VPS Showdown VPS Showdown

Vultr High Frequency Intel (1 GB) vs. Vultr High Performance Intel (2 GB)

vs.

Same showdown, different day. Today I spun up fresh instances from Vultr and ran my world famous suite of benchmarking scripts. Each instance was spun up with Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 and were created in the New York area (or close to it). Let's get into the numbers.

Overview

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Last Benchmarked Tue, 01 Sep 2026 05:07:32 GMT Tue, 01 Sep 2026 05:13:32 GMT
Linux Distro Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64
Kernel Version 7.0.0-29-generic 7.0.0-29-generic
MySQL Version 8.4.11-0ubuntu0.26.04.1 8.4.11-0ubuntu0.26.04.1
Redis Version 8.0.5 8.0.5
Location Newark, NJ Newark, NJ
Monthly Price $6.00 $12.00
RAM (GB) 1 2
CPU Cores 1 1
Storage (TB) 32 50
Storage Type NVMe NVMe
Transfer (TB) 1 3

Head-to-head

Category winners from the latest benchmarks.

CategoryWinner
CPU (events/sec)Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Memory (read MiB/s)Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Disk I/O (MiB/s)Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
MySQL (read/write tps)Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Redis (GET/sec)Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Value (CPU events per $/mo)Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB) takes 5 of 6 categories.

CPU

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Vendor GenuineIntel GenuineIntel
Model Name Intel Core Processor (Skylake, IBRS, no TSX) Intel Xeon Processor (Cascadelake)
Clock Speed (MHz) 3,792.05 2,893.21
CPU Cache Size (KB) 16,384.00 16,384.00
BogoMips 7,584.09 5,786.41
Events per Second 1,436.31 1,011.48
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.67 0.89
Average Latency (ms) 0.7 0.99
Maximum Latency (ms) 2.3 2.15
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.74 1.25

Memory

Memory Read

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Operations per second 7,256,990.82 5,186,399.33
Mebibytes per second 7,086.91 5,064.84
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 0.25 0.58
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Operations per second 7,404,343.90 5,103,338.99
Mebibytes per second 7,230.80 4,983.73
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 0.55 1.94
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Reads per Second 4,611.83 3,831.53
Writes per Second 3,074.55 2,554.36
Fsyncs per Second 9,847.36 8,179.23
Read Mebibytes per Second 72.06 59.87
Written Mebibytes per Second 48.04 39.91
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.06 0.07
Maximum Latency (ms) 15.14 2.28
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.15 0.21

Mutex

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms) 1,126.89 1,735.94
Average Latency (ms) 1,134.74 1,756.88
Maximum Latency (ms) 1,139.62 1,766.31
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1,149.76 1,771.29

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 9,766.00 8,164.00
Queries per second 97,660.00 81,640.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.94 0.99
Average Latency (ms) 1.02 1.22
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.44 7.57
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.16 1.67

MySQL Write-only

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 12,445.00 10,122.00
Queries per second 124,450.00 101,220.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.62 0.72
Average Latency (ms) 0.8 0.99
Maximum Latency (ms) 9.27 8.81
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.08 1.37

MySQL Read/Write

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 5,049.00 3,490.00
Queries per second 50,490.00 34,900.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.67 1.98
Average Latency (ms) 1.98 2.86
Maximum Latency (ms) 9.4 12.95
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.43 4.03

MySQL INSERT

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 21,580.00 15,691.00
Queries per second 215,800.00 156,910.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.36 0.42
Average Latency (ms) 0.46 0.63
Maximum Latency (ms) 4.92 6.6
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.56 0.87

MySQL Bulk INSERT

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 1,900,092.00 1,084,592.00
Queries per second 19,000,920.00 10,845,920.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.01 0.01
Maximum Latency (ms) 240.35 581.84
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 210,450.00 225,553.00
Queries per second 2,104,500.00 2,255,530.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.05 0.04
Maximum Latency (ms) 0.97 1.59
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.06 0.07

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 8,142.00 5,528.00
Queries per second 81,420.00 55,280.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.37 0.64
Average Latency (ms) 1.23 1.81
Maximum Latency (ms) 3.35 5.91
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.86 2.52

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 11,378.00 7,887.00
Queries per second 113,780.00 78,870.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.29 0.41
Average Latency (ms) 0.88 1.27
Maximum Latency (ms) 6.18 7.06
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.14 1.89

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 21,383.00 16,393.00
Queries per second 213,830.00 163,930.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.37 0.42
Average Latency (ms) 0.47 0.61
Maximum Latency (ms) 4.39 5.96
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.62 0.84

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 21,598.00 17,497.00
Queries per second 215,980.00 174,970.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.36 0.4
Average Latency (ms) 0.46 0.57
Maximum Latency (ms) 11.24 4.42
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.62 0.74

MySQL DELETE

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 156,197.00 145,609.00
Queries per second 1,561,970.00 1,456,090.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.03
Average Latency (ms) 0.06 0.07
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.53 4.46
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.1 0.12

Redis

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second 51,098.62 64,892.93
PING_MBULK per Second 50,890.59 69,108.50
SET per Second 50,632.91 69,735.01
GET per Second 50,813.01 70,821.53
INCR per Second 50,632.91 63,371.36
LPUSH per Second 50,942.43 61,576.36
RPUSH per Second 51,020.41 64,808.82
LPOP per Second 51,229.51 61,842.92
RPOP per Second 51,493.30 61,312.08
SADD per Second 51,840.33 63,411.54
HSET per Second 52,301.26 63,331.22
SPOP per Second 52,410.90 63,371.36
ZADD per Second 51,921.08 63,979.53
ZPOPMIN per Second 51,948.05 65,231.57
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 35,410.77 36,456.43
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 20,881.19 17,639.79
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 15,010.51 11,498.22
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 12,975.22 9,613.54
MSET (10 keys) per Second 49,701.79 54,347.82

Redis Average Latency (ms)

Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
PING_INLINE0.600.49
PING_MBULK0.590.46
SET0.600.46
GET0.600.45
INCR0.600.51
LPUSH0.600.52
RPUSH0.600.50
LPOP0.600.52
RPOP0.600.53
SADD0.590.50
HSET0.590.51
SPOP0.590.50
ZADD0.600.50
ZPOPMIN0.590.49
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)0.890.92
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)1.541.83
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)2.162.82
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)2.423.27
MSET (10 keys)0.660.72

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

The High Performance Intel (2 GB) instance from Vultr outperforms the High Frequency Intel (1 GB) in all major benchmarks, especially in Redis operations where the RPS rates are significantly higher, for example reaching 69,735 RPS for SET compared to 50,633 RPS, and MySQL bulk insert TPS stands at 108,353 against 188,841. For those needing higher throughput and lower latency for CPU-intensive or memory-intensive tasks, the High Performance Intel (2 GB) is the clear winner.

From the friendly human:

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Providers & pricing

Vultr overviewVultr High Frequency Intel (1 GB) pricing Vultr High Performance Intel (2 GB) pricing

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