DigitalOcean Regular (1 GB) vs. Vultr Cloud Compute (4 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 and ran my world famous suite of benchmarking scripts. Each instance was spun up with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and were created in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Enough talk. Here's the data.
Overview
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Thu, 11 Jun 2026 22:00:52 GMT | Thu, 11 Jun 2026 09:00:52 GMT |
| Linux Distro | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 |
| Kernel Version | 6.8.0-71-generic | 6.8.0-124-generic |
| MySQL Version | 8.0.46-0ubuntu0.24.04.2 | 8.0.46-0ubuntu0.24.04.2 |
| Redis Version | 7.0.15 | 7.0.15 |
| Location | New York, NY | Newark, NJ |
| Monthly Price | $6.00 | $20.00 |
| RAM (GB) | 1 | 4 |
| CPU Cores | 1 | 2 |
| Storage (TB) | 25 | 80 |
| Storage Type | SSD | SSD |
| Transfer (TB) | 1 | 3 |
CPU
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | GenuineIntel | GenuineIntel |
| Model Name | DO-Regular | Intel Xeon Processor (Skylake, IBRS) |
| Clock Speed (MHz) | 2,494.14 | 2,593.91 |
| CPU Cache Size (KB) | 4,096.00 | 16,384.00 |
| BogoMips | 4,988.28 | 5,187.81 |
| Events per Second | 540.57 | 1,022.39 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.91 | 0.88 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.85 | 0.98 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 7.32 | 1.77 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.62 | 1.21 |
Memory
Memory Read
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 3,852,163.30 | 3,523,809.57 |
| Mebibytes per second | 3,761.88 | 3,441.22 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 1.7 | 0.22 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 3,815,244.71 | 3,568,203.77 |
| Mebibytes per second | 3,725.82 | 3,484.57 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 1.17 | 1.02 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
File I/O
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 2,071.86 | 2,972.63 |
| Writes per Second | 1,381.27 | 1,981.75 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 4,424.22 | 6,347.81 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 32.37 | 46.45 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 21.58 | 30.96 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.13 | 0.09 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 7.03 | 17.12 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.35 | 0.33 |
Mutex
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 3,000.44 | 899.28 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3,028.66 | 935.93 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3,047.81 | 969.92 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3,040.14 | 977.74 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 5,528.00 | 3,779.00 |
| Queries per second | 55,280.00 | 37,790.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.17 | 1.84 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.8 | 2.64 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 11.24 | 24.55 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.43 | 3.82 |
MySQL Write-only
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 2,742.00 | 4,044.00 |
| Queries per second | 27,420.00 | 40,440.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.53 | 1.4 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.64 | 2.47 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 27.79 | 13.46 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 6.55 | 3.3 |
MySQL Read/Write
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,411.00 | 1,798.00 |
| Queries per second | 14,110.00 | 17,980.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 3.64 | 3.86 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 7.08 | 5.56 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 97.35 | 27.33 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 10.84 | 6.91 |
MySQL INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 5,928.00 | 6,405.00 |
| Queries per second | 59,280.00 | 64,050.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.57 | 0.99 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.68 | 1.56 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 14.82 | 15.15 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.07 | 2.03 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 931,337.00 | 865,805.00 |
| Queries per second | 9,313,370.00 | 8,658,050.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0.01 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 503.73 | 538.25 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 159,587.00 | 126,618.00 |
| Queries per second | 1,595,870.00 | 1,266,180.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.05 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.06 | 0.08 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 4.37 | 2.46 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.09 | 0.11 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,509.00 | 3,674.00 |
| Queries per second | 35,090.00 | 36,740.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.89 | 1.07 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.84 | 2.72 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 14.66 | 6.45 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4.33 | 3.55 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 4,046.00 | 2,728.00 |
| Queries per second | 40,460.00 | 27,280.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.76 | 1.3 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.47 | 3.66 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 14.55 | 11.85 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.55 | 5 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 4,507.00 | 5,438.00 |
| Queries per second | 45,070.00 | 54,380.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.78 | 0.99 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.21 | 1.84 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 85.45 | 13.86 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4.03 | 2.71 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 5,379.00 | 6,370.00 |
| Queries per second | 53,790.00 | 63,700.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.7 | 1.01 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.86 | 1.57 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 14.42 | 8.99 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.36 | 2.07 |
MySQL DELETE
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 53,347.00 | 51,180.00 |
| Queries per second | 533,470.00 | 511,800.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.05 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.19 | 0.19 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 18.43 | 6.11 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.04 | 1.39 |
Redis
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 33,647.38 | 49,677.10 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 36,859.56 | 45,372.05 |
| SET per Second | 41,823.50 | 45,392.64 |
| GET per Second | 41,203.13 | 53,163.21 |
| INCR per Second | 40,600.89 | 48,732.94 |
| LPUSH per Second | 37,835.79 | 50,327.12 |
| RPUSH per Second | 36,941.26 | 48,285.85 |
| LPOP per Second | 42,517.01 | 48,355.90 |
| RPOP per Second | 41,442.19 | 51,413.88 |
| SADD per Second | 40,322.58 | 48,332.53 |
| HSET per Second | 22,306.49 | 49,285.36 |
| SPOP per Second | 21,701.39 | 48,332.53 |
| ZADD per Second | 21,834.06 | 51,229.51 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 23,485.21 | 45,085.66 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 18,099.55 | 27,122.32 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 7,944.07 | 12,442.45 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 5,765.68 | 7,930.21 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 5,130.84 | 6,902.74 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 28,082.00 | 45,146.73 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 0.97 | 0.53 |
| PING_MBULK | 0.89 | 0.57 |
| SET | 0.81 | 0.57 |
| GET | 0.81 | 0.49 |
| INCR | 0.82 | 0.53 |
| LPUSH | 0.88 | 0.51 |
| RPUSH | 0.90 | 0.54 |
| LPOP | 0.80 | 0.54 |
| RPOP | 0.82 | 0.52 |
| SADD | 0.83 | 0.55 |
| HSET | 1.47 | 0.54 |
| SPOP | 1.49 | 0.54 |
| ZADD | 1.52 | 0.52 |
| ZPOPMIN | 1.37 | 0.57 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 2.02 | 1.02 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 4.50 | 2.29 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 6.20 | 3.27 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 6.90 | 3.91 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 1.25 | 0.78 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
Upon comparing the benchmark results from both DigitalOcean and Vultr, the Vultr Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) instance outperforms the DigitalOcean Regular (1 GB) in nearly all categories, exhibiting significantly higher requests per second (rps) in Redis benchmarks and better overall throughput in CPU, memory, and file I/O operations. Vultr’s instance shows superior handling of CPU-intensive tasks, memory operations, and I/O operations, making it a better choice for workloads that demand higher performance and multi-threading capabilities. For users prioritizing cost-effectiveness while still needing a modest amount of performance boost, the DigitalOcean instance provides a more budget-friendly option. Thus, the Vultr instance is ideal for resource-intensive applications, while the DigitalOcean instance may suffice for less demanding tasks with a focus on 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 directly by buying me a coffee.