DigitalOcean Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) vs. Vultr Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores)
Fresh benchmarks coming at ya. Today I've spun up some brand new instance from DigitalOcean and Vultr and ran some benchmarks. All instances were running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and were created in the New York area (or close to it). Time to see who showed up today.
Overview
| DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Sun, 24 May 2026 08:00:51 GMT | Sat, 23 May 2026 11:00:52 GMT |
| Linux Distro | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 |
| Kernel Version | 6.8.0-71-generic | 6.8.0-117-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 | $40.00 |
| RAM (GB) | 4 | 8 |
| CPU Cores | 2 | 4 |
| Storage (TB) | 80 | 160 |
| Storage Type | SSD | SSD |
| Transfer (TB) | 4 | 4 |
CPU
| DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | GenuineIntel | GenuineIntel |
| Model Name | DO-Regular | Intel Xeon Processor (Skylake, IBRS) |
| Clock Speed (MHz) | 2,494.14 | 2,593.90 |
| CPU Cache Size (KB) | 4,096.00 | 16,384.00 |
| BogoMips | 4,988.27 | 5,187.80 |
| Events per Second | 826.87 | 1,100.82 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.91 | 0.88 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.21 | 0.91 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 8.69 | 1.56 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.39 | 0.97 |
Memory
Memory Read
| DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 3,938,997.20 | 3,685,781.23 |
| Mebibytes per second | 3,846.68 | 3,599.40 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 2.31 | 1.03 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 4,062,296.26 | 3,590,629.63 |
| Mebibytes per second | 3,967.09 | 3,506.47 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.38 | 1.16 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
File I/O
| DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 2,367.64 | 4,999.39 |
| Writes per Second | 1,578.42 | 3,332.93 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 5,060.45 | 10,670.47 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 36.99 | 78.12 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 24.66 | 52.08 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.11 | 0.05 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 9.24 | 37.52 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.34 | 0.18 |
Mutex
| DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1,297.02 | 369.37 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1,338.61 | 416.22 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 1,386.51 | 441.77 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1,376.60 | 442.73 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 4,158.00 | 5,144.00 |
| Queries per second | 41,580.00 | 51,440.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.41 | 1.72 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.4 | 1.94 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 17.86 | 7.67 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.3 | 2.35 |
MySQL Write-only
| DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,220.00 | 5,108.00 |
| Queries per second | 32,200.00 | 51,080.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.31 | 1.15 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.1 | 1.96 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 28.27 | 12.52 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 5.28 | 2.71 |
MySQL Read/Write
| DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,636.00 | 2,247.00 |
| Queries per second | 16,360.00 | 22,470.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 3.24 | 3.08 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 6.11 | 4.45 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 29.27 | 29.7 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 9.56 | 5.28 |
MySQL INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 5,264.00 | 7,630.00 |
| Queries per second | 52,640.00 | 76,300.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.83 | 0.71 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.89 | 1.31 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 67.32 | 29.81 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.25 | 1.55 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 964,103.00 | 898,571.00 |
| Queries per second | 9,641,030.00 | 8,985,710.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0.01 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 487.81 | 505.86 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 122,583.00 | 149,465.00 |
| Queries per second | 1,225,830.00 | 1,494,650.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.05 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.08 | 0.07 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 7.2 | 1.22 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.11 | 0.09 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 4,051.00 | 4,249.00 |
| Queries per second | 40,510.00 | 42,490.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.76 | 0.83 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.46 | 2.35 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 25.19 | 6.6 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.49 | 3.02 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 4,298.00 | 2,637.00 |
| Queries per second | 42,980.00 | 26,370.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.62 | 0.94 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.32 | 3.79 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 14.93 | 6.3 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.43 | 5.09 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,993.00 | 7,166.00 |
| Queries per second | 39,930.00 | 71,660.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.88 | 0.7 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.5 | 1.39 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 18.4 | 28.84 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4.91 | 1.79 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 4,908.00 | 7,661.00 |
| Queries per second | 49,080.00 | 76,610.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.69 | 0.7 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.03 | 1.3 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 13.19 | 33.97 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.75 | 1.58 |
MySQL DELETE
| DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 35,501.00 | 69,690.00 |
| Queries per second | 355,010.00 | 696,900.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.05 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.28 | 0.14 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 15.41 | 27.73 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.67 | 0.87 |
Redis
| DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 50,175.61 | 54,436.58 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 50,125.31 | 48,828.12 |
| SET per Second | 45,372.05 | 51,572.98 |
| GET per Second | 47,664.44 | 48,239.27 |
| INCR per Second | 50,150.45 | 52,328.62 |
| LPUSH per Second | 52,273.91 | 45,454.54 |
| RPUSH per Second | 36,179.45 | 49,751.24 |
| LPOP per Second | 44,984.25 | 53,390.28 |
| RPOP per Second | 52,410.90 | 53,648.07 |
| SADD per Second | 53,850.30 | 48,285.85 |
| HSET per Second | 50,125.31 | 51,493.30 |
| SPOP per Second | 52,826.20 | 52,910.05 |
| ZADD per Second | 51,546.39 | 53,504.55 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 50,454.09 | 53,590.57 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 33,852.40 | 28,645.09 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 16,307.89 | 13,131.98 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 9,868.75 | 8,529.51 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 8,988.76 | 7,479.99 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 49,975.02 | 49,212.60 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (8 GB, 4 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 0.53 | 0.47 |
| PING_MBULK | 0.52 | 0.53 |
| SET | 0.59 | 0.50 |
| GET | 0.55 | 0.54 |
| INCR | 0.53 | 0.49 |
| LPUSH | 0.51 | 0.58 |
| RPUSH | 0.71 | 0.52 |
| LPOP | 0.59 | 0.49 |
| RPOP | 0.52 | 0.48 |
| SADD | 0.49 | 0.54 |
| HSET | 0.54 | 0.53 |
| SPOP | 0.50 | 0.49 |
| ZADD | 0.52 | 0.48 |
| ZPOPMIN | 0.52 | 0.48 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 0.94 | 0.91 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 2.00 | 1.94 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 3.10 | 3.00 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 3.50 | 3.43 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 0.67 | 0.77 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
Analyzing the benchmark results, the Vultr instance with 4 cores and 8GB of RAM generally performs better across most metrics, particularly in CPU-intensive tasks where it shows higher events per second and lower latencies in both Redis and MySQL operations. The DigitalOcean instance with 2 cores and 4GB of RAM, while more affordable, shows respectable performance in memory operations and file I/O, with lower average latencies in both categories. Vultr's instance also excels in Redis's LRANGE benchmarks with larger element counts, indicating better scalability for more demanding I/O operations. However, the DigitalOcean instance has better CPU fairness and slightly better MySQL write performance. For users needing high CPU power and scalability with intensive I/O operations, the Vultr instance is preferable. Conversely, for those prioritizing cost-effectiveness with reasonable performance in memory and file I/O tasks, the DigitalOcean instance is a solid choice.
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.
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