DigitalOcean Regular (2 GB) vs. Vultr High Frequency Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores)

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Welcome to another round of the VPS Showdown. 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). Let's get into the numbers.

Overview

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Last Benchmarked Tue, 12 May 2026 23:00:52 GMT Wed, 13 May 2026 08:00:52 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 $24.00
RAM (GB) 2 4
CPU Cores 1 2
Storage (TB) 50 128
Storage Type SSD NVMe
Transfer (TB) 2 3

CPU

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Vendor GenuineIntel GenuineIntel
Model Name DO-Regular Intel Core Processor (Skylake, IBRS, no TSX)
Clock Speed (MHz) 2,294.61 3,791.94
CPU Cache Size (KB) 4,096.00 16,384.00
BogoMips 4,589.21 7,583.88
Events per Second 408.72 1,590.31
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.98 0.6
Average Latency (ms) 2.44 0.63
Maximum Latency (ms) 30.57 1.79
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 4.1 0.67

Memory

Memory Read

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Operations per second 1,633,276.41 7,807,742.85
Mebibytes per second 1,595.00 7,624.75
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 3.35 0.06
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Operations per second 1,592,941.48 7,906,141.09
Mebibytes per second 1,555.61 7,720.84
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.53 0.04
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Reads per Second 1,584.78 8,035.78
Writes per Second 1,056.52 5,357.19
Fsyncs per Second 3,385.97 17,149.39
Read Mebibytes per Second 24.76 125.56
Written Mebibytes per Second 16.51 83.71
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.16 0.03
Maximum Latency (ms) 20.31 2.91
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.51 0.12

Mutex

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Minimum Latency (ms) 2,434.32 530.07
Average Latency (ms) 2,473.55 548.97
Maximum Latency (ms) 2,489.41 564.28
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2,493.86 559.50

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 4,752.00 10,624.00
Queries per second 47,520.00 106,240.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.23 0.87
Average Latency (ms) 2.1 0.94
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.76 2.48
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.66 1.03

MySQL Write-only

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 1,930.00 10,496.00
Queries per second 19,300.00 104,960.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 2.65 0.62
Average Latency (ms) 5.18 0.95
Maximum Latency (ms) 56.83 2.57
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 7.98 1.21

MySQL Read/Write

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 1,306.00 4,967.00
Queries per second 13,060.00 49,670.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 4.6 1.59
Average Latency (ms) 7.65 2.01
Maximum Latency (ms) 28.54 3.47
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 10.09 2.39

MySQL INSERT

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 3,148.00 17,471.00
Queries per second 31,480.00 174,710.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.72 0.38
Average Latency (ms) 3.17 0.57
Maximum Latency (ms) 32.67 2.14
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 4.41 0.8

MySQL Bulk INSERT

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 669,209.00 2,424,342.00
Queries per second 6,692,090.00 24,243,420.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.02 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 772.1 208.42
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 136,020.00 243,477.00
Queries per second 1,360,200.00 2,434,770.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.03
Average Latency (ms) 0.07 0.04
Maximum Latency (ms) 3.33 0.75
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.11 0.05

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 3,617.00 11,659.00
Queries per second 36,170.00 116,590.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.82 0.22
Average Latency (ms) 2.76 0.86
Maximum Latency (ms) 12.27 3.08
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.82 1.1

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 3,087.00 10,594.00
Queries per second 30,870.00 105,940.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.67 0.36
Average Latency (ms) 3.23 0.94
Maximum Latency (ms) 8.52 3.17
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 5.18 1.21

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 2,586.00 16,016.00
Queries per second 25,860.00 160,160.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.8 0.39
Average Latency (ms) 3.86 0.62
Maximum Latency (ms) 45.13 1.92
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 6.21 0.86

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 3,094.00 17,709.00
Queries per second 30,940.00 177,090.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.83 0.37
Average Latency (ms) 3.23 0.56
Maximum Latency (ms) 35.75 1.8
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 4.65 0.74

MySQL DELETE

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 19,562.00 157,492.00
Queries per second 195,620.00 1,574,920.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.03
Average Latency (ms) 0.51 0.06
Maximum Latency (ms) 32.94 4.53
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.02 0.07

Redis

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores)
PING_INLINE per Second 39,729.84 87,260.03
PING_MBULK per Second 42,176.30 87,950.75
SET per Second 40,833.00 88,731.15
GET per Second 34,590.11 89,365.51
INCR per Second 35,410.77 88,809.95
LPUSH per Second 39,184.95 89,126.56
RPUSH per Second 36,509.68 89,365.51
LPOP per Second 36,791.76 90,334.23
RPOP per Second 38,834.95 90,579.71
SADD per Second 35,727.05 90,171.33
HSET per Second 35,790.98 89,686.10
SPOP per Second 39,478.88 89,365.51
ZADD per Second 38,850.04 90,415.91
ZPOPMIN per Second 40,338.84 90,090.09
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 17,461.15 67,114.09
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 7,711.29 37,821.48
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 4,860.50 26,595.74
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 4,094.67 23,009.66
MSET (10 keys) per Second 32,041.01 90,826.52

Redis Average Latency (ms)

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores)
PING_INLINE0.830.30
PING_MBULK0.780.29
SET0.820.29
GET0.940.29
INCR0.930.29
LPUSH0.850.29
RPUSH0.910.29
LPOP0.920.29
RPOP0.870.29
SADD0.920.29
HSET0.930.29
SPOP0.840.29
ZADD0.860.29
ZPOPMIN0.820.29
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)2.050.40
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)4.590.68
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)7.190.96
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)8.421.20
MSET (10 keys)1.120.29

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

Comparing the DigitalOcean Regular (2 GB) instance with the Vultr High Frequency Intel (4 GB, 2 Cores) instance, it's evident that Vultr's instance performs significantly better across most benchmarks. Vultr's instance showcases higher throughput and lower latencies in Redis commands, CPU utilization, and file I/O operations, reflecting its stronger performance in CPU-intensive and I/O-heavy workloads. DigitalOcean's instance provides more stable memory operations and lower thread latencies but lags in overall throughput and response times for Redis and CPU operations. Ideal use cases for Vultr’s instance include applications requiring high concurrency and quick data processing, while DigitalOcean’s instance may suit more stable, memory-centric applications with moderate workload demands.

From the friendly human:

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