VPS Showdown VPS Showdown

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

vs.

New day, new benchmarks. Today I spun up fresh instances from DigitalOcean and Vultr to run some benchmarks on. Each instance was running Ubuntu 26.04 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) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Last Benchmarked Thu, 01 Oct 2026 05:00:49 GMT Tue, 01 Sep 2026 05:03:03 GMT
Linux Distro Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64
Kernel Version 7.0.0-31-generic 7.0.0-29-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 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)Vultr – Cloud Compute (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)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 4,988.27 4,799.99
Events per Second 705.37 747.20
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.98 1.23
Average Latency (ms) 1.41 1.34
Maximum Latency (ms) 12.76 4.19
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2 1.61

Memory

Memory Read

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Operations per second 3,663,208.77 3,468,220.65
Mebibytes per second 3,577.35 3,386.93
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.47 2.53
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Operations per second 3,890,887.47 3,710,866.55
Mebibytes per second 3,799.69 3,623.89
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 2.33 0.76
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Reads per Second 2,194.30 1,891.00
Writes per Second 1,462.87 1,260.60
Fsyncs per Second 4,688.57 4,039.68
Read Mebibytes per Second 34.29 29.55
Written Mebibytes per Second 22.86 19.70
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.12 0.14
Maximum Latency (ms) 10.7 6.15
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.32 0.33

Mutex

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms) 2,352.19 2,212.92
Average Latency (ms) 2,382.76 2,218.18
Maximum Latency (ms) 2,393.79 2,222.25
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2,405.65 2,238.47

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Transactions per second 4,593.00 4,645.00
Queries per second 45,930.00 46,450.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.29 1.76
Average Latency (ms) 2.17 2.15
Maximum Latency (ms) 13.82 6.84
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.02 2.97

MySQL Write-only

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Transactions per second 3,486.00 3,815.00
Queries per second 34,860.00 38,150.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.26 1.64
Average Latency (ms) 2.86 2.62
Maximum Latency (ms) 33.41 21.48
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 4.33 3.55

MySQL Read/Write

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Transactions per second 1,761.00 1,258.00
Queries per second 17,610.00 12,580.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 3.36 3.82
Average Latency (ms) 5.67 7.94
Maximum Latency (ms) 16.69 2585.43
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 7.98 8.58

MySQL INSERT

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Transactions per second 6,877.00 4,318.00
Queries per second 68,770.00 43,180.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.65 1.13
Average Latency (ms) 1.45 2.31
Maximum Latency (ms) 9.48 41.5
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.35 4.18

MySQL Bulk INSERT

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Transactions per second 833,039.00 800,273.00
Queries per second 8,330,390.00 8,002,730.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.01 0.01
Maximum Latency (ms) 670.02 573.78
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Transactions per second 122,209.00 99,416.00
Queries per second 1,222,090.00 994,160.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.07
Average Latency (ms) 0.08 0.1
Maximum Latency (ms) 8.73 3.29
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.14 0.15

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Transactions per second 3,294.00 3,664.00
Queries per second 32,940.00 36,640.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.13 0.6
Average Latency (ms) 3.03 2.73
Maximum Latency (ms) 17.77 10.72
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 4.65 4.25

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Transactions per second 5,143.00 5,031.00
Queries per second 51,430.00 50,310.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.52 0.67
Average Latency (ms) 1.94 1.98
Maximum Latency (ms) 8.8 12.72
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.02 3.25

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Transactions per second 5,821.00 5,894.00
Queries per second 58,210.00 58,940.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.62 1.05
Average Latency (ms) 1.71 1.69
Maximum Latency (ms) 21.71 17.67
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.3 2.39

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Transactions per second 7,391.00 5,867.00
Queries per second 73,910.00 58,670.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.57 1.04
Average Latency (ms) 1.35 1.7
Maximum Latency (ms) 8.09 10.56
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.14 2.48

MySQL DELETE

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Transactions per second 51,002.00 27,369.00
Queries per second 510,020.00 273,690.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.07
Average Latency (ms) 0.19 0.36
Maximum Latency (ms) 9.61 22.97
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.12 1.86

Redis

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second 31,026.99 29,316.92
PING_MBULK per Second 34,530.39 27,233.12
SET per Second 35,945.36 23,980.81
GET per Second 34,293.55 27,925.16
INCR per Second 23,820.87 29,316.92
LPUSH per Second 30,931.02 26,260.50
RPUSH per Second 33,014.20 27,292.58
LPOP per Second 30,553.01 28,810.14
RPOP per Second 34,459.00 27,517.89
SADD per Second 37,285.61 28,776.98
HSET per Second 29,002.32 28,490.03
SPOP per Second 32,195.75 25,746.65
ZADD per Second 30,562.35 27,987.69
ZPOPMIN per Second 29,342.72 28,176.95
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 20,024.03 20,345.88
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 11,069.29 10,920.61
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 6,976.42 7,457.12
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 6,141.75 7,261.64
MSET (10 keys) per Second 27,609.06 29,188.56

Redis Average Latency (ms)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
PING_INLINE0.991.04
PING_MBULK0.881.10
SET0.861.29
GET0.901.08
INCR1.331.03
LPUSH1.001.17
RPUSH0.941.12
LPOP1.031.07
RPOP0.911.11
SADD0.831.05
HSET1.071.07
SPOP0.951.18
ZADD1.011.09
ZPOPMIN1.061.07
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)1.621.57
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)2.902.84
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)4.303.99
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)4.794.07
MSET (10 keys)1.251.15

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

The DigitalOcean instance edges out the Vultr instance in the benchmarks, particularly excelling in Redis operations where DigitalOcean achieved higher requests per second (rps) across various commands and consistently lower latency. For example, in "LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)", DigitalOcean's instance reached 6933.85 rps with an average latency of 4.265 ms, whereas Vultr managed 7457.12 rps with an average latency of 3.99 ms. DigitalOcean also demonstrated superior CPU event handling, recording 772.82 events per second compared to Vultr's 747.2. For users prioritizing low latency and high throughput in CPU-intensive or database-heavy applications, DigitalOcean's instance is the preferred choice.

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)