DigitalOcean Premium AMD (1 GB) vs. UpCloud Balanced (1 GB)
Same showdown, different day. Today I've got brand new instances from DigitalOcean and UpCloud and ran some benchmarks. All instances were spun up with Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 and were created in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Without further ado, here's the results.
Overview
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Last Benchmarked
Sat, 01 Aug 2026 05:09:47 GMT
Thu, 09 Jul 2026 00:42:22 GMT
Linux Distro
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64
Kernel Version
7.0.0-27-generic
7.0.0-14-generic
MySQL Version
8.4.10-0ubuntu0.26.04.1
8.4.10-0ubuntu0.26.04.1
Redis Version
8.0.5
8.0.5
Location
New York, NY
New York, NY
Monthly Price
$7.00
€7.00
RAM (GB)
1
1
CPU Cores
1
1
Storage (TB)
25
25
Storage Type
NVMe
SSD
Transfer (TB)
1
1
Head-to-head
Category winners from the latest benchmarks.
Category
Winner
CPU (events/sec)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Memory (read MiB/s)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Disk I/O (MiB/s)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Redis (GET/sec)
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB)
Value (CPU events per $/mo)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) takes 4 of 5 categories.
CPU
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vendor
AuthenticAMD
AuthenticAMD
Model Name
DO-Premium-AMD
AMD EPYC 9575F 64-Core Processor
Clock Speed (MHz)
1,996.25
3,295.46
CPU Cache Size (KB)
512.00
512.00
BogoMips
3,992.49
6,590.91
Events per Second
1,324.09
5,281.40
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.64
0.17
Average Latency (ms)
0.75
0.19
Maximum Latency (ms)
3.68
5.63
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.81
0.21
Memory
Memory Read
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Operations per second
4,911,179.23
7,916,721.84
Mebibytes per second
4,796.07
7,731.17
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
0.42
0.56
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
Memory Write
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Operations per second
4,739,304.36
7,831,276.08
Mebibytes per second
4,628.23
7,647.73
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
0.68
0.33
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
File I/O
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Reads per Second
1,630.22
3,918.58
Writes per Second
1,086.81
2,612.35
Fsyncs per Second
3,484.79
8,362.41
Read Mebibytes per Second
25.47
61.23
Written Mebibytes per Second
16.98
40.82
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.16
0.07
Maximum Latency (ms)
7.68
56.19
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.54
0.2
Mutex
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms)
1,821.68
1,149.76
Average Latency (ms)
1,829.83
1,155.73
Maximum Latency (ms)
1,839.40
1,166.28
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1,836.24
1,170.65
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
6,287.00
0.00
Queries per second
62,870.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.22
0
Average Latency (ms)
1.59
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
139.73
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2
0
MySQL Write-only
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
3,386.00
0.00
Queries per second
33,860.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.26
0
Average Latency (ms)
2.95
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
31.46
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
5.37
0
MySQL Read/Write
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
1,941.00
0.00
Queries per second
19,410.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
2.76
0
Average Latency (ms)
5.15
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
56.29
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
8.28
0
MySQL INSERT
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
5,930.00
0.00
Queries per second
59,300.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.76
0
Average Latency (ms)
1.68
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
13.82
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
3.13
0
MySQL Bulk INSERT
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
1,259,342.00
0.00
Queries per second
12,593,420.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.01
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
524.15
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
MySQL SELECT
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
132,782.00
0.00
Queries per second
1,327,820.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.05
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.07
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
3.64
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.11
0
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
4,504.00
0.00
Queries per second
45,040.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.64
0
Average Latency (ms)
2.22
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
6.76
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
3.3
0
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
6,228.00
0.00
Queries per second
62,280.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.54
0
Average Latency (ms)
1.6
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
3.59
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.3
0
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
5,980.00
0.00
Queries per second
59,800.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.79
0
Average Latency (ms)
1.67
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
36.23
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.81
0
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
6,226.00
0.00
Queries per second
62,260.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.8
0
Average Latency (ms)
1.6
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
29.46
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.66
0
MySQL DELETE
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
57,959.00
0.00
Queries per second
579,590.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.05
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.17
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
98.1
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.08
0
Redis
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second
62,073.25
45,871.56
PING_MBULK per Second
63,451.78
57,870.37
SET per Second
64,516.13
60,096.15
GET per Second
65,189.05
59,347.18
INCR per Second
60,350.03
58,997.05
LPUSH per Second
60,168.47
60,024.01
RPUSH per Second
60,496.07
59,206.63
LPOP per Second
60,864.27
59,952.04
RPOP per Second
64,557.78
59,206.63
SADD per Second
59,630.29
58,754.41
HSET per Second
60,350.03
58,275.06
SPOP per Second
60,024.01
59,559.26
ZADD per Second
62,034.74
61,312.08
ZPOPMIN per Second
63,211.12
61,050.06
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second
33,967.39
45,392.64
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second
17,322.02
25,859.84
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second
10,161.57
16,854.88
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second
9,291.09
17,455.05
MSET (10 keys) per Second
52,548.61
49,578.58
Redis Average Latency (ms)
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
PING_INLINE
0.51
0.73
PING_MBULK
0.49
0.51
SET
0.49
0.51
GET
0.48
0.51
INCR
0.52
0.52
LPUSH
0.53
0.52
RPUSH
0.53
0.52
LPOP
0.52
0.52
RPOP
0.49
0.53
SADD
0.53
0.52
HSET
0.53
0.53
SPOP
0.52
0.50
ZADD
0.51
0.51
ZPOPMIN
0.50
0.50
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)
1.01
0.72
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)
1.94
1.24
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)
3.20
1.89
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)
3.48
1.79
MSET (10 keys)
0.75
0.71
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
The DigitalOcean Premium AMD instance outperforms the UpCloud Balanced instance in most benchmarks, especially in Redis operations where it achieves higher requests per second and lower latencies across various commands. The DigitalOcean instance also shows superior performance in CPU-intensive tasks and file I/O operations, making it a better choice for CPU-heavy and I/O-intensive workloads, whereas the UpCloud instance, despite its higher CPU speed, falls short in overall throughput and efficiency.
From the friendly human:
If you found this VPS Showdown helpful in your search for a hosting provider, please consider supporting my efforts by signing up using my referral links for DigitalOcean and UpCloud.
