VPS Showdown VPS Showdown

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

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Welcome to another round of the VPS Showdown. Today I spun up fresh instances from DigitalOcean and Vultr and did some benchmarking. All instances were spun up with 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 Performance Intel (1 GB)
Last Benchmarked Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:31:21 GMT Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:21 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 25
Storage Type SSD NVMe
Transfer (TB) 2 2

Head-to-head

Category winners from the latest benchmarks.

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

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

CPU

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Vendor GenuineIntel GenuineIntel
Model Name DO-Regular Intel Xeon Processor (Cascadelake)
Clock Speed (MHz) 2,494.14 2,893.20
CPU Cache Size (KB) 4,096.00 16,384.00
BogoMips 4,988.28 5,786.40
Events per Second 411.59 1,049.60
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.99 0.9
Average Latency (ms) 2.42 0.95
Maximum Latency (ms) 19.9 4.73
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.96 1.12

Memory

Memory Read

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Operations per second 4,123,717.02 5,247,794.58
Mebibytes per second 4,027.07 5,124.80
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 0.54 2.07
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Operations per second 4,007,053.05 5,230,407.37
Mebibytes per second 3,913.14 5,107.82
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 1.82 1.11
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Reads per Second 2,758.95 4,064.54
Writes per Second 1,839.23 2,709.66
Fsyncs per Second 5,895.77 8,672.51
Read Mebibytes per Second 43.11 63.51
Written Mebibytes per Second 28.74 42.34
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.09 0.06
Maximum Latency (ms) 11.81 6.95
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.3 0.19

Mutex

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms) 2,498.24 1,611.76
Average Latency (ms) 2,546.75 1,623.75
Maximum Latency (ms) 2,562.19 1,635.20
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2,585.31 1,648.20

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 5,626.00 8,324.00
Queries per second 56,260.00 83,240.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.18 1.06
Average Latency (ms) 1.77 1.2
Maximum Latency (ms) 3.44 5.85
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.39 1.5

MySQL Write-only

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 4,813.00 9,781.00
Queries per second 48,130.00 97,810.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.92 0.77
Average Latency (ms) 2.07 1.02
Maximum Latency (ms) 29.26 10.58
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.19 1.39

MySQL Read/Write

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 1,931.00 4,006.00
Queries per second 19,310.00 40,060.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 2.94 2.02
Average Latency (ms) 5.17 2.49
Maximum Latency (ms) 17.66 8.48
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 7.17 3.13

MySQL INSERT

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 6,585.00 17,670.00
Queries per second 65,850.00 176,700.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.56 0.42
Average Latency (ms) 1.51 0.56
Maximum Latency (ms) 11.88 8.68
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.71 0.72

MySQL Bulk INSERT

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 833,039.00 1,317,592.00
Queries per second 8,330,390.00 13,175,920.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.01 0.01
Maximum Latency (ms) 568.39 320.74
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 148,439.00 214,470.00
Queries per second 1,484,390.00 2,144,700.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.07 0.05
Maximum Latency (ms) 4.95 3.23
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.1 0.07

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 3,505.00 5,913.00
Queries per second 35,050.00 59,130.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.98 0.53
Average Latency (ms) 2.85 1.69
Maximum Latency (ms) 6.79 6.4
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 4.25 2.22

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 5,769.00 8,048.00
Queries per second 57,690.00 80,480.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.53 0.5
Average Latency (ms) 1.73 1.24
Maximum Latency (ms) 4.73 3.52
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.66 1.7

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 6,299.00 17,291.00
Queries per second 62,990.00 172,910.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.57 0.44
Average Latency (ms) 1.58 0.58
Maximum Latency (ms) 28.52 7.39
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.07 0.75

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 7,198.00 18,069.00
Queries per second 71,980.00 180,690.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.51 0.41
Average Latency (ms) 1.39 0.55
Maximum Latency (ms) 167.69 5.51
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.35 0.7

MySQL DELETE

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 33,426.00 154,947.00
Queries per second 334,260.00 1,549,470.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.3 0.06
Maximum Latency (ms) 22.19 9.7
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.61 0.11

Redis

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second 34,188.04 45,766.59
PING_MBULK per Second 44,483.99 44,424.70
SET per Second 40,112.31 45,045.04
GET per Second 40,883.07 45,065.34
INCR per Second 39,729.84 46,663.56
LPUSH per Second 40,404.04 44,603.03
RPUSH per Second 37,397.16 46,146.75
LPOP per Second 37,257.82 44,903.46
RPOP per Second 36,114.12 44,523.60
SADD per Second 37,425.15 45,392.64
HSET per Second 38,759.69 46,468.40
SPOP per Second 45,641.26 47,036.69
ZADD per Second 42,283.30 45,682.96
ZPOPMIN per Second 47,438.33 45,871.56
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 23,089.36 31,387.32
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 12,169.89 17,470.30
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 8,394.19 12,192.15
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 6,932.89 10,672.36
MSET (10 keys) per Second 31,796.50 44,503.79

Redis Average Latency (ms)

DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (1 GB)
PING_INLINE0.940.67
PING_MBULK0.690.67
SET0.770.68
GET0.750.68
INCR0.780.66
LPUSH0.780.69
RPUSH0.840.67
LPOP0.850.69
RPOP0.870.70
SADD0.830.68
HSET0.810.67
SPOP0.680.65
ZADD0.740.68
ZPOPMIN0.650.67
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)1.400.99
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)2.631.78
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)3.622.68
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)4.242.99
MSET (10 keys)1.060.75

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

Based on benchmark results, the Vultr High Performance Intel instance outperforms the DigitalOcean Regular instance across the board, particularly in CPU-intensive tasks where Vultr's benchmark shows a higher "events_per_second" at 1049.6 compared to DigitalOcean's 411.59, and significantly better Redis performance with higher requests per second and lower latencies in most operations. For workloads that prioritize CPU speed and memory efficiency, the Vultr instance is the clear winner, though DigitalOcean remains more cost-effective.

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)