DigitalOcean Regular (1 GB) vs. Vultr Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores)
My friend, I'm so glad you're here! Today I've spun up some brand new instance from DigitalOcean and Vultr to run some benchmarks on. Each instance was spun up with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and were created in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Without further ado, here's the results.
Overview
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Mon, 11 May 2026 21:00:52 GMT | Mon, 11 May 2026 04:00:52 GMT |
| Linux Distro | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 |
| Kernel Version | 6.8.0-71-generic | 6.8.0-111-generic |
| MySQL Version | 8.0.45-0ubuntu0.24.04.1 | 8.0.45-0ubuntu0.24.04.1 |
| Redis Version | 7.0.15 | 7.0.15 |
| Location | New York, NY | Newark, NJ |
| Monthly Price | $6.00 | $15.00 |
| RAM (GB) | 1 | 2 |
| CPU Cores | 1 | 2 |
| Storage (TB) | 25 | 65 |
| Storage Type | SSD | SSD |
| Transfer (TB) | 1 | 3 |
CPU
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | GenuineIntel | GenuineIntel |
| Model Name | DO-Regular | Intel Core Processor (Skylake, IBRS, no TSX) |
| Clock Speed (MHz) | 2,294.61 | 3,792.00 |
| CPU Cache Size (KB) | 4,096.00 | 16,384.00 |
| BogoMips | 4,589.21 | 7,583.99 |
| Events per Second | 391.48 | 1,481.60 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.98 | 0.63 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.54 | 0.67 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 18.15 | 1.95 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4.18 | 0.77 |
Memory
Memory Read
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 2,259,417.59 | 6,401,389.08 |
| Mebibytes per second | 2,206.46 | 6,251.36 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.72 | 0.23 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 3,368,745.66 | 6,411,085.35 |
| Mebibytes per second | 3,289.79 | 6,260.83 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 1.05 | 0.18 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
File I/O
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 889.11 | 4,345.71 |
| Writes per Second | 592.67 | 2,897.07 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 1,902.95 | 9,273.19 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 13.89 | 67.90 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 9.26 | 45.27 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.29 | 0.06 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 402.47 | 2.92 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.74 | 0.17 |
Mutex
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 4,181.67 | 214.63 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 4,205.36 | 569.72 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 4,220.03 | 636.55 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4,203.93 | 634.66 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 4,588.00 | 8,015.00 |
| Queries per second | 45,880.00 | 80,150.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.23 | 0.92 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.17 | 1.25 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 9.83 | 5.5 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.76 | 1.86 |
MySQL Write-only
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,411.00 | 8,497.00 |
| Queries per second | 14,110.00 | 84,970.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 3.14 | 0.76 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 7.08 | 1.17 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 154.82 | 3.04 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 11.45 | 1.55 |
MySQL Read/Write
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,189.00 | 3,726.00 |
| Queries per second | 11,890.00 | 37,260.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 4.82 | 1.78 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 8.4 | 2.68 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 48.54 | 5.82 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 12.08 | 3.43 |
MySQL INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 2,901.00 | 15,028.00 |
| Queries per second | 29,010.00 | 150,280.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.99 | 0.41 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.44 | 0.66 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 177.02 | 2.42 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4.91 | 0.86 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 734,741.00 | 1,696,217.00 |
| Queries per second | 7,347,410.00 | 16,962,170.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0.01 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 781.89 | 283.37 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 139,504.00 | 201,989.00 |
| Queries per second | 1,395,040.00 | 2,019,890.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.03 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.07 | 0.05 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 2.28 | 0.51 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.11 | 0.07 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,395.00 | 8,025.00 |
| Queries per second | 33,950.00 | 80,250.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.91 | 0.35 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.94 | 1.24 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 42.56 | 3.55 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4.03 | 2.07 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 2,856.00 | 8,336.00 |
| Queries per second | 28,560.00 | 83,360.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.77 | 0.4 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.49 | 1.2 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 8.63 | 4.25 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 5.18 | 2.22 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 2,521.00 | 13,858.00 |
| Queries per second | 25,210.00 | 138,580.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.89 | 0.42 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.96 | 0.72 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 307.35 | 6.33 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 6.21 | 0.95 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 2,183.00 | 14,587.00 |
| Queries per second | 21,830.00 | 145,870.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 2.43 | 0.4 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 4.57 | 0.68 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 45.26 | 11.69 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 7.84 | 0.9 |
MySQL DELETE
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 16,082.00 | 129,013.00 |
| Queries per second | 160,820.00 | 1,290,130.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.03 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.62 | 0.08 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 370.75 | 2.61 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.25 | 0.09 |
Redis
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 38,328.86 | 78,247.26 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 38,834.95 | 74,738.41 |
| SET per Second | 35,236.08 | 77,041.60 |
| GET per Second | 35,739.81 | 83,333.33 |
| INCR per Second | 38,299.50 | 80,971.66 |
| LPUSH per Second | 40,436.71 | 79,113.92 |
| RPUSH per Second | 39,339.10 | 77,160.49 |
| LPOP per Second | 36,350.42 | 81,499.59 |
| RPOP per Second | 37,119.52 | 82,440.23 |
| SADD per Second | 40,436.71 | 80,192.46 |
| HSET per Second | 35,549.23 | 83,612.04 |
| SPOP per Second | 38,895.37 | 85,034.02 |
| ZADD per Second | 39,698.29 | 83,263.95 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 34,650.04 | 82,987.55 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 16,672.22 | 55,555.56 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 8,573.39 | 28,851.70 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 5,704.51 | 19,391.12 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 4,624.28 | 17,211.71 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 28,768.70 | 80,256.82 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 0.87 | 0.34 |
| PING_MBULK | 0.85 | 0.35 |
| SET | 0.94 | 0.34 |
| GET | 0.92 | 0.32 |
| INCR | 0.86 | 0.32 |
| LPUSH | 0.84 | 0.34 |
| RPUSH | 0.85 | 0.34 |
| LPOP | 0.93 | 0.32 |
| RPOP | 0.91 | 0.32 |
| SADD | 0.83 | 0.32 |
| HSET | 0.94 | 0.31 |
| SPOP | 0.85 | 0.30 |
| ZADD | 0.85 | 0.31 |
| ZPOPMIN | 0.94 | 0.31 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 2.17 | 0.54 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 4.19 | 1.11 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 6.16 | 1.62 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 7.61 | 1.84 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 1.25 | 0.38 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
The DigitalOcean instance (1 GB, 1 vCPU) shows strong Redis performance with high requests per second and relatively low latency, suitable for applications requiring consistent, though not maximum, throughput. The Vultr instance (2 GB, 2 vCPUs) excels in overall benchmark metrics, especially in CPU and memory operations where it delivers significantly higher performance in terms of requests per second and lower latency, making it ideal for CPU-intensive, I/O-heavy workloads that benefit from dual cores and more RAM. However, it's also slightly more expensive. For developers needing high concurrency and lower latency, the Vultr instance provides superior performance, while the DigitalOcean instance remains a cost-effective choice for less demanding applications.
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.
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