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

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New day, new benchmarks. Today I've got brand new instances from DigitalOcean and did some benchmarking. Each instance was running Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 and all resided 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 Sat, 01 Aug 2026 05:00:48 GMT Sat, 01 Aug 2026 05:03:47 GMT
Linux Distro Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64
Kernel Version 7.0.0-27-generic 7.0.0-27-generic
MySQL Version 8.4.10-0ubuntu0.26.04.1 8.4.10-0ubuntu0.26.04.1
Redis Version 8.0.5 8.0.5
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

Head-to-head

Category winners from the latest benchmarks.

CategoryWinner
CPU (events/sec)DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Memory (read MiB/s)DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Disk I/O (MiB/s)DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
MySQL (read/write tps)DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Redis (GET/sec)DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Value (CPU events per $/mo)DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) takes 6 of 6 categories.

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 4,988.28 4,589.21
Events per Second 815.71 337.24
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.98 1.07
Average Latency (ms) 1.22 2.96
Maximum Latency (ms) 2.86 7.98
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.5 4.74

Memory

Memory Read

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Operations per second 3,956,759.89 2,158,838.24
Mebibytes per second 3,864.02 2,108.24
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 2.03 7.22
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Operations per second 3,883,080.49 3,098,478.11
Mebibytes per second 3,792.07 3,025.86
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 6.51 2.23
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Reads per Second 2,180.62 897.65
Writes per Second 1,453.75 598.43
Fsyncs per Second 4,652.64 1,924.36
Read Mebibytes per Second 34.07 14.03
Written Mebibytes per Second 22.71 9.35
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.12 0.29
Maximum Latency (ms) 8.63 30.6
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.34 0.9

Mutex

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms) 2,077.12 2,798.91
Average Latency (ms) 2,109.98 2,816.88
Maximum Latency (ms) 2,125.57 2,827.29
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2,120.76 2,828.87

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 6,111.00 4,209.00
Queries per second 61,110.00 42,090.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.13 1.24
Average Latency (ms) 1.63 2.37
Maximum Latency (ms) 16.53 5.8
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.3 2.91

MySQL Write-only

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 3,456.00 720.00
Queries per second 34,560.00 7,200.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.3 2.26
Average Latency (ms) 2.89 13.89
Maximum Latency (ms) 17.71 898.41
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 4.57 11.24

MySQL Read/Write

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 2,206.00 914.00
Queries per second 22,060.00 9,140.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 2.57 5.04
Average Latency (ms) 4.53 10.93
Maximum Latency (ms) 12.36 399.05
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 6.55 12.98

MySQL INSERT

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 6,940.00 2,481.00
Queries per second 69,400.00 24,810.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.52 1.76
Average Latency (ms) 1.43 4.02
Maximum Latency (ms) 22.94 209.08
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.57 6.43

MySQL Bulk INSERT

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 1,084,592.00 603,677.00
Queries per second 10,845,920.00 6,036,770.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.01 0.02
Maximum Latency (ms) 506.06 768.14
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 160,315.00 111,711.00
Queries per second 1,603,150.00 1,117,110.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.06 0.09
Maximum Latency (ms) 1.76 4.67
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.1 0.14

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 3,209.00 2,616.00
Queries per second 32,090.00 26,160.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.96 1.4
Average Latency (ms) 3.11 3.82
Maximum Latency (ms) 10.53 19.97
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 4.57 5.18

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 5,822.00 2,567.00
Queries per second 58,220.00 25,670.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.52 1.01
Average Latency (ms) 1.71 3.89
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.33 8.69
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.86 5.57

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 9,262.00 1,815.00
Queries per second 92,620.00 18,150.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.52 1.76
Average Latency (ms) 1.08 5.5
Maximum Latency (ms) 21.4 1034.92
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.82 6.67

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 8,187.00 3,210.00
Queries per second 81,870.00 32,100.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.53 1.61
Average Latency (ms) 1.22 3.11
Maximum Latency (ms) 14.67 42.13
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.18 5.09

MySQL DELETE

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 79,336.00 18,558.00
Queries per second 793,360.00 185,580.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.13 0.54
Maximum Latency (ms) 11.85 146.02
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.34 2.91

Redis

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second 44,722.72 32,310.18
PING_MBULK per Second 44,267.38 31,645.57
SET per Second 47,687.18 29,222.68
GET per Second 45,351.48 28,760.43
INCR per Second 43,535.05 34,411.56
LPUSH per Second 39,047.25 31,705.77
RPUSH per Second 37,481.26 30,883.26
LPOP per Second 40,404.04 30,892.80
RPOP per Second 38,595.14 33,602.15
SADD per Second 38,834.95 32,520.32
HSET per Second 35,932.45 34,459.00
SPOP per Second 32,000.00 35,997.12
ZADD per Second 30,750.31 29,197.08
ZPOPMIN per Second 30,854.68 29,403.12
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 24,789.29 14,295.93
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 13,390.47 6,915.15
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 8,059.32 4,855.55
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 7,098.74 4,463.09
MSET (10 keys) per Second 41,928.72 27,631.94

Redis Average Latency (ms)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
PING_INLINE0.690.96
PING_MBULK0.690.97
SET0.651.06
GET0.681.08
INCR0.710.91
LPUSH0.800.98
RPUSH0.820.99
LPOP0.781.00
RPOP0.810.94
SADD0.790.95
HSET0.860.91
SPOP0.960.86
ZADD1.011.07
ZPOPMIN1.001.05
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)1.312.23
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)2.444.29
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)3.795.91
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)4.256.47
MSET (10 keys)0.811.37

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

The DigitalOcean Regular (1 GB) instance outperforms the Regular (2 GB) counterpart based on critical benchmarks: the Regular (1 GB) achieves higher Redis SET requests per second (47,687 vs. 29,223) and lower average MySQL bulk insert latency (0.01 ms vs. 0.02 ms), indicating it has superior CPU performance and lower database latency, making it a better choice for CPU-heavy workloads and applications requiring low database response times.

From the friendly human:

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