both instances perform admirably, the Regular (2 GB) instance is ideal for CPU-intensive and I/O-heavy workloads where increased resources will yield better overall performance, making it a smarter choice for more demanding applications.

From the friendly human:

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