DigitalOcean Premium AMD (2 GB) vs. UpCloud Balanced (1 GB)
Welcome to another round of the VPS Showdown. Today I've got brand new instances from DigitalOcean and UpCloud and ran some benchmarks. All instances were running Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 and were created in the New York area (or close to it). Let's get into the numbers.
Overview
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Last Benchmarked
Sat, 01 Aug 2026 05:11:17 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
$14.00
€7.00
RAM (GB)
2
1
CPU Cores
1
1
Storage (TB)
50
25
Storage Type
NVMe
SSD
Transfer (TB)
2
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 (2 GB)
Value (CPU events per $/mo)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) takes 4 of 5 categories.
CPU
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 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
3,992.50
6,590.91
Events per Second
726.05
5,281.40
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.64
0.17
Average Latency (ms)
1.37
0.19
Maximum Latency (ms)
12.5
5.63
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.57
0.21
Memory
Memory Read
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Operations per second
3,124,321.03
7,916,721.84
Mebibytes per second
3,051.09
7,731.17
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
3.2
0.56
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
Memory Write
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Operations per second
5,198,576.87
7,831,276.08
Mebibytes per second
5,076.74
7,647.73
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
2.33
0.33
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
File I/O
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Reads per Second
1,786.48
3,918.58
Writes per Second
1,190.99
2,612.35
Fsyncs per Second
3,820.35
8,362.41
Read Mebibytes per Second
27.91
61.23
Written Mebibytes per Second
18.61
40.82
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.15
0.07
Maximum Latency (ms)
15.23
56.19
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.54
0.2
Mutex
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms)
1,705.40
1,149.76
Average Latency (ms)
1,717.24
1,155.73
Maximum Latency (ms)
1,725.62
1,166.28
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1,739.68
1,170.65
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
7,218.00
0.00
Queries per second
72,180.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.2
0
Average Latency (ms)
1.38
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
2.84
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.67
0
MySQL Write-only
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
4,665.00
0.00
Queries per second
46,650.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.12
0
Average Latency (ms)
2.14
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
24.52
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
3.43
0
MySQL Read/Write
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
2,351.00
0.00
Queries per second
23,510.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
2.54
0
Average Latency (ms)
4.25
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
29.54
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
6.21
0
MySQL INSERT
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
7,702.00
0.00
Queries per second
77,020.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.73
0
Average Latency (ms)
1.3
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
39.5
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.22
0
MySQL Bulk INSERT
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
1,317,592.00
0.00
Queries per second
13,175,920.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.01
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
403.62
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
MySQL SELECT
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
161,910.00
0.00
Queries per second
1,619,100.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.05
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.06
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
1.19
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.09
0
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
5,673.00
0.00
Queries per second
56,730.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.55
0
Average Latency (ms)
1.76
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
5.81
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.48
0
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
7,133.00
0.00
Queries per second
71,330.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.45
0
Average Latency (ms)
1.4
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
5.08
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.89
0
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
7,358.00
0.00
Queries per second
73,580.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.76
0
Average Latency (ms)
1.36
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
32.59
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.22
0
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
7,941.00
0.00
Queries per second
79,410.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.73
0
Average Latency (ms)
1.26
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
24.84
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2
0
MySQL DELETE
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
67,880.00
0.00
Queries per second
678,800.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.05
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.15
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
18.82
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.94
0
Redis
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second
68,306.01
45,871.56
PING_MBULK per Second
67,294.75
57,870.37
SET per Second
66,979.23
60,096.15
GET per Second
68,352.70
59,347.18
INCR per Second
66,225.16
58,997.05
LPUSH per Second
67,024.13
60,024.01
RPUSH per Second
68,728.52
59,206.63
LPOP per Second
67,340.07
59,952.04
RPOP per Second
67,521.95
59,206.63
SADD per Second
69,589.42
58,754.41
HSET per Second
67,430.88
58,275.06
SPOP per Second
69,252.08
59,559.26
ZADD per Second
69,252.08
61,312.08
ZPOPMIN per Second
68,212.83
61,050.06
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second
36,023.05
45,392.64
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second
18,308.31
25,859.84
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second
12,436.26
16,854.88
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second
10,716.96
17,455.05
MSET (10 keys) per Second
55,679.29
49,578.58
Redis Average Latency (ms)
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
PING_INLINE
0.46
0.73
PING_MBULK
0.46
0.51
SET
0.48
0.51
GET
0.46
0.51
INCR
0.48
0.52
LPUSH
0.47
0.52
RPUSH
0.46
0.52
LPOP
0.48
0.52
RPOP
0.47
0.53
SADD
0.45
0.52
HSET
0.47
0.53
SPOP
0.45
0.50
ZADD
0.46
0.51
ZPOPMIN
0.46
0.50
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)
0.96
0.72
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)
1.83
1.24
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)
2.78
1.89
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)
3.09
1.79
MSET (10 keys)
0.73
0.71
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
The DigitalOcean Premium AMD instance outperforms the UpCloud Balanced instance in most benchmarks, particularly in Redis operations where it delivers significantly higher requests per second and lower latency for commands like GET, SET, and LPUSH, and also excels in CPU and file I/O benchmarks. While UpCloud's instance shows competitive file I/O speeds and memory operations, DigitalOcean's superior performance in key metrics like Redis RPS and CPU events per second suggests it is better suited for CPU-intensive workloads and applications requiring low latency database operations. For users prioritizing high throughput and low-latency database interactions, DigitalOcean's instance is the more favorable choice.
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.
