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DigitalOcean Regular (1 GB) vs. Vultr High Frequency Intel (1 GB)

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My friend, I'm so glad you're here! Today I spun up fresh instances from DigitalOcean and Vultr and ran my world famous suite of benchmarking scripts. All instances were running Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 and were created in the New York area (or close to it). Without further ado, here's the results.

Overview

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Last Benchmarked Thu, 01 Oct 2026 05:00:49 GMT Tue, 01 Sep 2026 05:07:32 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 $6.00
RAM (GB) 1 1
CPU Cores 1 1
Storage (TB) 25 32
Storage Type SSD NVMe
Transfer (TB) 1 1

Head-to-head

Category winners from the latest benchmarks.

CategoryWinner
CPU (events/sec)Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Memory (read MiB/s)Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Disk I/O (MiB/s)Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
MySQL (read/write tps)Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Redis (GET/sec)Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Value (CPU events per $/mo)Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB) takes 6 of 6 categories.

CPU

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Vendor GenuineIntel GenuineIntel
Model Name DO-Regular Intel Core Processor (Skylake, IBRS, no TSX)
Clock Speed (MHz) 2,494.14 3,792.05
CPU Cache Size (KB) 4,096.00 16,384.00
BogoMips 4,988.27 7,584.09
Events per Second 705.37 1,436.31
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.98 0.67
Average Latency (ms) 1.41 0.7
Maximum Latency (ms) 12.76 2.3
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2 0.74

Memory

Memory Read

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Operations per second 3,663,208.77 7,256,990.82
Mebibytes per second 3,577.35 7,086.91
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.47 0.25
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Operations per second 3,890,887.47 7,404,343.90
Mebibytes per second 3,799.69 7,230.80
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 2.33 0.55
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Reads per Second 2,194.30 4,611.83
Writes per Second 1,462.87 3,074.55
Fsyncs per Second 4,688.57 9,847.36
Read Mebibytes per Second 34.29 72.06
Written Mebibytes per Second 22.86 48.04
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.12 0.06
Maximum Latency (ms) 10.7 15.14
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.32 0.15

Mutex

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms) 2,352.19 1,126.89
Average Latency (ms) 2,382.76 1,134.74
Maximum Latency (ms) 2,393.79 1,139.62
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2,405.65 1,149.76

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 4,593.00 9,766.00
Queries per second 45,930.00 97,660.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.29 0.94
Average Latency (ms) 2.17 1.02
Maximum Latency (ms) 13.82 5.44
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.02 1.16

MySQL Write-only

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 3,486.00 12,445.00
Queries per second 34,860.00 124,450.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.26 0.62
Average Latency (ms) 2.86 0.8
Maximum Latency (ms) 33.41 9.27
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 4.33 1.08

MySQL Read/Write

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 1,761.00 5,049.00
Queries per second 17,610.00 50,490.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 3.36 1.67
Average Latency (ms) 5.67 1.98
Maximum Latency (ms) 16.69 9.4
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 7.98 2.43

MySQL INSERT

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 6,877.00 21,580.00
Queries per second 68,770.00 215,800.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.65 0.36
Average Latency (ms) 1.45 0.46
Maximum Latency (ms) 9.48 4.92
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.35 0.56

MySQL Bulk INSERT

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 833,039.00 1,900,092.00
Queries per second 8,330,390.00 19,000,920.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.01 0.01
Maximum Latency (ms) 670.02 240.35
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 122,209.00 210,450.00
Queries per second 1,222,090.00 2,104,500.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.08 0.05
Maximum Latency (ms) 8.73 0.97
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.14 0.06

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 3,294.00 8,142.00
Queries per second 32,940.00 81,420.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.13 0.37
Average Latency (ms) 3.03 1.23
Maximum Latency (ms) 17.77 3.35
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 4.65 1.86

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 5,143.00 11,378.00
Queries per second 51,430.00 113,780.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.52 0.29
Average Latency (ms) 1.94 0.88
Maximum Latency (ms) 8.8 6.18
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.02 1.14

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 5,821.00 21,383.00
Queries per second 58,210.00 213,830.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.62 0.37
Average Latency (ms) 1.71 0.47
Maximum Latency (ms) 21.71 4.39
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.3 0.62

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 7,391.00 21,598.00
Queries per second 73,910.00 215,980.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.57 0.36
Average Latency (ms) 1.35 0.46
Maximum Latency (ms) 8.09 11.24
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.14 0.62

MySQL DELETE

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 51,002.00 156,197.00
Queries per second 510,020.00 1,561,970.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.19 0.06
Maximum Latency (ms) 9.61 5.53
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.12 0.1

Redis

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second 31,026.99 51,098.62
PING_MBULK per Second 34,530.39 50,890.59
SET per Second 35,945.36 50,632.91
GET per Second 34,293.55 50,813.01
INCR per Second 23,820.87 50,632.91
LPUSH per Second 30,931.02 50,942.43
RPUSH per Second 33,014.20 51,020.41
LPOP per Second 30,553.01 51,229.51
RPOP per Second 34,459.00 51,493.30
SADD per Second 37,285.61 51,840.33
HSET per Second 29,002.32 52,301.26
SPOP per Second 32,195.75 52,410.90
ZADD per Second 30,562.35 51,921.08
ZPOPMIN per Second 29,342.72 51,948.05
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 20,024.03 35,410.77
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 11,069.29 20,881.19
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 6,976.42 15,010.51
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 6,141.75 12,975.22
MSET (10 keys) per Second 27,609.06 49,701.79

Redis Average Latency (ms)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
PING_INLINE0.990.60
PING_MBULK0.880.59
SET0.860.60
GET0.900.60
INCR1.330.60
LPUSH1.000.60
RPUSH0.940.60
LPOP1.030.60
RPOP0.910.60
SADD0.830.59
HSET1.070.59
SPOP0.950.59
ZADD1.010.60
ZPOPMIN1.060.59
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)1.620.89
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)2.901.54
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)4.302.16
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)4.792.42
MSET (10 keys)1.250.66

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

Vultr's High Frequency Intel (1 GB) instance wins overall, particularly in CPU-intensive and I/O-heavy benchmarks. The Vultr instance benchmarks at significantly higher rates, for example, achieving 51098.62 requests per second for Redis PING_INLINE compared to DigitalOcean's 27956.39, and it also offers superior MySQL bulk insert throughput at 188840.73 transactions per second versus DigitalOcean's 73728.04. This suggests Vultr is better suited for applications requiring heavy computational and I/O workloads.

From the friendly human:

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Providers & pricing

DigitalOcean overview Vultr overviewDigitalOcean Regular (1 GB) pricing Vultr High Frequency Intel (1 GB) pricing

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