DigitalOcean Regular (1 GB) vs. Vultr High Performance AMD (2 GB, 2 Cores)

vs.

Same showdown, different day. Today I've spun up brand new instance from DigitalOcean and Vultr to run some benchmarks on. All instances were spun up with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and all resided in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Without further ado, here's the results.

Overview

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Last Benchmarked Sat, 30 May 2026 16:00:52 GMT Sun, 31 May 2026 07:00:52 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 $18.00
RAM (GB) 1 2
CPU Cores 1 2
Storage (TB) 25 60
Storage Type SSD NVMe
Transfer (TB) 1 4

CPU

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Vendor GenuineIntel AuthenticAMD
Model Name DO-Regular AMD EPYC-Genoa Processor
Clock Speed (MHz) 2,494.14 2,899.99
CPU Cache Size (KB) 4,096.00 1,024.00
BogoMips 4,988.28 5,799.98
Events per Second 529.66 4,648.14
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.92 0.2
Average Latency (ms) 1.88 0.21
Maximum Latency (ms) 16.46 1.26
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.43 0.23

Memory

Memory Read

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Operations per second 3,987,036.39 7,548,502.85
Mebibytes per second 3,893.59 7,371.58
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 4.4 0.08
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Operations per second 3,995,737.24 7,544,807.09
Mebibytes per second 3,902.09 7,367.98
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 4.17 0.12
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Reads per Second 1,945.54 5,114.79
Writes per Second 1,297.00 3,409.86
Fsyncs per Second 4,155.18 10,914.44
Read Mebibytes per Second 30.40 79.92
Written Mebibytes per Second 20.27 53.28
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.13 0.05
Maximum Latency (ms) 9.2 3.7
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.37 0.12

Mutex

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Minimum Latency (ms) 2,822.79 574.03
Average Latency (ms) 2,870.31 637.47
Maximum Latency (ms) 2,894.40 663.74
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2,880.27 657.93

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 5,259.00 9,622.00
Queries per second 52,590.00 96,220.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.18 0.73
Average Latency (ms) 1.9 1.04
Maximum Latency (ms) 8 2.22
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.57 1.12

MySQL Write-only

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 2,346.00 9,585.00
Queries per second 23,460.00 95,850.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.49 0.8
Average Latency (ms) 4.25 1.04
Maximum Latency (ms) 52.22 2.18
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 8.13 1.32

MySQL Read/Write

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 1,464.00 4,686.00
Queries per second 14,640.00 46,860.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 3.41 1.57
Average Latency (ms) 6.82 2.13
Maximum Latency (ms) 29.15 4.26
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 11.24 2.52

MySQL INSERT

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 6,314.00 15,965.00
Queries per second 63,140.00 159,650.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.59 0.45
Average Latency (ms) 1.58 0.62
Maximum Latency (ms) 14.38 2.23
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.52 0.74

MySQL Bulk INSERT

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 964,103.00 3,065,092.00
Queries per second 9,641,030.00 30,650,920.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.01 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 533.45 208.51
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 149,521.00 217,035.00
Queries per second 1,495,210.00 2,170,350.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.02
Average Latency (ms) 0.07 0.05
Maximum Latency (ms) 3.86 0.61
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.11 0.06

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 3,958.00 14,818.00
Queries per second 39,580.00 148,180.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.48 0.24
Average Latency (ms) 2.52 0.67
Maximum Latency (ms) 9.22 1.94
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.68 0.86

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 4,379.00 14,341.00
Queries per second 43,790.00 143,410.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.79 0.27
Average Latency (ms) 2.28 0.7
Maximum Latency (ms) 6.74 1.67
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.36 0.89

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 4,761.00 14,864.00
Queries per second 47,610.00 148,640.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.7 0.47
Average Latency (ms) 2.1 0.67
Maximum Latency (ms) 14.39 2.36
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.75 0.87

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 4,433.00 15,284.00
Queries per second 44,330.00 152,840.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.82 0.46
Average Latency (ms) 2.25 0.65
Maximum Latency (ms) 47.54 1.65
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 4.1 0.83

MySQL DELETE

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 33,039.00 151,536.00
Queries per second 330,390.00 1,515,360.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.02
Average Latency (ms) 0.3 0.07
Maximum Latency (ms) 10.34 4.83
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.7 0.08

Redis

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB, 2 Cores)
PING_INLINE per Second 39,745.63 55,991.04
PING_MBULK per Second 34,602.07 57,903.88
SET per Second 33,036.01 57,703.40
GET per Second 41,186.16 57,703.40
INCR per Second 42,918.46 57,372.34
LPUSH per Second 37,495.31 57,836.90
RPUSH per Second 37,160.91 58,173.36
LPOP per Second 33,955.86 58,343.06
RPOP per Second 38,714.67 58,343.06
SADD per Second 39,416.63 58,241.12
HSET per Second 35,880.88 58,858.15
SPOP per Second 34,506.55 58,892.82
ZADD per Second 26,511.13 57,504.31
ZPOPMIN per Second 31,877.59 57,870.37
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 16,152.48 49,236.83
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 9,134.09 34,818.94
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 5,766.68 26,766.60
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 4,820.90 24,207.21
MSET (10 keys) per Second 27,457.44 58,548.01

Redis Average Latency (ms)

DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB, 2 Cores)
PING_INLINE0.840.48
PING_MBULK0.940.44
SET1.010.45
GET0.810.45
INCR0.780.45
LPUSH0.890.44
RPUSH0.900.44
LPOP0.990.44
RPOP0.870.44
SADD0.850.44
HSET0.930.44
SPOP0.960.44
ZADD1.240.45
ZPOPMIN1.040.44
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)2.250.53
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)3.930.74
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)6.150.95
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)7.381.05
MSET (10 keys)1.270.44

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

When comparing the benchmark performance of the DigitalOcean Regular (1 GB) instance and the Vultr High Performance AMD (2 GB, 2 Cores) instance, it is clear that the Vultr instance exhibits superior performance metrics across the board, particularly in CPU and memory operations. The Vultr instance consistently reports higher request per second (rps) values and lower average latencies for various Redis commands, indicating a more responsive and scalable system for workloads that benefit from higher CPU throughput and faster memory access. Additionally, the Vultr instance shows significantly better CPU event rates per second, lower file I/O latencies, and higher throughput, as well as better MySQL performance across various operations, making it particularly suitable for CPU-intensive and I/O-heavy tasks. The DigitalOcean instance, while adequate for simpler, less resource-intensive tasks, falls short in handling more demanding workloads, making the Vultr instance the preferred choice for users requiring robust performance and efficiency, especially for applications that scale up with increased CPU and memory usage.

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.