When choosing a cloud provider, benchmarks speak louder than marketing claims. We ran the industry-standard YABS (Yet-Another-Bench-Script) on VPS instances from DanubeData and DigitalOcean to see how they stack up.
The Test Setup
We tested three configurations, all running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS in German datacenters:
- DanubeData DD Nano: 2 vCPU, 2GB RAM, 40GB NVMe - Falkenstein, Germany - €8.99/month
- DigitalOcean Premium AMD: 2 vCPU, 2GB RAM, 60GB SSD - Frankfurt, Germany - $21/month
- DigitalOcean CPU-Optimized Intel: 2 vCPU, 4GB RAM, 25GB SSD - Frankfurt, Germany - $42/month
DigitalOcean's CPU-Optimized tier costs nearly 5x more than DanubeData and promises dedicated CPU threads for compute-intensive workloads. Let's see if it delivers.
CPU Performance: Geekbench 6 Results
The results speak for themselves:
| Instance | Price | Single Core | Multi Core |
|---|---|---|---|
| DanubeData DD Nano | €8.99 | 2,762 | 4,913 |
| DO Premium AMD | $21 | 1,282 | 2,303 |
| DO CPU-Optimized Intel | $42 | 1,098 | 1,308 |
DanubeData's €8.99 instance delivers:
- +115% better single-core performance vs DO Premium AMD ($21)
- +151% better single-core performance vs DO CPU-Optimized Intel ($42)
- +275% better multi-core performance vs DO CPU-Optimized Intel ($42)
Yes, you read that correctly. DigitalOcean's "CPU-Optimized" tier running an Intel Xeon Platinum 8168 at 2.7 GHz gets crushed by DanubeData's AMD EPYC Genoa at 3.79 GHz—despite costing nearly 5x more.
Disk I/O: Local NVMe Dominance
Storage performance shows an even more dramatic difference:
| Test (Mixed R/W) | DanubeData | DO Premium AMD | DO CPU-Optimized |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4K Total | 329 MB/s (82K IOPS) | 202 MB/s (50K IOPS) | 237 MB/s (59K IOPS) |
| 64K Total | 3.26 GB/s (51K IOPS) | 1.19 GB/s (18K IOPS) | 330 MB/s (5K IOPS) |
| 512K Total | 3.21 GB/s | 1.08 GB/s | 452 MB/s |
| 1M Total | 2.57 GB/s | 632 MB/s | 642 MB/s |
DanubeData's local NVMe storage delivers:
- 10x faster 64K throughput vs DO CPU-Optimized (3.26 GB/s vs 330 MB/s)
- 7x faster 512K throughput vs DO CPU-Optimized (3.21 GB/s vs 452 MB/s)
- 4x faster 1M throughput vs DO Premium AMD (2.57 GB/s vs 632 MB/s)
Why Local NVMe Matters
Most cloud providers use network-attached storage (NAS/SAN) to share storage across physical hosts. While this enables features like live migration, it adds latency to every I/O operation. DanubeData uses direct-attached enterprise NVMe drives (Samsung PM9A3, Intel D7-P5520) connected via PCIe 4.0, eliminating network overhead entirely.
Network Performance
DigitalOcean shows higher raw network bandwidth in the iperf3 tests, with speeds up to 16 Gbits/sec receive to nearby locations. DanubeData's network caps at around 930 Mbits/sec. However, consider that:
- 1 Gbps is sufficient for the vast majority of workloads
- DanubeData's internal traffic between VPS, databases, and caches is free and sub-millisecond within the same namespace
- For bandwidth-intensive applications, the focus should be on your actual requirements
The Hardware Comparison
| Specification | DanubeData | DO Premium AMD | DO CPU-Optimized |
|---|---|---|---|
| Processor | AMD EPYC Genoa (Zen4) | DO-Premium-AMD | Xeon Platinum 8168 |
| Clock Speed | 3,792 MHz | 2,299 MHz | 2,693 MHz |
| Architecture | Zen4 (2022) | Unknown | Skylake (2017) |
| Storage Type | Local NVMe (PCIe 4.0) | Network SSD | Network SSD |
| Memory | DDR5 | DDR4 | DDR4 |
| YABS Runtime | 8 min 53 sec | 11 min 36 sec | 13 min 48 sec |
DigitalOcean's "CPU-Optimized" tier runs on Intel Xeon Platinum 8168 processors from 2017—that's 5-year-old silicon at 2025 prices. DanubeData runs AMD EPYC Genoa, the latest generation of datacenter processors.
Price-Performance: The Complete Picture
| Metric | DanubeData | DO Premium AMD | DO CPU-Optimized |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly Price | €8.99 | $21 | $42 |
| Geekbench Single-Core | 2,762 | 1,282 | 1,098 |
| Points per Dollar* | ~280 | 61 | 26 |
*DanubeData converted at ~€1 = $1.05 for comparison
DanubeData delivers:
- 4.6x better price-performance than DO Premium AMD
- 10.8x better price-performance than DO CPU-Optimized Intel
What This Means for Your Workloads
- Databases: Up to 10x faster disk I/O means faster queries, quicker backups, and better transaction throughput
- Compilation & Build: 2-3x CPU performance cuts build times dramatically
- Web Applications: Faster response times and higher concurrency
- Data Processing: Process datasets faster with modern Zen4 architecture
- Cost Efficiency: Get better performance while saving up to 79% on monthly costs
Reproducible Results
These benchmarks are fully reproducible. Spin up a DanubeData VPS and run the test yourself:
curl -sL yabs.sh | bashFull Geekbench results:
- DanubeData DD Nano - Geekbench Result
- DigitalOcean Premium AMD - Geekbench Result
- DigitalOcean CPU-Optimized Intel - Geekbench Result
The Bottom Line
DigitalOcean's "CPU-Optimized" tier at $42/month runs on 2017-era Intel Xeon processors and gets outperformed by DanubeData's €8.99 entry-level VPS by a factor of 2.5x in CPU benchmarks and up to 10x in storage throughput.
This isn't about minor optimizations—it's about running modern hardware. AMD EPYC Genoa (Zen4) with DDR5 and local NVMe storage simply operates in a different performance class than legacy infrastructure.
Ready to experience the difference? Deploy your first VPS and run the benchmarks yourself.