DigitalOcean Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) vs. Vultr Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores)
My friend, I'm so glad you're here! Today I've spun up some brand new instance from DigitalOcean and Vultr to run some benchmarks on. All instances were spun up with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and all resided in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Enough talk. Here's the data.
Overview
| DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Fri, 12 Jun 2026 05:00:52 GMT | Thu, 11 Jun 2026 09:00:52 GMT |
| Linux Distro | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 |
| Kernel Version | 6.8.0-71-generic | 6.8.0-124-generic |
| MySQL Version | 8.0.46-0ubuntu0.24.04.2 | 8.0.46-0ubuntu0.24.04.2 |
| Redis Version | 7.0.15 | 7.0.15 |
| Location | New York, NY | Newark, NJ |
| Monthly Price | $24.00 | $20.00 |
| RAM (GB) | 4 | 4 |
| CPU Cores | 2 | 2 |
| Storage (TB) | 80 | 80 |
| Storage Type | SSD | SSD |
| Transfer (TB) | 4 | 3 |
CPU
| DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | GenuineIntel | GenuineIntel |
| Model Name | DO-Regular | Intel Xeon Processor (Skylake, IBRS) |
| Clock Speed (MHz) | 2,494.15 | 2,593.91 |
| CPU Cache Size (KB) | 4,096.00 | 16,384.00 |
| BogoMips | 4,988.29 | 5,187.81 |
| Events per Second | 824.34 | 1,022.39 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.91 | 0.88 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.21 | 0.98 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 7.11 | 1.77 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.55 | 1.21 |
Memory
Memory Read
| DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 4,048,550.85 | 3,523,809.57 |
| Mebibytes per second | 3,953.66 | 3,441.22 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 1.07 | 0.22 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 4,251,354.05 | 3,568,203.77 |
| Mebibytes per second | 4,151.71 | 3,484.57 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.37 | 1.02 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
File I/O
| DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 2,953.58 | 2,972.63 |
| Writes per Second | 1,969.02 | 1,981.75 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 6,302.46 | 6,347.81 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 46.15 | 46.45 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 30.77 | 30.96 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.09 | 0.09 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.93 | 17.12 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.29 | 0.33 |
Mutex
| DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1,137.54 | 899.28 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1,163.52 | 935.93 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 1,195.58 | 969.92 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1,191.92 | 977.74 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,903.00 | 3,779.00 |
| Queries per second | 39,030.00 | 37,790.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.41 | 1.84 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.56 | 2.64 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 25.25 | 24.55 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.62 | 3.82 |
MySQL Write-only
| DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 2,857.00 | 4,044.00 |
| Queries per second | 28,570.00 | 40,440.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.62 | 1.4 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.49 | 2.47 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 28.07 | 13.46 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 5.47 | 3.3 |
MySQL Read/Write
| DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,659.00 | 1,798.00 |
| Queries per second | 16,590.00 | 17,980.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 3.19 | 3.86 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 6.02 | 5.56 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 14.3 | 27.33 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 8.13 | 6.91 |
MySQL INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 4,610.00 | 6,405.00 |
| Queries per second | 46,100.00 | 64,050.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.84 | 0.99 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.16 | 1.56 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 33.8 | 15.15 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.49 | 2.03 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,113,717.00 | 865,805.00 |
| Queries per second | 11,137,170.00 | 8,658,050.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0.01 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 400.44 | 538.25 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 124,489.00 | 126,618.00 |
| Queries per second | 1,244,890.00 | 1,266,180.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.05 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.08 | 0.08 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 5.74 | 2.46 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.12 | 0.11 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,900.00 | 3,674.00 |
| Queries per second | 39,000.00 | 36,740.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.95 | 1.07 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.56 | 2.72 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 32.96 | 6.45 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.62 | 3.55 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,943.00 | 2,728.00 |
| Queries per second | 39,430.00 | 27,280.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.85 | 1.3 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.53 | 3.66 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 25.49 | 11.85 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.75 | 5 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,198.00 | 5,438.00 |
| Queries per second | 31,980.00 | 54,380.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.16 | 0.99 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.12 | 1.84 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 50.57 | 13.86 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 5.77 | 2.71 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 4,142.00 | 6,370.00 |
| Queries per second | 41,420.00 | 63,700.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.84 | 1.01 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.41 | 1.57 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 24.75 | 8.99 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4.18 | 2.07 |
MySQL DELETE
| DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 30,261.00 | 51,180.00 |
| Queries per second | 302,610.00 | 511,800.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.05 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.33 | 0.19 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 33.82 | 6.11 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.93 | 1.39 |
Redis
| DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 43,706.29 | 49,677.10 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 45,703.84 | 45,372.05 |
| SET per Second | 44,424.70 | 45,392.64 |
| GET per Second | 43,346.34 | 53,163.21 |
| INCR per Second | 38,476.34 | 48,732.94 |
| LPUSH per Second | 42,735.04 | 50,327.12 |
| RPUSH per Second | 42,034.47 | 48,285.85 |
| LPOP per Second | 41,597.34 | 48,355.90 |
| RPOP per Second | 41,254.12 | 51,413.88 |
| SADD per Second | 44,843.05 | 48,332.53 |
| HSET per Second | 39,138.94 | 49,285.36 |
| SPOP per Second | 41,305.25 | 48,332.53 |
| ZADD per Second | 49,850.45 | 51,229.51 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 49,261.09 | 45,085.66 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 29,744.20 | 27,122.32 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 14,573.01 | 12,442.45 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 9,469.70 | 7,930.21 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 8,334.72 | 6,902.74 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 39,793.07 | 45,146.73 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 0.61 | 0.53 |
| PING_MBULK | 0.60 | 0.57 |
| SET | 0.60 | 0.57 |
| GET | 0.61 | 0.49 |
| INCR | 0.70 | 0.53 |
| LPUSH | 0.62 | 0.51 |
| RPUSH | 0.63 | 0.54 |
| LPOP | 0.67 | 0.54 |
| RPOP | 0.65 | 0.52 |
| SADD | 0.60 | 0.55 |
| HSET | 0.70 | 0.54 |
| SPOP | 0.64 | 0.54 |
| ZADD | 0.54 | 0.52 |
| ZPOPMIN | 0.54 | 0.57 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 1.01 | 1.02 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 2.03 | 2.29 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 3.24 | 3.27 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 3.61 | 3.91 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 0.77 | 0.78 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
Comparing the benchmark results, the Vultr instance (Cloud Compute) generally shows higher performance in both Redis and MySQL operations, as well as slightly better CPU and file I/O metrics, though both instances perform similarly in memory operations. Vultr's instance excels in raw processing capabilities, as indicated by its higher throughput and lower latency for various Redis operations and MySQL tasks, suggesting it may be better suited for CPU-intensive workloads and those requiring high I/O performance. On the other hand, DigitalOcean's instance offers comparable results across most metrics, making it a strong choice for more balanced workloads where cost is also a consideration, given its slightly lower pricing. For users prioritizing performance over cost, the Vultr instance would likely be the better option, especially for demanding tasks.
From the friendly human:
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