VPS Showdown VPS Showdown

DigitalOcean Regular (1 GB) vs. Vultr Cloud Compute (1 GB)

vs.

Same showdown, different day. Today I spun up fresh instances from DigitalOcean and Vultr and ran my world famous suite of benchmarking scripts. Each instance was running Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 and were created in the New York area (or close to it). Let's get into the numbers.

Overview

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Last Benchmarked Sat, 01 Aug 2026 05:00:48 GMT Sat, 01 Aug 2026 05:03:02 GMT
Linux Distro Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64
Kernel Version 7.0.0-27-generic 7.0.0-28-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 Newark, NJ
Monthly Price $6.00 $5.00
RAM (GB) 1 1
CPU Cores 1 1
Storage (TB) 25 25
Storage Type SSD SSD
Transfer (TB) 1 1

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)Tie
Redis (GET/sec)DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Value (CPU events per $/mo)Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) takes 4 of 6 categories.

CPU

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Vendor GenuineIntel GenuineIntel
Model Name DO-Regular Intel Core Processor (Broadwell, no TSX, IBRS)
Clock Speed (MHz) 2,494.14 2,400.00
CPU Cache Size (KB) 4,096.00 16,384.00
BogoMips 4,988.28 4,799.99
Events per Second 815.71 763.23
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.98 1.11
Average Latency (ms) 1.22 1.31
Maximum Latency (ms) 2.86 2.63
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.5 1.44

Memory

Memory Read

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Operations per second 3,956,759.89 3,905,870.09
Mebibytes per second 3,864.02 3,814.33
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 2.03 0.72
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Operations per second 3,883,080.49 3,886,921.83
Mebibytes per second 3,792.07 3,795.82
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 6.51 0.73
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Reads per Second 2,180.62 1,890.03
Writes per Second 1,453.75 1,259.95
Fsyncs per Second 4,652.64 4,040.16
Read Mebibytes per Second 34.07 29.53
Written Mebibytes per Second 22.71 19.69
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.12 0.14
Maximum Latency (ms) 8.63 4.59
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.34 0.35

Mutex

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms) 2,077.12 2,141.87
Average Latency (ms) 2,109.98 2,158.92
Maximum Latency (ms) 2,125.57 2,165.16
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2,120.76 2,159.29

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Transactions per second 6,111.00 5,168.00
Queries per second 61,110.00 51,680.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.13 1.65
Average Latency (ms) 1.63 1.93
Maximum Latency (ms) 16.53 12.8
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.3 2.22

MySQL Write-only

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Transactions per second 3,456.00 3,072.00
Queries per second 34,560.00 30,720.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.3 1.58
Average Latency (ms) 2.89 3.71
Maximum Latency (ms) 17.71 3416.63
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 4.57 3.07

MySQL Read/Write

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Transactions per second 2,206.00 2,195.00
Queries per second 22,060.00 21,950.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 2.57 3.59
Average Latency (ms) 4.53 4.55
Maximum Latency (ms) 12.36 11.62
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 6.55 5.28

MySQL INSERT

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Transactions per second 6,940.00 6,793.00
Queries per second 69,400.00 67,930.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.52 1.03
Average Latency (ms) 1.43 1.47
Maximum Latency (ms) 22.94 42.94
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.57 1.89

MySQL Bulk INSERT

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Transactions per second 1,084,592.00 931,337.00
Queries per second 10,845,920.00 9,313,370.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.01 0.01
Maximum Latency (ms) 506.06 595.92
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Transactions per second 160,315.00 112,159.00
Queries per second 1,603,150.00 1,121,590.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.07
Average Latency (ms) 0.06 0.09
Maximum Latency (ms) 1.76 3.1
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.1 0.13

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Transactions per second 3,209.00 4,115.00
Queries per second 32,090.00 41,150.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.96 0.76
Average Latency (ms) 3.11 2.43
Maximum Latency (ms) 10.53 6.44
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 4.57 3.25

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Transactions per second 5,822.00 5,698.00
Queries per second 58,220.00 56,980.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.52 0.65
Average Latency (ms) 1.71 1.75
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.33 5.36
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.86 2.35

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Transactions per second 9,262.00 6,594.00
Queries per second 92,620.00 65,940.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.52 1
Average Latency (ms) 1.08 1.51
Maximum Latency (ms) 21.4 26.54
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.82 2.07

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Transactions per second 8,187.00 6,477.00
Queries per second 81,870.00 64,770.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.53 1.02
Average Latency (ms) 1.22 1.54
Maximum Latency (ms) 14.67 33.4
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.18 2.18

MySQL DELETE

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Transactions per second 79,336.00 48,339.00
Queries per second 793,360.00 483,390.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.06
Average Latency (ms) 0.13 0.21
Maximum Latency (ms) 11.85 22.17
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.34 1.34

Redis

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second 44,722.72 33,288.95
PING_MBULK per Second 44,267.38 33,704.08
SET per Second 47,687.18 33,456.00
GET per Second 45,351.48 32,010.24
INCR per Second 43,535.05 30,147.72
LPUSH per Second 39,047.25 28,232.64
RPUSH per Second 37,481.26 32,552.08
LPOP per Second 40,404.04 32,414.91
RPOP per Second 38,595.14 32,195.75
SADD per Second 38,834.95 32,278.89
HSET per Second 35,932.45 32,776.14
SPOP per Second 32,000.00 30,147.72
ZADD per Second 30,750.31 25,412.96
ZPOPMIN per Second 30,854.68 25,920.17
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 24,789.29 19,098.55
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 13,390.47 11,506.16
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 8,059.32 7,970.67
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 7,098.74 7,017.05
MSET (10 keys) per Second 41,928.72 30,165.91

Redis Average Latency (ms)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
PING_INLINE0.690.92
PING_MBULK0.690.90
SET0.650.92
GET0.680.94
INCR0.711.01
LPUSH0.801.08
RPUSH0.820.94
LPOP0.780.95
RPOP0.810.96
SADD0.790.94
HSET0.860.93
SPOP0.961.01
ZADD1.011.21
ZPOPMIN1.001.16
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)1.311.65
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)2.442.64
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)3.793.64
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)4.254.12
MSET (10 keys)0.811.10

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

DigitalOcean's Regular (1 GB) instance outperforms Vultr's Cloud Compute (1 GB) in key benchmarks, particularly in Redis commands like SET and GET, achieving higher requests per second and lower average latencies. DigitalOcean's instance recorded 47687.18 rps for SET and 45351.48 rps for GET with lower average latencies compared to Vultr's 33456 rps for SET and 32010.24 rps for GET. For CPU-intensive tasks and memory operations, DigitalOcean also shows better performance, making it a better choice for CPU-heavy or memory-intensive applications, despite Vultr offering a slightly lower monthly cost.

From the friendly human:

If you found this VPS Showdown helpful in your search for a hosting provider, please consider supporting my efforts by signing up using my referral links for DigitalOcean and Vultr.

You can also support me next time you shop on Amazon.

Providers & pricing

DigitalOcean overview Vultr overviewDigitalOcean Regular (1 GB) pricing Vultr Cloud Compute (1 GB) pricing

Related comparisons

vs. DigitalOcean Regular (2 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Premium Intel (1 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Regular (2 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Premium Intel (2 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Premium Intel (1 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Premium AMD (1 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Premium Intel (2 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Premium AMD (2 GB)