DigitalOcean Regular (2 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores)
New day, new benchmarks. Today I've spun up brand new instance from DigitalOcean and did some benchmarking. Each instance was spun up with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and were created in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Without further ado, here's the results.
Overview
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Tue, 12 May 2026 23:00:52 GMT | Tue, 12 May 2026 02:00:52 GMT |
| Linux Distro | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 |
| Kernel Version | 6.8.0-71-generic | 6.8.0-71-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 | New York, NY |
| Monthly Price | $12.00 | $24.00 |
| RAM (GB) | 2 | 4 |
| CPU Cores | 1 | 2 |
| Storage (TB) | 50 | 80 |
| Storage Type | SSD | SSD |
| Transfer (TB) | 2 | 4 |
CPU
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | GenuineIntel | GenuineIntel |
| Model Name | DO-Regular | DO-Regular |
| Clock Speed (MHz) | 2,294.61 | 2,294.61 |
| CPU Cache Size (KB) | 4,096.00 | 4,096.00 |
| BogoMips | 4,589.21 | 4,589.21 |
| Events per Second | 408.72 | 697.47 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.98 | 0.97 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.44 | 1.43 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 30.57 | 15.8 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4.1 | 3.36 |
Memory
Memory Read
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 1,633,276.41 | 3,412,092.37 |
| Mebibytes per second | 1,595.00 | 3,332.12 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.35 | 3.5 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 1,592,941.48 | 3,386,795.06 |
| Mebibytes per second | 1,555.61 | 3,307.42 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 5.53 | 1.16 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
File I/O
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 1,584.78 | 1,540.78 |
| Writes per Second | 1,056.52 | 1,027.19 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 3,385.97 | 3,299.48 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 24.76 | 24.07 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 16.51 | 16.05 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.16 | 0.17 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 20.31 | 32.93 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.51 | 0.58 |
Mutex
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 2,434.32 | 1,127.52 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2,473.55 | 1,169.63 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 2,489.41 | 1,192.95 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2,493.86 | 1,191.92 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 4,752.00 | 3,533.00 |
| Queries per second | 47,520.00 | 35,330.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.23 | 1.53 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.1 | 2.82 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 5.76 | 23.79 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.66 | 3.75 |
MySQL Write-only
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,930.00 | 1,921.00 |
| Queries per second | 19,300.00 | 19,210.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 2.65 | 2.85 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 5.18 | 5.2 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 56.83 | 38.8 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 7.98 | 7.3 |
MySQL Read/Write
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,306.00 | 1,124.00 |
| Queries per second | 13,060.00 | 11,240.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 4.6 | 5.43 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 7.65 | 8.89 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 28.54 | 41.98 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 10.09 | 12.3 |
MySQL INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,148.00 | 2,363.00 |
| Queries per second | 31,480.00 | 23,630.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.72 | 2.43 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.17 | 4.22 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 32.67 | 43.91 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4.41 | 6.21 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 669,209.00 | 771,895.00 |
| Queries per second | 6,692,090.00 | 7,718,950.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.02 | 0.01 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 772.1 | 720.67 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 136,020.00 | 116,104.00 |
| Queries per second | 1,360,200.00 | 1,161,040.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.04 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.07 | 0.09 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.33 | 2.46 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.11 | 0.12 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,617.00 | 3,693.00 |
| Queries per second | 36,170.00 | 36,930.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.82 | 0.85 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.76 | 2.7 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 12.27 | 35.33 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.82 | 3.68 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,087.00 | 2,614.00 |
| Queries per second | 30,870.00 | 26,140.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.67 | 1.1 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.23 | 3.82 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 8.52 | 21.26 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 5.18 | 5.67 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 2,586.00 | 2,513.00 |
| Queries per second | 25,860.00 | 25,130.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.8 | 2.1 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.86 | 3.97 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 45.13 | 36.25 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 6.21 | 5.99 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,094.00 | 2,177.00 |
| Queries per second | 30,940.00 | 21,770.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.83 | 2.18 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.23 | 4.59 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 35.75 | 169.62 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4.65 | 7.43 |
MySQL DELETE
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 19,562.00 | 12,257.00 |
| Queries per second | 195,620.00 | 122,570.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.05 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.51 | 0.81 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 32.94 | 36.29 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.02 | 4.25 |
Redis
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 39,729.84 | 49,431.54 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 42,176.30 | 50,327.12 |
| SET per Second | 40,833.00 | 46,926.32 |
| GET per Second | 34,590.11 | 45,372.05 |
| INCR per Second | 35,410.77 | 44,563.28 |
| LPUSH per Second | 39,184.95 | 50,125.31 |
| RPUSH per Second | 36,509.68 | 54,945.05 |
| LPOP per Second | 36,791.76 | 53,763.44 |
| RPOP per Second | 38,834.95 | 57,570.52 |
| SADD per Second | 35,727.05 | 51,572.98 |
| HSET per Second | 35,790.98 | 47,664.44 |
| SPOP per Second | 39,478.88 | 46,641.79 |
| ZADD per Second | 38,850.04 | 55,586.44 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 40,338.84 | 50,916.50 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 17,461.15 | 28,105.68 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 7,711.29 | 11,893.43 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 4,860.50 | 8,426.02 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 4,094.67 | 6,626.91 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 32,041.01 | 44,189.13 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 0.83 | 0.53 |
| PING_MBULK | 0.78 | 0.52 |
| SET | 0.82 | 0.56 |
| GET | 0.94 | 0.58 |
| INCR | 0.93 | 0.60 |
| LPUSH | 0.85 | 0.53 |
| RPUSH | 0.91 | 0.49 |
| LPOP | 0.92 | 0.50 |
| RPOP | 0.87 | 0.48 |
| SADD | 0.92 | 0.51 |
| HSET | 0.93 | 0.56 |
| SPOP | 0.84 | 0.57 |
| ZADD | 0.86 | 0.48 |
| ZPOPMIN | 0.82 | 0.52 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 2.05 | 1.07 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 4.59 | 2.40 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 7.19 | 3.42 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 8.42 | 4.80 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 1.12 | 0.79 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
After analyzing the benchmark results from both instances, it's clear that the Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) instance outperforms the Regular (2 GB) instance in almost every metric, demonstrating higher rates of operation per second (rps) across Redis commands, lower latency times, and superior CPU and memory performance. While the (2 GB) instance shows strong performance for its price point, particularly in file I/O operations and MySQL operations, the (4 GB, 2 Cores) instance, despite being more expensive, is markedly better suited for CPU-intensive, I/O-heavy, or multi-threaded workloads, making it ideal for applications requiring higher concurrency and performance such as large-scale web services, database servers, and high-traffic applications.
From the friendly human:
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