When performance matters, DigitalOcean Premium Droplets offer a powerful solution for hosting modern web applications.
Available on the Cloudways Platform, these high-performance cloud servers are equipped with Intel Xeon processors, NVMe SSD storage, and high-speed DDR4 RAM, making them ideal for businesses, developers, and eCommerce platforms requiring speed and reliability.
Unlike standard cloud servers, Premium Droplets are designed to handle demanding workloads, faster content delivery, and improved database performance.
Whether you're launching a new WordPress site, scaling a Laravel application, or hosting an online store, these droplets provide a significant boost in server response and application speed.
In this article, you’ll learn what makes DigitalOcean Premium Droplets different from the Standard series, explore their benefits, check available data center locations, review benchmark comparisons, and follow step-by-step guides to launch or upgrade servers via the Cloudways interface.
Table of Contents:
DigitalOcean Premium Droplets at Cloudways
DigitalOcean Premium Droplets are now available on the Cloudways Platform, offering enhanced speed, performance, and reliability for your applications.
Backed by Intel CPUs and NVMe storage, these droplets are built to power demanding workloads with minimal latency.
Key Features and Availability of DigitalOcean Premium Droplets
Powered by Intel Xeon Processors with AI Acceleration
DigitalOcean Premium Droplets are a significant performance leap from the standard series, built for developers and businesses that demand speed, stability, and compute power.
These droplets are powered by 2nd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors with integrated AI acceleration and Intel mesh architecture, ensuring low latency and consistent high throughput under load.
With a base clock speed of 2.50 GHz and turbo frequencies reaching 3.90 GHz, these processors are well-suited for dynamic websites, eCommerce platforms, and large-scale PHP or WordPress applications.
Tip: Clock speed, measured in gigahertz (GHz), indicates how fast your processor can execute tasks. Higher GHz = faster performance.
Accelerated Memory and NVMe Storage (High-Speed DDR4 RAM and NVMe SSD Storage)
DigitalOcean Premium Droplets feature 2933 MHz DDR4 RAM, enabling quicker memory access and data transfer.
Combined with NVMe SSDs, which provide significantly faster read/write speeds than traditional SATA SSDs, these droplets dramatically reduce load times, improve caching, and enhance overall server performance.
Whether you're running a high-traffic CMS, database-driven app, or custom web application, these specs help optimize your stack for speed and scalability — without a high cost.
Global Data Center Availability
You can deploy DigitalOcean Premium Droplets from any of the following nine strategically located data centers, and Cloudways gives you complete freedom to develop and deploy on the ones closest to you and your clients for low latency.
DigitalOcean allows you to host closer to your users and reduce latency:
San Francisco
Toronto
New York
London
Amsterdam
Frankfurt
Bangalore
Singapore
Sydney
Note: Due to high demand, some server types or sizes may not be available in all regions. If that’s the case, consider deploying in a nearby region or cloning your server to one that supports the required configuration.
Important:
Some regions or server sizes may be temporarily unavailable due to high demand. DigitalOcean regularly replenishes its inventory, so availability may change soon.
If you're unable to scale within your current region, consider cloning your server to another region where your desired Premium Droplet is available.
Benchmark Performance: Standard vs Premium vs High-Frequency Servers
To help you understand the performance advantage of DigitalOcean Premium Droplets, we conducted benchmark tests comparing them against DigitalOcean Standard Droplets and Vultr High-Frequency servers. These tests focused on Page Response performance, which measures how well a server handles traffic under consistent load.
Server Types Tested:
DigitalOcean Standard — 1 GB, 2 GB, 4 GB, 8 GB
DigitalOcean Premium — 1 GB, 2 GB, 4 GB, 8 GB, 16 GB
Vultr High Frequency — 1 GB, 2 GB, 4 GB, 8 GB
Tip: Page Response represents the number of HTTP requests a server can process during sustained concurrent usage — a key metric for evaluating server responsiveness under load.
When to Choose Premium vs Standard Droplets
Consider Premium Droplets if:
Your application is resource-intensive, requiring maximum disk speed, computational power, or memory throughput
You're running in-memory databases or high-traffic applications where rapid latency response is critical
Your workload demands consistent high performance Standard Droplets may be sufficient if:
You are more cost-conscious and your application doesn't require top-tier hardware
Your workload consists of static websites or smaller applications with lighter traffic demands
Tip: Page Response represents the number of HTTP requests a server can process during sustained concurrent usage — a key metric for evaluating server responsiveness under load.
Test Environment & Conditions
To ensure fairness and consistency, all machines were tested under identical conditions:
Server Region | Toronto, Canada |
Server Application | WordPress |
Test Duration | 1 Minute |
Concurrent Clients | 1-250 Client |
Load Test Algorithm | Maintain Load |
Page Response Comparison (With Varnish Cache Enabled)
With Varnish Cache enabled, all servers benefited from improved caching efficiency. The DigitalOcean Premium Droplets consistently handled a higher number of HTTP requests across most tiers — particularly in the 1 GB, 2 GB, and 8 GB configurations — outperforming their Standard counterparts.
While the Vultr High-Frequency 4 GB server slightly edged out others in that specific size, DigitalOcean Premium Droplets demonstrated more balanced and consistent performance across the board.
Tip: Enabling server-side caching like Varnish can significantly boost response time and reduce load on server resources — especially during traffic spikes.
Page Response Comparison (Without Varnish Cache)
In the absence of Varnish Cache, the number of handled requests dropped across all servers, as expected due to the lack of caching acceleration.
Even so, DigitalOcean Premium Droplets maintained strong performance in the 1 GB, 2 GB, and 8 GB tiers — efficiently processing more requests than both the Standard Droplets and most High-Frequency counterparts.
The Vultr High-Frequency 4 GB server was the top performer in this specific size, handling slightly more requests than its DigitalOcean Premium equivalent. However, overall, Premium Droplets continued to deliver more consistent results without caching.
Insight: Even without caching layers, Premium Droplets hold their ground thanks to NVMe storage and high clock-speed CPUs — ensuring performance doesn't degrade under pressure.
Launching a New Application On a DigitalOcean Premium Droplet
Step #1 — Accessing the Cloudways Platform:
Log in to your Cloudways Platform using your credentials.
From the top menu bar, open Servers.
Then, click Add Server.
Step #2 — Launching a New Server:
Select the application you want to deploy.
Name your application.
Next, type the name of your server.
Select your project.
Select DigitalOcean as an infrastructure provider.
Next, choose your desired server size.
Choose your server location from the list.
Finally, click Launch Now.
Tip: It is recommended to deploy your server on the data center closest to your clients to minimize the network latency.
That’s it! Your new DigitalOcean Premium Droplet will be deployed in a few minutes.
Tip:
If you are new to Cloudways and already have an existing website, request a managed migration from our support heroes, and experience the difference.
If you have a WordPress website to migrate, you can also use the Free Cloudways Migrator Plugin to migrate yourself.
Once your server and application(s) are created, then don’t forget to follow the take site live checklist to take your website online.
Upgrade an Existing Server to a New DigitalOcean Premium Droplet
If you use DigitalOcean already, you can easily scale up to a new DigitalOcean Premium Droplet using a vertical scaling feature. Else, if you use any other cloud partner and want to switch, you can clone your server.
Moving from the Existing DigitalOcean Server
You can scale up your current DigitalOcean instance to the latest Premium Droplet using the following steps:
Important:
We recommend taking an on-demand server backup before doing any scaling operation on your server; this will ensure you have a good restore point if you need to restore your applications’ previous versions.
The scaling operation will take your server offline while resources are being allocated to your server. The process should be lean and swift, yet it is good practice to scale during off-peak hours to minimize your website’s downtime effect.
Steps to Upgrade an Existing Server:
Log in to your Cloudways Platform using your credentials.
From the top menu bar, open Servers.
Then, choose your desired server to scale up.
Under Server Management, select Vertical Scaling.
Under server size, hover over different server sizes to get more information. Once decided, you can select that server size.
Finally, click Scale Now.
Important:
Please note that if you are scaling up in a region where your desired server is unavailable, then you can clone your server to a different region to get that machine.
7. You will be prompted with some warnings about the scaling process. Once you are ready, you can click Proceed.
It may take a few minutes to get your server up and running again with new specifications.
Swapping Your Current Server with a DigitalOcean Premium Droplet
Upgrading from other cloud providers to a new DigitalOcean Premium Droplet is possible by cloning the server.
Log in to your Cloudways Platform using your email address and password.
From the top menu bar, open Servers.
Then, select your desired server.
Click ⋮ and click Clone Server.
5. You will be prompted for the cloning process. Click Yes.
6. Select DigitalOcean as your infrastructure provider.
7. Next, select your desired server size.
8. Select your server location.
9. Finally, click the Clone Server.
Final Steps After Cloning Your Server
Once the cloning process is complete, your new DigitalOcean Premium Droplet will be deployed within minutes. Please note that cloning creates an exact copy of your website files and database, but it does not carry over any server-level configurations or platform settings from the original server.
After deployment:
Follow the Take Site Live Checklist to bring your site online.
Update your DNS records to point to the new server’s IP address.
FAQs
Can I upgrade from a Standard Droplet to a Premium one?
Yes, you can easily scale up to a new DigitalOcean Premium Droplet using a vertical scaling feature. This is particularly beneficial if your application has become more resource-intensive or you're experiencing performance bottlenecks with your current setup. Premium Droplets provide faster data handling for workloads with high transaction volumes and lower latency for applications that require rapid response times.
Will my IP address stay the same after cloning to a Premium Droplet?
No, the new cloned server will have a different IP address; therefore, you need to point your DNS records to the new server IP after the cloning process.
What should I do if the desired server size isn’t available in my region?
Server availability depends on DigitalOcean’s inventory. If a specific Premium Droplet is unavailable:
Choose a nearby region where it's available, or
Temporarily select another server size until your preferred one is restocked.
Quick Tip!
Try Cloudways Autonomous — our new Kubernetes-powered, autoscaling WordPress hosting solution that adapts to your traffic needs in real time. Learn More.
That’s it! We hope this article was useful.
Need Help?
If you need assistance, feel free to:
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Or create a support ticket anytime.
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