Switching it up for the last post of the year. While comparing DigitalOcean vs. Linode vs. Vultr is fun and all, I’ve been wondering how performance looks across a single provider. This month, I went with DigitalOcean, focusing on their regular CPU offering vs. their premium CPUs.
They offer both an Intel-based and AMD-based CPU, carrying a slight premium over the regular CPU. Since DigitalOcean doesn’t report on which CPU they use on the regular instances, it’s hard to say what those instances maybe running. Same deal with the premium offering, as they generically report which manufacturer, but not the actual chip set.
Even though I’m only focusing on DigitalOcean, I still spun up 3 instances with each CPU, and averaged the results where appropriate. Each instance was running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, all in the New York 1 data center.
Overview – DigitalOcean Regular vs. Premium AMD vs. Premium Intel
Linux Distro
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
Kernel Version
6.8.0
MySQL Version
8.0.40
Redis Version
7.0.15
DigitalOcean Regular
DigitalOcean Premium AMD
DigitalOcean Premium Intel
Location
New York 1
New York 1
New York 1
Monthly Price
$6/month
$7/month
$8/month
Hourly Price
$0.009/hour
$0.010/hour
$0.012/hour
RAM
1 GB
1 GB
1 GB
CPU
1 Core
1 Core
1 Core
Storage
25 GB
25 GB
25 GB
Storage Type
SSD
NVMe
NVMe
Transfer
1 TB
1 TB
1 TB
Transfer Overage
$0.01/GB
$0.01/GB
$0.01/GB
Weekly Backups
$1.20/month
$1.40/month
$1.60/month
Daily Backups
$1.80/month
$2.10/month
$2.40/month
CPU Info
Model Name
DigitalOcean Regular – All Instances
DO-Regular
DigitalOcean Premium AMD – All Instances
DO-Premium-AMD
DigitalOcean Premium Intel – All Instances
DO-Premium-Intel
DigitalOcean Regular
DigitalOcean Premium AMD
DigitalOcean Premium Intel
CPU MHz
2,294.61
2,300.00
2,327.86
Cache Size (KB)
4,096.00
512.00
4,096.00
BogoMips
4,589.21
4,599.99
4,625.72
CPU
DigitalOcean Regular
DigitalOcean Premium AMD
DigitalOcean Premium Intel
Events per Second
923.31
3,324.04
1,349.66
Minimum (ms)
0.97
0.26
0.76
Average (ms)
1.08
0.30
0.84
Maximum (ms)
2.62
10.90
3.00
Memory
Read
DigitalOcean Regular
DigitalOcean Premium AMD
DigitalOcean Premium Intel
Ops per Second
3,328,249.28
4,667,676.73
4,409,168.39
Minimum (ms)
0.00
0.00
0.00
Average (ms)
0.00
0.00
0.00
Maximum (ms)
1.66
0.52
0.59
Write
DigitalOcean Regular
DigitalOcean Premium AMD
DigitalOcean Premium Intel
Ops per Second
3,349,764.48
4,722,055.28
4,383,646.12
Minimum (ms)
0.00
0.00
0.00
Average (ms)
0.00
0.00
0.00
Maximum (ms)
0.37
1.84
0.34
File I/O
DigitalOcean Regular
DigitalOcean Premium AMD
DigitalOcean Premium Intel
Reads per Second
953.42
1,830.28
1,781.87
Writes per Second
635.59
1,220.16
1,187.92
Fsyncs per Second
2,039.46
3,913.15
3,809.56
Minimum (ms)
0.00
0.00
0.00
Average (ms)
0.31
0.14
0.15
Maximum (ms)
110.90
9.51
8.56
MySQL
Read Only
DigitalOcean Regular
DigitalOcean Premium AMD
DigitalOcean Premium Intel
Transactions per Second
3,662.00
4,703.33
5,276.67
Queries per Second
58,592.00
75,253.33
84,426.67
Minimum (ms)
1.33
1.41
1.15
Average (ms)
2.75
2.15
1.97
Maximum (ms)
29.90
13.74
21.53
Write Only
DigitalOcean Regular
DigitalOcean Premium AMD
DigitalOcean Premium Intel
Transactions per Second
1,170.67
2,047.67
2,552.33
Queries per Second
7,024.00
12,286.00
15,314.00
Minimum (ms)
3.62
1.91
1.58
Average (ms)
11.77
5.01
4.06
Maximum (ms)
191.92
58.42
27.56
Read Write
DigitalOcean Regular
DigitalOcean Premium AMD
DigitalOcean Premium Intel
Transactions per Second
746.00
1,064.00
1,555.67
Queries per Second
14,920.00
21,280.00
31,113.33
Minimum (ms)
7.43
4.56
3.70
Average (ms)
17.41
9.44
6.99
Maximum (ms)
182.61
52.82
31.22
Redis
DigitalOcean Regular
DigitalOcean Premium AMD
DigitalOcean Premium Intel
PING_INLINE
38,234.83
28,559.87
69,593.14
PING_MBULK
38,426.06
28,840.00
73,174.27
SET
39,523.88
29,662.45
69,460.81
GET
37,742.11
30,457.98
72,573.14
INCR
35,887.16
30,815.98
73,027.54
LPUSH
35,184.93
29,877.78
73,436.71
RPUSH
36,302.21
31,374.47
72,181.25
LPOP
34,955.55
30,359.88
68,417.50
RPOP
36,817.75
30,562.41
67,831.98
SADD
39,580.90
29,265.61
69,098.92
HSET
40,860.14
30,555.42
69,834.13
SPOP
41,450.57
32,027.88
73,744.31
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)
17,281.52
21,156.05
36,919.32
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)
7,214.53
11,755.75
15,610.84
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)
4,741.49
8,359.62
8,899.16
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)
3,928.93
7,039.80
8,412.98
MSET (10 keys)
28,530.38
28,132.03
53,612.55
Conclusion
I wasn’t really sure what to expect with this comparison, but I had a couple of theories going in. First theory was that AMD was going to out perform the others. The other theory is that Intel, being the most expensive offering, was going to be the best.
Turns out, both theories were somewhat accurate, with AMD and Intel cleaning house vs. the regular CPU. Of the premium offerings, like most of these comparisons, the results really depend on what you are looking to do with the server instances.
That said, for a buck or two more than the regular instances, it seems like a no brainer to go with a premium CPU. If nothing else, you end up getting NVMe storage instead of just a plain ol’ SSD.
As always, I do encourage you to run your own benchmarks and factor in your own use cases when making a decision on a hosting provider. If you did find this helpful in any way and are planning on signing up, please use one of my links below.
Next month I’m going to do the same thing, but with Vultr’s 4 different CPUs!
If you have found these posts informative and helpful in searching for a new hosting provider, please consider using one of the links below when signing up:
DigitalOcean, new accounts receive $200 in credit (good for 60 days)
Linode, new accounts receive $100 in credit (also good for 60 days)
Vultr, new accounts also receive $100 in credit (good for only 14 days)
UpCloud, new accounts receive €25 in credit (yes, that’s in Euros)
