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

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Welcome to another round of the VPS Showdown. Today I spun up fresh instances from DigitalOcean to run some benchmarks on. Each instance was spun up with Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 and were created 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 Tue, 01 Sep 2026 05:00:49 GMT Tue, 01 Sep 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 8.4.11-0ubuntu0.26.04.1 8.4.11-0ubuntu0.26.04.1
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 (2 GB)
Memory (read MiB/s)DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Disk I/O (MiB/s)DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
MySQL (read/write tps)DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Redis (GET/sec)DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Value (CPU events per $/mo)DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) takes 5 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 1,995.30
CPU Cache Size (KB) 4,096.00 4,096.00
BogoMips 4,988.28 3,990.60
Events per Second 772.82 1,293.78
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.99 0.5
Average Latency (ms) 1.29 0.77
Maximum Latency (ms) 8.78 32.08
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.55 2.71

Memory

Memory Read

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Operations per second 3,622,586.06 4,219,815.52
Mebibytes per second 3,537.68 4,120.91
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.1 0.43
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Operations per second 3,822,291.40 4,171,634.94
Mebibytes per second 3,732.71 4,073.86
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 4.17 3.3
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Reads per Second 1,920.14 2,215.21
Writes per Second 1,280.03 1,476.80
Fsyncs per Second 4,102.48 4,729.97
Read Mebibytes per Second 30.00 34.61
Written Mebibytes per Second 20.00 23.08
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.14 0.12
Maximum Latency (ms) 8 8.47
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.36 0.42

Mutex

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms) 2,478.01 2,267.98
Average Latency (ms) 2,532.74 2,277.94
Maximum Latency (ms) 2,549.36 2,282.47
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2,539.17 2,279.14

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 4,409.00 7,596.00
Queries per second 44,090.00 75,960.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.21 1.08
Average Latency (ms) 2.26 1.31
Maximum Latency (ms) 24.74 2.96
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.86 1.76

MySQL Write-only

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 3,732.00 3,864.00
Queries per second 37,320.00 38,640.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.21 1.25
Average Latency (ms) 2.67 2.58
Maximum Latency (ms) 16.14 17.53
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 4.03 3.68

MySQL Read/Write

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 1,483.00 1,992.00
Queries per second 14,830.00 19,920.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 3.57 2.84
Average Latency (ms) 6.74 5.01
Maximum Latency (ms) 18.12 34.88
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 10.27 7.17

MySQL INSERT

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 5,682.00 6,062.00
Queries per second 56,820.00 60,620.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.68 0.67
Average Latency (ms) 1.75 1.64
Maximum Latency (ms) 13.49 10.83
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.91 2.81

MySQL Bulk INSERT

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 767,507.00 964,103.00
Queries per second 7,675,070.00 9,641,030.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.01 0.01
Maximum Latency (ms) 617.09 530.44
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 124,153.00 189,004.00
Queries per second 1,241,530.00 1,890,040.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.08 0.05
Maximum Latency (ms) 7.98 1.31
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.12 0.08

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 2,938.00 4,589.00
Queries per second 29,380.00 45,890.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.07 0.64
Average Latency (ms) 3.4 2.18
Maximum Latency (ms) 38.05 5.88
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 5.09 3.49

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 4,505.00 6,412.00
Queries per second 45,050.00 64,120.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.52 0.61
Average Latency (ms) 2.21 1.56
Maximum Latency (ms) 7.95 4.87
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.36 2.3

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 4,739.00 5,328.00
Queries per second 47,390.00 53,280.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.66 0.72
Average Latency (ms) 2.1 1.87
Maximum Latency (ms) 61.92 23.46
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.89 3.19

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 6,465.00 6,098.00
Queries per second 64,650.00 60,980.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.58 0.69
Average Latency (ms) 1.54 1.64
Maximum Latency (ms) 60.54 37.29
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.52 2.76

MySQL DELETE

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
Transactions per second 40,979.00 47,918.00
Queries per second 409,790.00 479,180.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.24 0.21
Maximum Latency (ms) 11.16 53.78
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.39 1.42

Redis

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second 27,956.39 48,100.05
PING_MBULK per Second 32,509.75 47,892.72
SET per Second 32,206.12 47,938.64
GET per Second 32,488.63 45,599.63
INCR per Second 28,034.76 46,750.82
LPUSH per Second 33,590.86 36,509.68
RPUSH per Second 32,883.92 37,119.52
LPOP per Second 37,439.16 46,490.00
RPOP per Second 35,803.80 48,169.56
SADD per Second 37,355.25 51,519.84
HSET per Second 36,683.79 47,687.18
SPOP per Second 36,764.71 49,285.36
ZADD per Second 37,622.27 48,756.70
ZPOPMIN per Second 35,997.12 50,125.31
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 18,590.82 30,750.31
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 10,315.66 16,010.25
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 6,933.85 11,641.44
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 6,325.51 9,407.34
MSET (10 keys) per Second 31,635.56 44,822.95

Redis Average Latency (ms)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
PING_INLINE1.080.66
PING_MBULK0.940.65
SET0.960.66
GET0.940.69
INCR1.100.67
LPUSH0.930.86
RPUSH0.940.85
LPOP0.840.69
RPOP0.870.67
SADD0.830.61
HSET0.860.66
SPOP0.830.64
ZADD0.830.66
ZPOPMIN0.860.63
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)1.741.05
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)3.032.03
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)4.272.88
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)4.673.38
MSET (10 keys)1.080.82

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

The DigitalOcean Regular (2 GB) instance wins overall, primarily due to superior Redis benchmarks, where it reaches a remarkable 51519.84 RPS for SADD commands compared to the Regular (1 GB) instance's 37355.25 RPS. For use cases that demand high throughput for Redis operations, this instance would be more suitable. However, if budget is a primary concern, the Regular (1 GB) instance provides a cost-effective solution with respectable performance for less demanding tasks.

From the friendly human:

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