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

vs.

Fresh benchmarks coming at ya. Today I spun up fresh instances from DigitalOcean and Vultr and did some benchmarking. All instances were running Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 and were created in the New York area (or close to it). Without further ado, here's the results.

Overview

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Last Benchmarked Sat, 01 Aug 2026 05:03:47 GMT Sat, 01 Aug 2026 05:09:02 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 $12.00
RAM (GB) 2 2
CPU Cores 1 1
Storage (TB) 50 64
Storage Type SSD NVMe
Transfer (TB) 2 2

Head-to-head

Category winners from the latest benchmarks.

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

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB) takes 6 of 6 categories.

CPU

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Vendor GenuineIntel GenuineIntel
Model Name DO-Regular Intel Core Processor (Skylake, IBRS, no TSX)
Clock Speed (MHz) 2,294.61 3,696.00
CPU Cache Size (KB) 4,096.00 16,384.00
BogoMips 4,589.21 7,391.99
Events per Second 337.24 1,429.28
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.07 0.67
Average Latency (ms) 2.96 0.7
Maximum Latency (ms) 7.98 3.93
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 4.74 0.8

Memory

Memory Read

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Operations per second 2,158,838.24 7,573,259.47
Mebibytes per second 2,108.24 7,395.76
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 7.22 0.29
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Operations per second 3,098,478.11 7,520,809.77
Mebibytes per second 3,025.86 7,344.54
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 2.23 0.33
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Reads per Second 897.65 4,743.82
Writes per Second 598.43 3,162.54
Fsyncs per Second 1,924.36 10,128.84
Read Mebibytes per Second 14.03 74.12
Written Mebibytes per Second 9.35 49.41
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.29 0.05
Maximum Latency (ms) 30.6 2.43
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.9 0.16

Mutex

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms) 2,798.91 1,135.02
Average Latency (ms) 2,816.88 1,145.46
Maximum Latency (ms) 2,827.29 1,150.95
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2,828.87 1,149.76

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 4,209.00 10,014.00
Queries per second 42,090.00 100,140.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.24 0.91
Average Latency (ms) 2.37 1
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.8 2.96
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.91 1.14

MySQL Write-only

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 720.00 11,181.00
Queries per second 7,200.00 111,810.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 2.26 0.58
Average Latency (ms) 13.89 0.89
Maximum Latency (ms) 898.41 7.24
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 11.24 1.16

MySQL Read/Write

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 914.00 4,056.00
Queries per second 9,140.00 40,560.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 5.04 1.7
Average Latency (ms) 10.93 2.46
Maximum Latency (ms) 399.05 19.4
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 12.98 3.82

MySQL INSERT

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 2,481.00 20,663.00
Queries per second 24,810.00 206,630.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.76 0.32
Average Latency (ms) 4.02 0.48
Maximum Latency (ms) 209.08 5.62
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 6.43 0.64

MySQL Bulk INSERT

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 603,677.00 1,870,967.00
Queries per second 6,036,770.00 18,709,670.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.02 0.01
Maximum Latency (ms) 768.14 227.33
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 111,711.00 229,513.00
Queries per second 1,117,110.00 2,295,130.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.09 0.04
Maximum Latency (ms) 4.67 1.03
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.14 0.05

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 2,616.00 7,697.00
Queries per second 26,160.00 76,970.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.4 0.42
Average Latency (ms) 3.82 1.3
Maximum Latency (ms) 19.97 4.34
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 5.18 1.67

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 2,567.00 10,600.00
Queries per second 25,670.00 106,000.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.01 0.37
Average Latency (ms) 3.89 0.94
Maximum Latency (ms) 8.69 2.67
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 5.57 1.25

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 1,815.00 19,067.00
Queries per second 18,150.00 190,670.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.76 0.32
Average Latency (ms) 5.5 0.52
Maximum Latency (ms) 1034.92 3.86
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 6.67 0.73

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 3,210.00 20,161.00
Queries per second 32,100.00 201,610.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.61 0.32
Average Latency (ms) 3.11 0.5
Maximum Latency (ms) 42.13 11.21
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 5.09 0.67

MySQL DELETE

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 18,558.00 155,087.00
Queries per second 185,580.00 1,550,870.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.54 0.06
Maximum Latency (ms) 146.02 3.89
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.91 0.09

Redis

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second 32,310.18 57,937.43
PING_MBULK per Second 31,645.57 57,670.13
SET per Second 29,222.68 60,096.15
GET per Second 28,760.43 60,938.45
INCR per Second 34,411.56 58,105.75
LPUSH per Second 31,705.77 59,453.03
RPUSH per Second 30,883.26 60,827.25
LPOP per Second 30,892.80 60,864.27
RPOP per Second 33,602.15 61,312.08
SADD per Second 32,520.32 59,066.75
HSET per Second 34,459.00 59,066.75
SPOP per Second 35,997.12 59,276.82
ZADD per Second 29,197.08 58,105.75
ZPOPMIN per Second 29,403.12 59,594.76
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 14,295.93 38,986.36
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 6,915.15 22,753.13
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 4,855.55 15,583.61
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 4,463.09 14,130.28
MSET (10 keys) per Second 27,631.94 54,674.69

Redis Average Latency (ms)

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
PING_INLINE0.960.52
PING_MBULK0.970.51
SET1.060.51
GET1.080.49
INCR0.910.51
LPUSH0.980.51
RPUSH0.990.50
LPOP1.000.51
RPOP0.940.50
SADD0.950.51
HSET0.910.51
SPOP0.860.50
ZADD1.070.52
ZPOPMIN1.050.50
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)2.230.81
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)4.291.44
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)5.912.06
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)6.472.35
MSET (10 keys)1.370.59

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

The Vultr High Frequency Intel instance clearly outperforms the DigitalOcean Regular instance in overall benchmark metrics, particularly in Redis operations where it achieves significantly higher requests per second (rps) and lower latency across various commands like SET, GET, INCR, and others, and also in CPU benchmarks, showing nearly double the events per second at 1429.28 compared to DigitalOcean's 337.24. The higher throughput in file I/O operations further underscores Vultr's superior performance, making it a better choice for CPU-intensive and I/O-demanding applications over DigitalOcean's offering.

From the friendly human:

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Providers & pricing

DigitalOcean overview Vultr overviewDigitalOcean Regular (2 GB) pricing Vultr High Frequency Intel (2 GB) pricing

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)