DigitalOcean Regular (2 GB) vs. Vultr High Performance Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores)
Same showdown, different day. Today I've spun up brand new instance from DigitalOcean and Vultr and ran my world famous suite of benchmarking scripts. Each instance was spun up with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and were created in the New York area (or close to it). Enough talk. Here's the data.
Overview
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Tue, 12 May 2026 23:00:52 GMT | Tue, 12 May 2026 15:00:51 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 | $48.00 |
| RAM (GB) | 2 | 8 |
| CPU Cores | 1 | 4 |
| Storage (TB) | 50 | 180 |
| Storage Type | SSD | NVMe |
| Transfer (TB) | 2 | 6 |
CPU
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | GenuineIntel | GenuineIntel |
| Model Name | DO-Regular | Intel Xeon Processor (Cascadelake) |
| Clock Speed (MHz) | 2,294.61 | 2,893.17 |
| CPU Cache Size (KB) | 4,096.00 | 16,384.00 |
| BogoMips | 4,589.21 | 5,786.33 |
| Events per Second | 408.72 | 1,059.70 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.98 | 0.83 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.44 | 0.94 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 30.57 | 3.58 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4.1 | 1.14 |
Memory
Memory Read
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 1,633,276.41 | 4,705,509.24 |
| Mebibytes per second | 1,595.00 | 4,595.22 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.35 | 2.22 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 1,592,941.48 | 4,676,375.38 |
| Mebibytes per second | 1,555.61 | 4,566.77 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 5.53 | 3.29 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
File I/O
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 1,584.78 | 5,906.11 |
| Writes per Second | 1,056.52 | 3,937.40 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 3,385.97 | 12,611.69 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 24.76 | 92.28 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 16.51 | 61.52 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.16 | 0.04 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 20.31 | 82.27 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.51 | 0.14 |
Mutex
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 2,434.32 | 408.47 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2,473.55 | 478.75 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 2,489.41 | 528.55 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2,493.86 | 530.08 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 4,752.00 | 5,148.00 |
| Queries per second | 47,520.00 | 51,480.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.23 | 1.24 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.1 | 1.94 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 5.76 | 16.42 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.66 | 2.66 |
MySQL Write-only
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,930.00 | 4,781.00 |
| Queries per second | 19,300.00 | 47,810.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 2.65 | 1.01 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 5.18 | 2.09 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 56.83 | 9.33 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 7.98 | 3.07 |
MySQL Read/Write
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,306.00 | 2,243.00 |
| Queries per second | 13,060.00 | 22,430.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 4.6 | 2.88 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 7.65 | 4.45 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 28.54 | 24.12 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 10.09 | 6.09 |
MySQL INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,148.00 | 6,381.00 |
| Queries per second | 31,480.00 | 63,810.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.72 | 0.61 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.17 | 1.56 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 32.67 | 29.34 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4.41 | 2.52 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 669,209.00 | 1,346,717.00 |
| Queries per second | 6,692,090.00 | 13,467,170.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.02 | 0.01 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 772.1 | 473.72 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 136,020.00 | 151,547.00 |
| Queries per second | 1,360,200.00 | 1,515,470.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.03 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.07 | 0.07 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.33 | 3.93 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.11 | 0.12 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,617.00 | 5,574.00 |
| Queries per second | 36,170.00 | 55,740.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.82 | 0.48 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.76 | 1.79 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 12.27 | 7.01 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.82 | 2.57 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,087.00 | 6,208.00 |
| Queries per second | 30,870.00 | 62,080.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.67 | 0.59 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.23 | 1.61 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 8.52 | 36.71 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 5.18 | 2.39 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 2,586.00 | 8,467.00 |
| Queries per second | 25,860.00 | 84,670.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.8 | 0.51 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.86 | 1.18 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 45.13 | 30.73 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 6.21 | 1.73 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,094.00 | 8,471.00 |
| Queries per second | 30,940.00 | 84,710.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.83 | 0.52 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.23 | 1.18 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 35.75 | 61.8 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4.65 | 1.73 |
MySQL DELETE
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 19,562.00 | 68,717.00 |
| Queries per second | 195,620.00 | 687,170.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.04 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.51 | 0.14 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 32.94 | 18.05 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.02 | 0.87 |
Redis
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 39,729.84 | 47,236.65 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 42,176.30 | 49,067.71 |
| SET per Second | 40,833.00 | 45,641.26 |
| GET per Second | 34,590.11 | 45,495.91 |
| INCR per Second | 35,410.77 | 50,709.94 |
| LPUSH per Second | 39,184.95 | 47,505.94 |
| RPUSH per Second | 36,509.68 | 52,938.06 |
| LPOP per Second | 36,791.76 | 50,735.67 |
| RPOP per Second | 38,834.95 | 52,083.34 |
| SADD per Second | 35,727.05 | 46,232.08 |
| HSET per Second | 35,790.98 | 49,701.79 |
| SPOP per Second | 39,478.88 | 48,638.13 |
| ZADD per Second | 38,850.04 | 50,968.40 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 40,338.84 | 50,175.61 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 17,461.15 | 28,050.49 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 7,711.29 | 18,871.49 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 4,860.50 | 14,110.34 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 4,094.67 | 10,855.41 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 32,041.01 | 46,274.87 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 0.83 | 0.56 |
| PING_MBULK | 0.78 | 0.56 |
| SET | 0.82 | 0.59 |
| GET | 0.94 | 0.59 |
| INCR | 0.93 | 0.52 |
| LPUSH | 0.85 | 0.56 |
| RPUSH | 0.91 | 0.50 |
| LPOP | 0.92 | 0.52 |
| RPOP | 0.87 | 0.52 |
| SADD | 0.92 | 0.61 |
| HSET | 0.93 | 0.53 |
| SPOP | 0.84 | 0.54 |
| ZADD | 0.86 | 0.53 |
| ZPOPMIN | 0.82 | 0.53 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 2.05 | 1.06 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 4.59 | 1.68 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 7.19 | 2.30 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 8.42 | 2.96 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 1.12 | 0.65 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
In benchmarking performance, the Vultr High Performance Intel instance with 4 cores and 8 GB of RAM consistently outperforms the DigitalOcean Regular instance with 1 core and 2 GB of RAM across various metrics, indicating significantly better handling of CPU-intensive workloads, memory operations, and file I/O. The Vultr instance shows substantially higher rates of Redis requests per second, better average and minimum latencies, and greater throughput for reads and writes. While the DigitalOcean instance shows reasonable performance for its configuration, the Vultr instance’s superior specs make it ideal for applications demanding high CPU power, larger memory, and rapid I/O operations. Therefore, for scenarios requiring substantial computational and memory resources, the Vultr High Performance Intel instance is the better choice.
From the friendly human:
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