DigitalOcean Regular (2 GB) vs. Vultr Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Same showdown, different day. Today I've spun up some brand new instance from DigitalOcean and Vultr and ran some benchmarks. Each instance was spun up with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and were created in the New York area (or close to it). Time to see who showed up today.
Overview
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Tue, 12 May 2026 23:00:52 GMT | Tue, 12 May 2026 18:00:51 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 | $12.00 | $5.00 |
| RAM (GB) | 2 | 1 |
| CPU Cores | 1 | 1 |
| Storage (TB) | 50 | 25 |
| Storage Type | SSD | SSD |
| Transfer (TB) | 2 | 1 |
CPU
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | GenuineIntel | GenuineIntel |
| Model Name | DO-Regular | Intel Core Processor (Broadwell, no TSX, IBRS) |
| Clock Speed (MHz) | 2,294.61 | 2,394.45 |
| CPU Cache Size (KB) | 4,096.00 | 16,384.00 |
| BogoMips | 4,589.21 | 4,788.90 |
| Events per Second | 408.72 | 795.66 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.98 | 1.14 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.44 | 1.26 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 30.57 | 3.9 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4.1 | 1.47 |
Memory
Memory Read
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 1,633,276.41 | 3,786,617.05 |
| Mebibytes per second | 1,595.00 | 3,697.87 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.35 | 0.43 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 1,592,941.48 | 3,766,621.58 |
| Mebibytes per second | 1,555.61 | 3,678.34 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 5.53 | 0.78 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
File I/O
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 1,584.78 | 1,908.38 |
| Writes per Second | 1,056.52 | 1,272.25 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 3,385.97 | 4,078.88 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 24.76 | 29.82 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 16.51 | 19.88 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.16 | 0.14 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 20.31 | 16.36 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.51 | 0.39 |
Mutex
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 2,434.32 | 2,335.65 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2,473.55 | 2,349.86 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 2,489.41 | 2,365.31 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2,493.86 | 2,362.72 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 4,752.00 | 4,483.00 |
| Queries per second | 47,520.00 | 44,830.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.23 | 1.78 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.1 | 2.23 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 5.76 | 49.32 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.66 | 2.71 |
MySQL Write-only
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,930.00 | 3,919.00 |
| Queries per second | 19,300.00 | 39,190.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 2.65 | 1.68 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 5.18 | 2.55 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 56.83 | 27.43 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 7.98 | 3.62 |
MySQL Read/Write
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,306.00 | 1,790.00 |
| Queries per second | 13,060.00 | 17,900.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 4.6 | 4.06 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 7.65 | 5.58 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 28.54 | 44.16 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 10.09 | 7.98 |
MySQL INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,148.00 | 6,614.00 |
| Queries per second | 31,480.00 | 66,140.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.72 | 0.91 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.17 | 1.51 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 32.67 | 14.16 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4.41 | 2.07 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 669,209.00 | 865,805.00 |
| Queries per second | 6,692,090.00 | 8,658,050.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.02 | 0.01 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 772.1 | 627.7 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 136,020.00 | 102,465.00 |
| Queries per second | 1,360,200.00 | 1,024,650.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.07 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.07 | 0.1 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.33 | 9.98 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.11 | 0.14 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,617.00 | 4,521.00 |
| Queries per second | 36,170.00 | 45,210.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.82 | 0.73 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.76 | 2.21 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 12.27 | 6.91 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.82 | 3.07 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,087.00 | 5,358.00 |
| Queries per second | 30,870.00 | 53,580.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.67 | 0.66 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.23 | 1.86 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 8.52 | 8.79 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 5.18 | 2.57 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 2,586.00 | 6,182.00 |
| Queries per second | 25,860.00 | 61,820.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.8 | 0.94 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.86 | 1.62 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 45.13 | 35.17 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 6.21 | 2.35 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,094.00 | 6,753.00 |
| Queries per second | 30,940.00 | 67,530.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.83 | 0.93 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.23 | 1.48 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 35.75 | 10.15 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4.65 | 1.93 |
MySQL DELETE
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 19,562.00 | 35,322.00 |
| Queries per second | 195,620.00 | 353,220.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.07 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.51 | 0.28 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 32.94 | 21.31 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.02 | 1.55 |
Redis
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 39,729.84 | 27,925.16 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 42,176.30 | 30,590.39 |
| SET per Second | 40,833.00 | 24,740.23 |
| GET per Second | 34,590.11 | 29,095.14 |
| INCR per Second | 35,410.77 | 31,645.57 |
| LPUSH per Second | 39,184.95 | 31,685.68 |
| RPUSH per Second | 36,509.68 | 31,505.99 |
| LPOP per Second | 36,791.76 | 30,609.12 |
| RPOP per Second | 38,834.95 | 29,394.47 |
| SADD per Second | 35,727.05 | 31,357.79 |
| HSET per Second | 35,790.98 | 29,489.83 |
| SPOP per Second | 39,478.88 | 29,027.58 |
| ZADD per Second | 38,850.04 | 29,010.73 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 40,338.84 | 28,968.71 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 17,461.15 | 19,040.37 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 7,711.29 | 10,432.97 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 4,860.50 | 7,370.83 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 4,094.67 | 6,899.41 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 32,041.01 | 31,705.77 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 0.83 | 1.14 |
| PING_MBULK | 0.78 | 1.04 |
| SET | 0.82 | 1.31 |
| GET | 0.94 | 1.14 |
| INCR | 0.93 | 1.03 |
| LPUSH | 0.85 | 1.02 |
| RPUSH | 0.91 | 1.02 |
| LPOP | 0.92 | 1.06 |
| RPOP | 0.87 | 1.09 |
| SADD | 0.92 | 1.03 |
| HSET | 0.93 | 1.09 |
| SPOP | 0.84 | 1.09 |
| ZADD | 0.86 | 1.11 |
| ZPOPMIN | 0.82 | 1.10 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 2.05 | 1.76 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 4.59 | 3.27 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 7.19 | 4.54 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 8.42 | 4.86 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 1.12 | 1.09 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
The DigitalOcean instance with 2 GB of RAM outperforms the Vultr Cloud Compute instance with 1 GB in most benchmarks, particularly in Redis commands, CPU tasks, and MySQL operations, likely due to its higher RAM and more consistent latency across metrics. The DigitalOcean instance shows superior read and write operations, lower latency for database tasks, and a more balanced CPU performance with lower variance. Vultr excels in terms of price but lags behind in benchmarked performance metrics, making DigitalOcean the better choice for CPU-intensive, I/O-heavy, or memory-demanding workloads, while Vultr might be more suitable for cost-sensitive applications where performance is not the primary concern.
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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