DigitalOcean Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) vs. Vultr Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores)

vs.

Same showdown, different day. 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 all resided in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Time to see who showed up today.

Overview

DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Last Benchmarked Tue, 12 May 2026 02:00:52 GMT Mon, 11 May 2026 04:00:52 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 $24.00 $15.00
RAM (GB) 4 2
CPU Cores 2 2
Storage (TB) 80 65
Storage Type SSD SSD
Transfer (TB) 4 3

CPU

DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Vendor GenuineIntel GenuineIntel
Model Name DO-Regular Intel Core Processor (Skylake, IBRS, no TSX)
Clock Speed (MHz) 2,294.61 3,792.00
CPU Cache Size (KB) 4,096.00 16,384.00
BogoMips 4,589.21 7,583.99
Events per Second 697.47 1,481.60
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.97 0.63
Average Latency (ms) 1.43 0.67
Maximum Latency (ms) 15.8 1.95
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.36 0.77

Memory

Memory Read

DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Operations per second 3,412,092.37 6,401,389.08
Mebibytes per second 3,332.12 6,251.36
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 3.5 0.23
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Operations per second 3,386,795.06 6,411,085.35
Mebibytes per second 3,307.42 6,260.83
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 1.16 0.18
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Reads per Second 1,540.78 4,345.71
Writes per Second 1,027.19 2,897.07
Fsyncs per Second 3,299.48 9,273.19
Read Mebibytes per Second 24.07 67.90
Written Mebibytes per Second 16.05 45.27
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.17 0.06
Maximum Latency (ms) 32.93 2.92
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.58 0.17

Mutex

DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Minimum Latency (ms) 1,127.52 214.63
Average Latency (ms) 1,169.63 569.72
Maximum Latency (ms) 1,192.95 636.55
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1,191.92 634.66

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 3,533.00 8,015.00
Queries per second 35,330.00 80,150.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.53 0.92
Average Latency (ms) 2.82 1.25
Maximum Latency (ms) 23.79 5.5
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.75 1.86

MySQL Write-only

DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 1,921.00 8,497.00
Queries per second 19,210.00 84,970.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 2.85 0.76
Average Latency (ms) 5.2 1.17
Maximum Latency (ms) 38.8 3.04
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 7.3 1.55

MySQL Read/Write

DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 1,124.00 3,726.00
Queries per second 11,240.00 37,260.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 5.43 1.78
Average Latency (ms) 8.89 2.68
Maximum Latency (ms) 41.98 5.82
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 12.3 3.43

MySQL INSERT

DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 2,363.00 15,028.00
Queries per second 23,630.00 150,280.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 2.43 0.41
Average Latency (ms) 4.22 0.66
Maximum Latency (ms) 43.91 2.42
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 6.21 0.86

MySQL Bulk INSERT

DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 771,895.00 1,696,217.00
Queries per second 7,718,950.00 16,962,170.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.01 0.01
Maximum Latency (ms) 720.67 283.37
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 116,104.00 201,989.00
Queries per second 1,161,040.00 2,019,890.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.03
Average Latency (ms) 0.09 0.05
Maximum Latency (ms) 2.46 0.51
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.12 0.07

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 3,693.00 8,025.00
Queries per second 36,930.00 80,250.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.85 0.35
Average Latency (ms) 2.7 1.24
Maximum Latency (ms) 35.33 3.55
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.68 2.07

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 2,614.00 8,336.00
Queries per second 26,140.00 83,360.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.1 0.4
Average Latency (ms) 3.82 1.2
Maximum Latency (ms) 21.26 4.25
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 5.67 2.22

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 2,513.00 13,858.00
Queries per second 25,130.00 138,580.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 2.1 0.42
Average Latency (ms) 3.97 0.72
Maximum Latency (ms) 36.25 6.33
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 5.99 0.95

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 2,177.00 14,587.00
Queries per second 21,770.00 145,870.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 2.18 0.4
Average Latency (ms) 4.59 0.68
Maximum Latency (ms) 169.62 11.69
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 7.43 0.9

MySQL DELETE

DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second 12,257.00 129,013.00
Queries per second 122,570.00 1,290,130.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.05 0.03
Average Latency (ms) 0.81 0.08
Maximum Latency (ms) 36.29 2.61
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 4.25 0.09

Redis

DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores)
PING_INLINE per Second 49,431.54 78,247.26
PING_MBULK per Second 50,327.12 74,738.41
SET per Second 46,926.32 77,041.60
GET per Second 45,372.05 83,333.33
INCR per Second 44,563.28 80,971.66
LPUSH per Second 50,125.31 79,113.92
RPUSH per Second 54,945.05 77,160.49
LPOP per Second 53,763.44 81,499.59
RPOP per Second 57,570.52 82,440.23
SADD per Second 51,572.98 80,192.46
HSET per Second 47,664.44 83,612.04
SPOP per Second 46,641.79 85,034.02
ZADD per Second 55,586.44 83,263.95
ZPOPMIN per Second 50,916.50 82,987.55
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 28,105.68 55,555.56
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 11,893.43 28,851.70
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 8,426.02 19,391.12
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 6,626.91 17,211.71
MSET (10 keys) per Second 44,189.13 80,256.82

Redis Average Latency (ms)

DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores)
PING_INLINE0.530.34
PING_MBULK0.520.35
SET0.560.34
GET0.580.32
INCR0.600.32
LPUSH0.530.34
RPUSH0.490.34
LPOP0.500.32
RPOP0.480.32
SADD0.510.32
HSET0.560.31
SPOP0.570.30
ZADD0.480.31
ZPOPMIN0.520.31
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)1.070.54
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)2.401.11
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)3.421.62
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)4.801.84
MSET (10 keys)0.790.38

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

Based on the benchmark results, DigitalOcean's "Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores)" instance exhibits better performance in memory operations and Redis benchmarks, with higher requests per second and lower latency for various commands. Vultr's "Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores)" instance shows slightly better CPU performance with higher events per second and lower average latency but has comparable Redis performance. Both instances have similar file I/O throughput and latency metrics. The DigitalOcean instance provides better suited memory throughput and lower latency, making it ideal for applications that rely heavily on in-memory data stores and high-speed memory operations, while the Vultr instance could be preferable for applications requiring slightly higher CPU throughput but at a lower price point, suitable for moderately resource-intensive workloads.

From the friendly human:

If you found this VPS Showdown helpful in your search for a hosting provider, please consider supporting my efforts by signing up using my referral links for DigitalOcean and Vultr.

You can also support me directly by buying me a coffee.