UpCloud Balanced (1 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Regular (1 GB)

My friend, I'm so glad you're here! Today I've spun up brand new instance from DigitalOcean and UpCloud and ran some benchmarks. All instances were spun up with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and were created in the New York area (or close to it). Let's get into the numbers.

Overview

	UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Last Benchmarked	Sun, 15 Jun 2025 09:00:46 GMT	Sun, 15 Jun 2025 09:00:28 GMT
Linux Distro	Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64	Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64
Kernel Version	6.8.0-31-generic	6.8.0-51-generic
MySQL Version	8.0.42-0ubuntu0.24.04.1	8.0.42-0ubuntu0.24.04.1
Redis Version	7.0.15	7.0.15
Location	New York, NY	New York, NY
Monthly Price	€7.00	$6.00
RAM (GB)	1	1
CPU Cores	1	1
Storage (TB)	25	25
Storage Type	SSD	SSD
Transfer (TB)	1	1

CPU

	UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Vendor	AuthenticAMD	GenuineIntel
Model Name	AMD EPYC 9575F 64-Core Processor	DO-Regular
Clock Speed (MHz)	3,295.42	2,494.14
CPU Cache Size (KB)	512.00	4,096.00
BogoMips	6,590.83	4,988.27
Events per Second	5,545.01	781.12
Minimum Latency (ms)	0.16	0.92
Average Latency (ms)	0.18	1.28
Maximum Latency (ms)	109.39	5.15
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	0.2	2

Memory Read

	UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Operations per second	8,116,315.82	3,900,667.66
Mebibytes per second	7,926.09	3,809.25
Minimum Latency (ms)	0	0
Average Latency (ms)	0	0
Maximum Latency (ms)	0.4	2.74
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	0	0

Memory Write

	UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Operations per second	8,051,777.24	3,761,798.48
Mebibytes per second	7,863.06	3,673.63
Minimum Latency (ms)	0	0
Average Latency (ms)	0	0
Maximum Latency (ms)	0.19	2.85
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	0	0

File I/O

	UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Reads per Second	3,490.45	1,948.26
Writes per Second	2,326.97	1,298.78
Fsyncs per Second	7,457.19	4,165.03
Read Mebibytes per Second	54.54	30.44
Written Mebibytes per Second	36.36	20.29
Minimum Latency (ms)	0	0
Average Latency (ms)	0.08	0.13
Maximum Latency (ms)	51.68	23.66
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	0.21	0.36

Mutex

	UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms)	1,116.12	2,456.66
Average Latency (ms)	1,120.39	2,486.28
Maximum Latency (ms)	1,126.25	2,508.28
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	1,129.24	2,493.86

MySQL Read-only

	UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second	11.00	2,813.00
Queries per second	110.00	28,130.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	904.19	1.61
Average Latency (ms)	994.07	3.55
Maximum Latency (ms)	1088.66	26.05
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	1089.3	6.09

MySQL Write-only

	UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second	6,076.00	2,303.00
Queries per second	60,760.00	23,030.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	0.59	1.57
Average Latency (ms)	1.64	4.33
Maximum Latency (ms)	89.64	26.31
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	2.81	8.13

MySQL Read/Write

	UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second	463.00	759.00
Queries per second	4,630.00	7,590.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	1.37	5.43
Average Latency (ms)	21.75	13.17
Maximum Latency (ms)	189.8	44.46
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	99.33	23.1

MySQL INSERT

	UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second	8,199.00	4,405.00
Queries per second	81,990.00	44,050.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	0.43	0.86
Average Latency (ms)	1.22	2.26
Maximum Latency (ms)	106.22	23.49
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	1.86	3.96

MySQL Bulk INSERT

	UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second	2,997,682.00	835,750.00
Queries per second	29,976,820.00	8,357,500.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	0	0
Average Latency (ms)	0	0.01
Maximum Latency (ms)	235.58	554.15
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	0	0

MySQL SELECT

	UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second	707,700.00	87,090.00
Queries per second	7,077,000.00	870,900.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	0.01	0.04
Average Latency (ms)	0.01	0.11
Maximum Latency (ms)	18.73	13.78
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	0.02	0.28

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

	UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second	336.00	82.00
Queries per second	3,360.00	820.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	13.73	62.94
Average Latency (ms)	29.76	122.64
Maximum Latency (ms)	90.9	189.27
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	41.1	164.45

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

	UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second	14,920.00	3,110.00
Queries per second	149,200.00	31,100.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	0.2	1.06
Average Latency (ms)	0.67	3.21
Maximum Latency (ms)	8.77	18.7
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	0.94	4.74

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

	UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second	6,759.00	3,203.00
Queries per second	67,590.00	32,030.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	0.42	0.92
Average Latency (ms)	1.48	3.12
Maximum Latency (ms)	79.67	36.64
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	2.57	5.99

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

	UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second	9,005.00	5,254.00
Queries per second	90,050.00	52,540.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	0.42	0.81
Average Latency (ms)	1.11	1.9
Maximum Latency (ms)	107.8	21.28
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	1.67	3.02

MySQL DELETE

	UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second	9,411.00	5,710.00
Queries per second	94,110.00	57,100.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	0.01	0.05
Average Latency (ms)	1.06	1.75
Maximum Latency (ms)	115.82	40.56
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	2.03	3.43

Redis

	UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second	191,570.88	31,645.57
PING_MBULK per Second	188,679.25	32,425.42
SET per Second	178,890.88	32,690.42
GET per Second	185,185.17	35,919.54
INCR per Second	195,694.72	32,776.14
LPUSH per Second	186,915.88	31,036.62
RPUSH per Second	191,570.88	30,349.01
LPOP per Second	193,798.45	30,721.96
RPOP per Second	190,476.20	30,193.24
SADD per Second	198,019.80	35,310.73
HSET per Second	191,570.88	35,855.14
SPOP per Second	189,393.94	35,174.11
ZADD per Second	189,393.94	33,944.33
ZPOPMIN per Second	199,203.20	35,026.27
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second	104,602.52	19,102.20
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second	45,766.59	8,449.51
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second	32,637.08	6,010.34
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second	25,125.63	4,945.60
MSET (10 keys) per Second	168,634.06	27,956.39

Redis Average Latency (ms)

	UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)	DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
PING_INLINE	0.17	1.04
PING_MBULK	0.17	1.01
SET	0.19	1.01
GET	0.18	0.92
INCR	0.17	1.01
LPUSH	0.18	1.07
RPUSH	0.17	1.08
LPOP	0.17	1.09
RPOP	0.18	1.10
SADD	0.17	0.94
HSET	0.17	0.93
SPOP	0.17	0.94
ZADD	0.18	0.98
ZPOPMIN	0.17	0.94
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)	0.35	1.90
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)	0.78	4.27
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)	1.10	5.92
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)	1.43	7.23
MSET (10 keys)	0.21	1.26

Conclusion

After analyzing the benchmark results from both DigitalOcean's Regular (1 GB) and UpCloud's Balanced (1 GB) instances, it's clear that UpCloud's instance outperforms DigitalOcean's in terms of raw processing power, as evidenced by higher RPS rates for Redis operations and superior CPU event handling. UpCloud's AMD EPYC processor provides significantly better performance in most benchmarks, especially in CPU-intensive tasks and memory operations. However, DigitalOcean's instance shows more consistent latency and slightly better file I/O performance. For developers needing high throughput and low latency for Redis operations or CPU-intensive workloads, UpCloud's Balanced (1 GB) is the better choice. Conversely, if slightly lower processing power but more consistent I/O performance is preferred, DigitalOcean's Regular (1 GB) might be more suitable.

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