DigitalOcean Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores) vs. Vultr Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Same showdown, different day. Today I've spun up brand new instance from DigitalOcean and Vultr and did some benchmarking. All instances were spun up with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and were created in the New York area (or close to it). Let's get into the numbers.
Overview
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Tue, 12 May 2026 12:00:52 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 | $18.00 | $15.00 |
| RAM (GB) | 2 | 2 |
| CPU Cores | 2 | 2 |
| Storage (TB) | 60 | 65 |
| Storage Type | SSD | SSD |
| Transfer (TB) | 3 | 3 |
CPU
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores) | 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 | 795.46 | 1,481.60 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.98 | 0.63 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.25 | 0.67 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 5.48 | 1.95 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.52 | 0.77 |
Memory
Memory Read
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 3,122,928.90 | 6,401,389.08 |
| Mebibytes per second | 3,049.74 | 6,251.36 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.27 | 0.23 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 3,116,343.29 | 6,411,085.35 |
| Mebibytes per second | 3,043.30 | 6,260.83 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 2.32 | 0.18 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
File I/O
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 399.70 | 4,345.71 |
| Writes per Second | 266.46 | 2,897.07 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 858.95 | 9,273.19 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 6.25 | 67.90 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 4.16 | 45.27 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.66 | 0.06 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 76.95 | 2.92 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.66 | 0.17 |
Mutex
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1,820.91 | 214.63 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1,871.35 | 569.72 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 1,911.74 | 636.55 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1,903.57 | 634.66 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 2,723.00 | 8,015.00 |
| Queries per second | 27,230.00 | 80,150.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.74 | 0.92 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.67 | 1.25 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 22.65 | 5.5 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 6.79 | 1.86 |
MySQL Write-only
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 599.00 | 8,497.00 |
| Queries per second | 5,990.00 | 84,970.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 5.93 | 0.76 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 16.72 | 1.17 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 155.85 | 3.04 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 30.26 | 1.55 |
MySQL Read/Write
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 432.00 | 3,726.00 |
| Queries per second | 4,320.00 | 37,260.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 10.16 | 1.78 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 23.14 | 2.68 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 84.72 | 5.82 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 42.61 | 3.43 |
MySQL INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 892.00 | 15,028.00 |
| Queries per second | 8,920.00 | 150,280.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 4.19 | 0.41 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 11.2 | 0.66 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 61.52 | 2.42 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 19.29 | 0.86 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 603,677.00 | 1,696,217.00 |
| Queries per second | 6,036,770.00 | 16,962,170.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.02 | 0.01 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 1262.42 | 283.37 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 86,662.00 | 201,989.00 |
| Queries per second | 866,620.00 | 2,019,890.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.05 | 0.03 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.11 | 0.05 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 30.46 | 0.51 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.17 | 0.07 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 2,577.00 | 8,025.00 |
| Queries per second | 25,770.00 | 80,250.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.2 | 0.35 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.87 | 1.24 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 45.89 | 3.55 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 7.3 | 2.07 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 2,249.00 | 8,336.00 |
| Queries per second | 22,490.00 | 83,360.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.65 | 0.4 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 4.44 | 1.2 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 35.79 | 4.25 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 7.56 | 2.22 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 642.00 | 13,858.00 |
| Queries per second | 6,420.00 | 138,580.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 4.61 | 0.42 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 15.56 | 0.72 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 264.01 | 6.33 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 29.19 | 0.95 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 769.00 | 14,587.00 |
| Queries per second | 7,690.00 | 145,870.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 3.87 | 0.4 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 13.01 | 0.68 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 68.95 | 11.69 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 23.95 | 0.9 |
MySQL DELETE
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,449.00 | 129,013.00 |
| Queries per second | 34,490.00 | 1,290,130.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.05 | 0.03 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.9 | 0.08 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 78.12 | 2.61 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 13.95 | 0.09 |
Redis
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 24,073.18 | 78,247.26 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 23,089.36 | 74,738.41 |
| SET per Second | 31,665.61 | 77,041.60 |
| GET per Second | 34,782.61 | 83,333.33 |
| INCR per Second | 33,322.23 | 80,971.66 |
| LPUSH per Second | 33,749.58 | 79,113.92 |
| RPUSH per Second | 35,423.31 | 77,160.49 |
| LPOP per Second | 31,289.11 | 81,499.59 |
| RPOP per Second | 26,123.30 | 82,440.23 |
| SADD per Second | 33,046.93 | 80,192.46 |
| HSET per Second | 32,701.11 | 83,612.04 |
| SPOP per Second | 46,926.32 | 85,034.02 |
| ZADD per Second | 40,306.33 | 83,263.95 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 36,886.76 | 82,987.55 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 19,900.50 | 55,555.56 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 11,098.78 | 28,851.70 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 8,043.76 | 19,391.12 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 7,016.07 | 17,211.71 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 42,698.55 | 80,256.82 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 1.32 | 0.34 |
| PING_MBULK | 1.42 | 0.35 |
| SET | 0.93 | 0.34 |
| GET | 0.79 | 0.32 |
| INCR | 0.82 | 0.32 |
| LPUSH | 0.83 | 0.34 |
| RPUSH | 0.78 | 0.34 |
| LPOP | 0.97 | 0.32 |
| RPOP | 1.26 | 0.32 |
| SADD | 0.93 | 0.32 |
| HSET | 0.88 | 0.31 |
| SPOP | 0.55 | 0.30 |
| ZADD | 0.66 | 0.31 |
| ZPOPMIN | 0.85 | 0.31 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 1.32 | 0.54 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 2.53 | 1.11 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 3.57 | 1.62 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 4.17 | 1.84 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 0.78 | 0.38 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
In comparing the benchmark performance of the DigitalOcean and Vultr instances, it is clear that Vultr's Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) excels in both raw throughput and latency metrics across various benchmarks, especially in Redis operations where it demonstrates significantly higher request per second rates and lower average latencies. Vultr also shows stronger performance in file I/O operations, with faster read and write speeds and higher throughput. While DigitalOcean's instance provides solid performance in database operations and memory read/write operations, Vultr's superior CPU performance and lower latency make it the better choice for workloads that benefit from high throughput and low latency, such as high-traffic web applications, data caching with Redis, and applications requiring fast file access. DigitalOcean's instance, however, might be more suitable for tasks that rely on stable, reliable memory operations and database interactions.
From the friendly human:
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