DigitalOcean Regular (1 GB) vs. Vultr Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores)
Same showdown, different day. Today I've spun up some brand new instance from DigitalOcean and Vultr to run some benchmarks on. All instances were running 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 (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Sun, 24 May 2026 06:00:51 GMT | Sat, 23 May 2026 11:00:52 GMT |
| Linux Distro | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 |
| Kernel Version | 6.8.0-71-generic | 6.8.0-117-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 | $40.00 |
| RAM (GB) | 1 | 8 |
| CPU Cores | 1 | 4 |
| Storage (TB) | 25 | 160 |
| Storage Type | SSD | SSD |
| Transfer (TB) | 1 | 4 |
CPU
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | GenuineIntel | GenuineIntel |
| Model Name | DO-Regular | Intel Xeon Processor (Skylake, IBRS) |
| Clock Speed (MHz) | 2,494.17 | 2,593.90 |
| CPU Cache Size (KB) | 4,096.00 | 16,384.00 |
| BogoMips | 4,988.33 | 5,187.80 |
| Events per Second | 544.64 | 1,100.82 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.91 | 0.88 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.83 | 0.91 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 6.05 | 1.56 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.3 | 0.97 |
Memory
Memory Read
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 3,884,147.58 | 3,685,781.23 |
| Mebibytes per second | 3,793.11 | 3,599.40 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 4.21 | 1.03 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 3,855,342.89 | 3,590,629.63 |
| Mebibytes per second | 3,764.98 | 3,506.47 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 4.09 | 1.16 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
File I/O
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 1,941.53 | 4,999.39 |
| Writes per Second | 1,294.36 | 3,332.93 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 4,148.23 | 10,670.47 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 30.34 | 78.12 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 20.22 | 52.08 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.13 | 0.05 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 14.04 | 37.52 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.37 | 0.18 |
Mutex
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 2,442.65 | 369.37 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2,474.33 | 416.22 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 2,494.37 | 441.77 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2,493.86 | 442.73 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 5,075.00 | 5,144.00 |
| Queries per second | 50,750.00 | 51,440.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.28 | 1.72 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.97 | 1.94 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 7.01 | 7.67 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.52 | 2.35 |
MySQL Write-only
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,624.00 | 5,108.00 |
| Queries per second | 36,240.00 | 51,080.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.32 | 1.15 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.75 | 1.96 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 14.77 | 12.52 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4.25 | 2.71 |
MySQL Read/Write
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,703.00 | 2,247.00 |
| Queries per second | 17,030.00 | 22,470.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 3.52 | 3.08 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 5.86 | 4.45 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 19.13 | 29.7 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 7.98 | 5.28 |
MySQL INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 6,947.00 | 7,630.00 |
| Queries per second | 69,470.00 | 76,300.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.67 | 0.71 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.43 | 1.31 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 10.58 | 29.81 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.11 | 1.55 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 898,571.00 | 898,571.00 |
| Queries per second | 8,985,710.00 | 8,985,710.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0.01 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 604.32 | 505.86 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 134,023.00 | 149,465.00 |
| Queries per second | 1,340,230.00 | 1,494,650.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.05 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.07 | 0.07 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 1.96 | 1.22 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.12 | 0.09 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,981.00 | 4,249.00 |
| Queries per second | 39,810.00 | 42,490.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.66 | 0.83 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.51 | 2.35 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 9.61 | 6.6 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.55 | 3.02 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 4,240.00 | 2,637.00 |
| Queries per second | 42,400.00 | 26,370.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.76 | 0.94 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.35 | 3.79 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 6.72 | 6.3 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.36 | 5.09 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 5,672.00 | 7,166.00 |
| Queries per second | 56,720.00 | 71,660.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.73 | 0.7 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.76 | 1.39 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 15.81 | 28.84 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.97 | 1.79 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 6,657.00 | 7,661.00 |
| Queries per second | 66,570.00 | 76,610.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.61 | 0.7 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.5 | 1.3 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 11.94 | 33.97 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.3 | 1.58 |
MySQL DELETE
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 57,603.00 | 69,690.00 |
| Queries per second | 576,030.00 | 696,900.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.05 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.17 | 0.14 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 18.88 | 27.73 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.04 | 0.87 |
Redis
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 36,496.35 | 54,436.58 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 39,447.73 | 48,828.12 |
| SET per Second | 38,804.81 | 51,572.98 |
| GET per Second | 37,835.79 | 48,239.27 |
| INCR per Second | 38,491.14 | 52,328.62 |
| LPUSH per Second | 40,617.39 | 45,454.54 |
| RPUSH per Second | 35,893.75 | 49,751.24 |
| LPOP per Second | 37,664.79 | 53,390.28 |
| RPOP per Second | 38,774.72 | 53,648.07 |
| SADD per Second | 38,182.51 | 48,285.85 |
| HSET per Second | 34,352.46 | 51,493.30 |
| SPOP per Second | 34,246.57 | 52,910.05 |
| ZADD per Second | 36,954.91 | 53,504.55 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 40,338.84 | 53,590.57 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 20,593.08 | 28,645.09 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 8,546.28 | 13,131.98 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 5,492.39 | 8,529.51 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 5,337.03 | 7,479.99 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 32,362.46 | 49,212.60 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 0.91 | 0.47 |
| PING_MBULK | 0.84 | 0.53 |
| SET | 0.87 | 0.50 |
| GET | 0.88 | 0.54 |
| INCR | 0.87 | 0.49 |
| LPUSH | 0.83 | 0.58 |
| RPUSH | 0.93 | 0.52 |
| LPOP | 0.90 | 0.49 |
| RPOP | 0.87 | 0.48 |
| SADD | 0.88 | 0.54 |
| HSET | 0.97 | 0.53 |
| SPOP | 0.96 | 0.49 |
| ZADD | 0.91 | 0.48 |
| ZPOPMIN | 0.83 | 0.48 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 1.75 | 0.91 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 4.18 | 1.94 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 6.48 | 3.00 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 6.65 | 3.43 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 1.09 | 0.77 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
Upon comparing the benchmark results, the Vultr Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) instance significantly outperforms the DigitalOcean Regular (1 GB) instance across most metrics, thanks to its higher RAM, more CPU cores, and better storage capabilities. Vultr shows superior performance in Redis benchmarks, CPU operations per second, and overall file I/O throughput. However, DigitalOcean's instance holds its own in memory operations and thread fairness, which could be beneficial for applications requiring tight memory management and lower thread latencies. The Vultr instance is ideal for CPU-intensive and I/O-heavy workloads that benefit from higher cores and RAM, while the DigitalOcean instance may serve well for less demanding applications that prioritize cost efficiency.
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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