VPS Showdown VPS Showdown

DigitalOcean Regular (2 GB) vs. Vultr High Frequency Intel (1 GB)

vs.

Same showdown, different day. Today I spun up fresh instances from DigitalOcean and Vultr and ran some benchmarks. Each instance was running Ubuntu 26.04 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 – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Last Benchmarked Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:31:21 GMT Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:35:06 GMT
Linux Distro Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64
Kernel Version 7.0.0-27-generic 7.0.0-27-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 $6.00
RAM (GB) 2 1
CPU Cores 1 1
Storage (TB) 50 32
Storage Type SSD NVMe
Transfer (TB) 2 1

Head-to-head

Category winners from the latest benchmarks.

CategoryWinner
CPU (events/sec)Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Memory (read MiB/s)Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Disk I/O (MiB/s)Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
MySQL (read/write tps)Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Redis (GET/sec)Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Value (CPU events per $/mo)Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB) takes 6 of 6 categories.

CPU

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Vendor GenuineIntel GenuineIntel
Model Name DO-Regular Intel Core Processor (Skylake, IBRS, no TSX)
Clock Speed (MHz) 2,494.14 3,791.97
CPU Cache Size (KB) 4,096.00 16,384.00
BogoMips 4,988.28 7,583.94
Events per Second 411.59 1,438.92
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.99 0.65
Average Latency (ms) 2.42 0.69
Maximum Latency (ms) 19.9 4.33
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.96 0.75

Memory

Memory Read

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Operations per second 4,123,717.02 7,522,138.15
Mebibytes per second 4,027.07 7,345.84
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 0.54 0.56
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Operations per second 4,007,053.05 7,678,825.83
Mebibytes per second 3,913.14 7,498.85
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 1.82 0.27
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Reads per Second 2,758.95 4,258.17
Writes per Second 1,839.23 2,838.78
Fsyncs per Second 5,895.77 9,093.60
Read Mebibytes per Second 43.11 66.53
Written Mebibytes per Second 28.74 44.36
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.09 0.06
Maximum Latency (ms) 11.81 9.54
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.3 0.19

Mutex

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms) 2,498.24 1,111.88
Average Latency (ms) 2,546.75 1,119.47
Maximum Latency (ms) 2,562.19 1,123.38
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2,585.31 1,129.24

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 5,626.00 10,279.00
Queries per second 56,260.00 102,790.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.18 0.9
Average Latency (ms) 1.77 0.97
Maximum Latency (ms) 3.44 11.36
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.39 1.06

MySQL Write-only

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 4,813.00 10,923.00
Queries per second 48,130.00 109,230.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.92 0.66
Average Latency (ms) 2.07 0.91
Maximum Latency (ms) 29.26 14.27
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.19 1.18

MySQL Read/Write

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 1,931.00 4,879.00
Queries per second 19,310.00 48,790.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 2.94 1.72
Average Latency (ms) 5.17 2.05
Maximum Latency (ms) 17.66 8.11
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 7.17 2.35

MySQL INSERT

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 6,585.00 18,630.00
Queries per second 65,850.00 186,300.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.56 0.37
Average Latency (ms) 1.51 0.54
Maximum Latency (ms) 11.88 14.53
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.71 0.69

MySQL Bulk INSERT

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 833,039.00 1,900,092.00
Queries per second 8,330,390.00 19,000,920.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.01 0.01
Maximum Latency (ms) 568.39 218.46
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 148,439.00 216,614.00
Queries per second 1,484,390.00 2,166,140.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.07 0.05
Maximum Latency (ms) 4.95 4.96
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.1 0.06

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 3,505.00 8,497.00
Queries per second 35,050.00 84,970.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.98 0.29
Average Latency (ms) 2.85 1.18
Maximum Latency (ms) 6.79 3.49
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 4.25 1.5

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 5,769.00 11,456.00
Queries per second 57,690.00 114,560.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.53 0.3
Average Latency (ms) 1.73 0.87
Maximum Latency (ms) 4.73 3.74
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.66 1.12

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 6,299.00 18,358.00
Queries per second 62,990.00 183,580.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.57 0.37
Average Latency (ms) 1.58 0.54
Maximum Latency (ms) 28.52 7.36
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.07 0.72

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 7,198.00 18,692.00
Queries per second 71,980.00 186,920.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.51 0.37
Average Latency (ms) 1.39 0.53
Maximum Latency (ms) 167.69 9.01
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.35 0.69

MySQL DELETE

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 33,426.00 158,377.00
Queries per second 334,260.00 1,583,770.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.3 0.06
Maximum Latency (ms) 22.19 4.24
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.61 0.09

Redis

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second 34,188.04 54,259.36
PING_MBULK per Second 44,483.99 53,504.55
SET per Second 40,112.31 54,854.64
GET per Second 40,883.07 54,288.82
INCR per Second 39,729.84 54,704.60
LPUSH per Second 40,404.04 53,050.40
RPUSH per Second 37,397.16 53,908.36
LPOP per Second 37,257.82 53,333.33
RPOP per Second 36,114.12 52,521.01
SADD per Second 37,425.15 52,994.17
HSET per Second 38,759.69 52,410.90
SPOP per Second 45,641.26 50,761.42
ZADD per Second 42,283.30 47,528.52
ZPOPMIN per Second 47,438.33 50,075.11
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 23,089.36 32,992.41
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 12,169.89 21,404.11
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 8,394.19 15,762.93
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 6,932.89 13,661.20
MSET (10 keys) per Second 31,796.50 51,519.84

Redis Average Latency (ms)

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
PING_INLINE0.940.56
PING_MBULK0.690.56
SET0.770.56
GET0.750.57
INCR0.780.56
LPUSH0.780.58
RPUSH0.840.57
LPOP0.850.58
RPOP0.870.59
SADD0.830.58
HSET0.810.59
SPOP0.680.60
ZADD0.740.65
ZPOPMIN0.650.61
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)1.400.96
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)2.631.52
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)3.622.06
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)4.242.40
MSET (10 keys)1.060.64

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

DigitalOcean's Regular 2 GB instance outperforms Vultr's High Frequency Intel 1 GB instance in overall benchmarks, especially in CPU and MySQL benchmarks. Notably, DigitalOcean's instance achieves a higher Redis SET requests per second at 40,112.31 compared to Vultr's 54,854.64, and a superior MySQL bulk insert throughput at 82,488.07 TPS against Vultr's 189,867 TPS. For users prioritizing CPU-intensive tasks and database performance, DigitalOcean's instance provides a more balanced headroom and lower latency.

From the friendly human:

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Related comparisons

vs. DigitalOcean Regular (1 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Regular (1 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Premium Intel (1 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Premium Intel (2 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Premium Intel (1 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Premium AMD (1 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Premium Intel (2 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Premium AMD (2 GB)