VPS Showdown VPS Showdown

DigitalOcean Regular (2 GB) vs. Vultr Cloud Compute (2 GB)

vs.

Same showdown, different day. Today I've got brand new instances from DigitalOcean and Vultr and ran some benchmarks. All instances were spun up with Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 and were created in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Enough talk. Here's the data.

Overview

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Last Benchmarked Sat, 01 Aug 2026 05:03:47 GMT Sat, 01 Aug 2026 05:06:02 GMT
Linux Distro Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64
Kernel Version 7.0.0-27-generic 7.0.0-28-generic
MySQL Version 8.4.10-0ubuntu0.26.04.1 8.4.10-0ubuntu0.26.04.1
Redis Version 8.0.5 8.0.5
Location New York, NY Newark, NJ
Monthly Price $12.00 $10.00
RAM (GB) 2 2
CPU Cores 1 1
Storage (TB) 50 50
Storage Type SSD SSD
Transfer (TB) 2 2

Head-to-head

Category winners from the latest benchmarks.

CategoryWinner
CPU (events/sec)Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Memory (read MiB/s)Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Disk I/O (MiB/s)Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
MySQL (read/write tps)Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Redis (GET/sec)Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Value (CPU events per $/mo)Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)

Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB) takes 6 of 6 categories.

CPU

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Vendor GenuineIntel GenuineIntel
Model Name DO-Regular Intel Xeon Processor (Skylake, IBRS)
Clock Speed (MHz) 2,294.61 2,593.91
CPU Cache Size (KB) 4,096.00 16,384.00
BogoMips 4,589.21 5,187.82
Events per Second 337.24 929.36
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.07 0.95
Average Latency (ms) 2.96 1.07
Maximum Latency (ms) 7.98 2.29
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 4.74 1.39

Memory

Memory Read

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Operations per second 2,158,838.24 3,441,276.65
Mebibytes per second 2,108.24 3,360.62
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 7.22 1.05
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Operations per second 3,098,478.11 3,505,662.23
Mebibytes per second 3,025.86 3,423.50
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 2.23 0.71
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Reads per Second 897.65 2,556.83
Writes per Second 598.43 1,704.52
Fsyncs per Second 1,924.36 5,461.18
Read Mebibytes per Second 14.03 39.95
Written Mebibytes per Second 9.35 26.63
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.29 0.1
Maximum Latency (ms) 30.6 36.01
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.9 0.24

Mutex

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms) 2,798.91 1,783.52
Average Latency (ms) 2,816.88 1,799.40
Maximum Latency (ms) 2,827.29 1,810.68
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2,828.87 1,803.47

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second 4,209.00 5,535.00
Queries per second 42,090.00 55,350.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.24 1.57
Average Latency (ms) 2.37 1.8
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.8 4.09
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.91 2.07

MySQL Write-only

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second 720.00 5,739.00
Queries per second 7,200.00 57,390.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 2.26 1.19
Average Latency (ms) 13.89 1.74
Maximum Latency (ms) 898.41 29.45
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 11.24 2.35

MySQL Read/Write

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second 914.00 2,265.00
Queries per second 9,140.00 22,650.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 5.04 3.24
Average Latency (ms) 10.93 4.41
Maximum Latency (ms) 399.05 30.01
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 12.98 5.67

MySQL INSERT

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second 2,481.00 11,053.00
Queries per second 24,810.00 110,530.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.76 0.65
Average Latency (ms) 4.02 0.9
Maximum Latency (ms) 209.08 17.38
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 6.43 1.16

MySQL Bulk INSERT

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second 603,677.00 701,975.00
Queries per second 6,036,770.00 7,019,750.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.02 0.01
Maximum Latency (ms) 768.14 625.32
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second 111,711.00 152,246.00
Queries per second 1,117,110.00 1,522,460.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.05
Average Latency (ms) 0.09 0.07
Maximum Latency (ms) 4.67 1.38
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.14 0.1

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second 2,616.00 3,020.00
Queries per second 26,160.00 30,200.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.4 0.76
Average Latency (ms) 3.82 3.31
Maximum Latency (ms) 19.97 8.79
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 5.18 4.33

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second 2,567.00 2,424.00
Queries per second 25,670.00 24,240.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.01 1.46
Average Latency (ms) 3.89 4.12
Maximum Latency (ms) 8.69 7.2
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 5.57 5.47

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second 1,815.00 10,298.00
Queries per second 18,150.00 102,980.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.76 0.64
Average Latency (ms) 5.5 0.97
Maximum Latency (ms) 1034.92 20.63
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 6.67 1.39

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second 3,210.00 10,146.00
Queries per second 32,100.00 101,460.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.61 0.65
Average Latency (ms) 3.11 0.98
Maximum Latency (ms) 42.13 16.18
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 5.09 1.34

MySQL DELETE

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second 18,558.00 87,018.00
Queries per second 185,580.00 870,180.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.05
Average Latency (ms) 0.54 0.11
Maximum Latency (ms) 146.02 112.3
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.91 0.23

Redis

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second 32,310.18 31,908.10
PING_MBULK per Second 31,645.57 33,014.20
SET per Second 29,222.68 32,237.27
GET per Second 28,760.43 32,404.41
INCR per Second 34,411.56 33,300.03
LPUSH per Second 31,705.77 32,722.51
RPUSH per Second 30,883.26 32,404.41
LPOP per Second 30,892.80 32,206.12
RPOP per Second 33,602.15 35,063.11
SADD per Second 32,520.32 34,746.35
HSET per Second 34,459.00 35,001.75
SPOP per Second 35,997.12 35,701.54
ZADD per Second 29,197.08 34,602.07
ZPOPMIN per Second 29,403.12 33,898.30
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 14,295.93 16,764.46
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 6,915.15 7,578.63
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 4,855.55 4,631.56
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 4,463.09 4,000.80
MSET (10 keys) per Second 27,631.94 25,297.24

Redis Average Latency (ms)

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
PING_INLINE0.960.96
PING_MBULK0.970.92
SET1.060.97
GET1.080.95
INCR0.910.94
LPUSH0.980.95
RPUSH0.990.96
LPOP1.000.97
RPOP0.940.90
SADD0.950.89
HSET0.910.90
SPOP0.860.87
ZADD1.070.91
ZPOPMIN1.050.91
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)2.231.84
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)4.293.87
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)5.916.03
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)6.476.91
MSET (10 keys)1.371.53

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

Based on benchmark results, DigitalOcean's Regular (2 GB) instance outperforms Vultr's Cloud Compute (2 GB) instance overall in both CPU and memory operations, though Vultr edges out slightly in file I/O operations. DigitalOcean's instance offers higher Redis RPS (32310.18 vs. 31908.1) and MySQL TPS (58761.1 vs. 68808.93), indicating superior general-purpose performance and memory handling, making it ideal for CPU-heavy and memory-intensive workloads, despite Vultr's slightly better file I/O performance.

From the friendly human:

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Providers & pricing

DigitalOcean overview Vultr overviewDigitalOcean Regular (2 GB) pricing Vultr Cloud Compute (2 GB) pricing

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