DigitalOcean Regular (2 GB) vs. Vultr Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Fresh benchmarks coming at ya. Today I've spun up some 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). Enough talk. Here's the data.
Overview
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Tue, 12 May 2026 23:00:52 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 | $12.00 | $15.00 |
| RAM (GB) | 2 | 2 |
| CPU Cores | 1 | 2 |
| Storage (TB) | 50 | 65 |
| Storage Type | SSD | SSD |
| Transfer (TB) | 2 | 3 |
CPU
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | 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 | 408.72 | 1,481.60 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.98 | 0.63 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.44 | 0.67 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 30.57 | 1.95 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4.1 | 0.77 |
Memory
Memory Read
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 1,633,276.41 | 6,401,389.08 |
| Mebibytes per second | 1,595.00 | 6,251.36 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.35 | 0.23 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 1,592,941.48 | 6,411,085.35 |
| Mebibytes per second | 1,555.61 | 6,260.83 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 5.53 | 0.18 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
File I/O
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 1,584.78 | 4,345.71 |
| Writes per Second | 1,056.52 | 2,897.07 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 3,385.97 | 9,273.19 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 24.76 | 67.90 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 16.51 | 45.27 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.16 | 0.06 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 20.31 | 2.92 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.51 | 0.17 |
Mutex
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 2,434.32 | 214.63 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2,473.55 | 569.72 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 2,489.41 | 636.55 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2,493.86 | 634.66 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 4,752.00 | 8,015.00 |
| Queries per second | 47,520.00 | 80,150.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.23 | 0.92 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.1 | 1.25 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 5.76 | 5.5 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.66 | 1.86 |
MySQL Write-only
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,930.00 | 8,497.00 |
| Queries per second | 19,300.00 | 84,970.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 2.65 | 0.76 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 5.18 | 1.17 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 56.83 | 3.04 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 7.98 | 1.55 |
MySQL Read/Write
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,306.00 | 3,726.00 |
| Queries per second | 13,060.00 | 37,260.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 4.6 | 1.78 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 7.65 | 2.68 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 28.54 | 5.82 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 10.09 | 3.43 |
MySQL INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,148.00 | 15,028.00 |
| Queries per second | 31,480.00 | 150,280.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.72 | 0.41 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.17 | 0.66 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 32.67 | 2.42 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4.41 | 0.86 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 669,209.00 | 1,696,217.00 |
| Queries per second | 6,692,090.00 | 16,962,170.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.02 | 0.01 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 772.1 | 283.37 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 136,020.00 | 201,989.00 |
| Queries per second | 1,360,200.00 | 2,019,890.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.03 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.07 | 0.05 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.33 | 0.51 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.11 | 0.07 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,617.00 | 8,025.00 |
| Queries per second | 36,170.00 | 80,250.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.82 | 0.35 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.76 | 1.24 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 12.27 | 3.55 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.82 | 2.07 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,087.00 | 8,336.00 |
| Queries per second | 30,870.00 | 83,360.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.67 | 0.4 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.23 | 1.2 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 8.52 | 4.25 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 5.18 | 2.22 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 2,586.00 | 13,858.00 |
| Queries per second | 25,860.00 | 138,580.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.8 | 0.42 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.86 | 0.72 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 45.13 | 6.33 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 6.21 | 0.95 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,094.00 | 14,587.00 |
| Queries per second | 30,940.00 | 145,870.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.83 | 0.4 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.23 | 0.68 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 35.75 | 11.69 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4.65 | 0.9 |
MySQL DELETE
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 19,562.00 | 129,013.00 |
| Queries per second | 195,620.00 | 1,290,130.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.03 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.51 | 0.08 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 32.94 | 2.61 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.02 | 0.09 |
Redis
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 39,729.84 | 78,247.26 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 42,176.30 | 74,738.41 |
| SET per Second | 40,833.00 | 77,041.60 |
| GET per Second | 34,590.11 | 83,333.33 |
| INCR per Second | 35,410.77 | 80,971.66 |
| LPUSH per Second | 39,184.95 | 79,113.92 |
| RPUSH per Second | 36,509.68 | 77,160.49 |
| LPOP per Second | 36,791.76 | 81,499.59 |
| RPOP per Second | 38,834.95 | 82,440.23 |
| SADD per Second | 35,727.05 | 80,192.46 |
| HSET per Second | 35,790.98 | 83,612.04 |
| SPOP per Second | 39,478.88 | 85,034.02 |
| ZADD per Second | 38,850.04 | 83,263.95 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 40,338.84 | 82,987.55 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 17,461.15 | 55,555.56 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 7,711.29 | 28,851.70 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 4,860.50 | 19,391.12 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 4,094.67 | 17,211.71 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 32,041.01 | 80,256.82 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 0.83 | 0.34 |
| PING_MBULK | 0.78 | 0.35 |
| SET | 0.82 | 0.34 |
| GET | 0.94 | 0.32 |
| INCR | 0.93 | 0.32 |
| LPUSH | 0.85 | 0.34 |
| RPUSH | 0.91 | 0.34 |
| LPOP | 0.92 | 0.32 |
| RPOP | 0.87 | 0.32 |
| SADD | 0.92 | 0.32 |
| HSET | 0.93 | 0.31 |
| SPOP | 0.84 | 0.30 |
| ZADD | 0.86 | 0.31 |
| ZPOPMIN | 0.82 | 0.31 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 2.05 | 0.54 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 4.59 | 1.11 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 7.19 | 1.62 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 8.42 | 1.84 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 1.12 | 0.38 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
In comparing the two VPS configurations, the Vultr instance with 2 cores and 2 GB of RAM outperforms the DigitalOcean instance with a single core and 2 GB of RAM in most benchmark categories, particularly in Redis operations where the Vultr instance achieved higher request rates per second (rps) and lower average latencies for most operations. The Vultr instance also demonstrates better performance in CPU, memory, and file I/O benchmarks with higher throughput and lower latency. However, both instances provide similar thread fairness and execution times for most tasks, indicating stable and consistent performance across both providers. For applications that benefit from multi-threading and high concurrency, such as high-traffic Redis workloads, the Vultr instance is more suited, whereas the DigitalOcean instance might be preferable for slightly less demanding applications with a focus on cost-efficiency and simplicity.
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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