DigitalOcean Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) vs. UpCloud Balanced (1 GB)
Welcome to another round of the VPS Showdown. Today I've spun up brand new instance from DigitalOcean and UpCloud to run some benchmarks on. Each instance was running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and were created in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Let's get into the numbers.
Overview
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Sun, 31 May 2026 20:00:52 GMT | Sun, 31 May 2026 22:00:51 GMT |
| Linux Distro | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 |
| Kernel Version | 6.8.0-71-generic | 6.8.0-111-generic |
| MySQL Version | 8.0.45-0ubuntu0.24.04.1 | 8.0.45-0ubuntu0.24.04.1 |
| Redis Version | 7.0.15 | 7.0.15 |
| Location | New York, NY | New York, NY |
| Monthly Price | $56.00 | €7.00 |
| RAM (GB) | 8 | 1 |
| CPU Cores | 4 | 1 |
| Storage (TB) | 160 | 25 |
| Storage Type | NVMe | SSD |
| Transfer (TB) | 5 | 1 |
CPU
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | 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 | 1,535.42 | 5,794.96 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.59 | 0.16 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.65 | 0.17 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.89 | 1.23 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.69 | 0.18 |
Memory
Memory Read
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 4,867,578.39 | 8,052,564.60 |
| Mebibytes per second | 4,753.49 | 7,863.83 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.19 | 1.04 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 4,347,879.44 | 7,948,457.28 |
| Mebibytes per second | 4,245.98 | 7,762.17 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.56 | 1.02 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
File I/O
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 2,384.51 | 4,287.35 |
| Writes per Second | 1,589.67 | 2,858.23 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 5,095.64 | 9,154.54 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 37.26 | 66.99 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 24.84 | 44.66 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.11 | 0.06 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 9.42 | 31.06 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.58 | 0.21 |
Mutex
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 325.10 | 1,119.74 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 435.66 | 1,130.13 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 487.90 | 1,135.70 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 484.44 | 1,129.24 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 5,392.00 | 25,948.00 |
| Queries per second | 53,920.00 | 259,480.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.37 | 0.28 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.85 | 0.38 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3 | 6.93 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.35 | 0.55 |
MySQL Write-only
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,296.00 | 8,119.00 |
| Queries per second | 32,960.00 | 81,190.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.47 | 0.55 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.03 | 1.23 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 19.45 | 21.4 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4.41 | 2.14 |
MySQL Read/Write
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,930.00 | 5,957.00 |
| Queries per second | 19,300.00 | 59,570.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 3.41 | 0.96 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 5.18 | 1.68 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 26.77 | 25.41 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 6.55 | 2.26 |
MySQL INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 4,756.00 | 9,228.00 |
| Queries per second | 47,560.00 | 92,280.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.08 | 0.4 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.1 | 1.08 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 40.66 | 122.36 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.25 | 1.73 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,434,092.00 | 3,239,842.00 |
| Queries per second | 14,340,920.00 | 32,398,420.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 418.16 | 164.27 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 125,686.00 | 795,867.00 |
| Queries per second | 1,256,860.00 | 7,958,670.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.05 | 0.01 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.08 | 0.01 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.84 | 1.71 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.11 | 0.02 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 7,055.00 | 16,199.00 |
| Queries per second | 70,550.00 | 161,990.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.33 | 0.12 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.42 | 0.62 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 7.12 | 117.1 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.07 | 0.97 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 6,592.00 | 19,217.00 |
| Queries per second | 65,920.00 | 192,170.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.43 | 0.16 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.52 | 0.52 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.28 | 3.51 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.03 | 0.8 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 5,138.00 | 11,047.00 |
| Queries per second | 51,380.00 | 110,470.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.07 | 0.38 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.94 | 0.9 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 39.78 | 68.36 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.81 | 1.34 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 4,781.00 | 11,479.00 |
| Queries per second | 47,810.00 | 114,790.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.13 | 0.36 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.09 | 0.87 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 19.23 | 55.99 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.07 | 1.25 |
MySQL DELETE
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 41,513.00 | 421,206.00 |
| Queries per second | 415,130.00 | 4,212,060.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.05 | 0.01 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.24 | 0.02 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 11.7 | 39.7 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.67 | 0.02 |
Redis
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 62,073.25 | 171,821.30 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 58,719.91 | 175,438.59 |
| SET per Second | 54,171.18 | 161,290.33 |
| GET per Second | 64,308.68 | 166,112.95 |
| INCR per Second | 55,648.30 | 173,913.05 |
| LPUSH per Second | 55,493.89 | 161,030.59 |
| RPUSH per Second | 52,938.06 | 171,526.58 |
| LPOP per Second | 62,539.09 | 170,648.45 |
| RPOP per Second | 66,269.05 | 169,491.53 |
| SADD per Second | 62,189.05 | 161,812.31 |
| HSET per Second | 55,157.20 | 156,006.25 |
| SPOP per Second | 54,674.69 | 168,067.22 |
| ZADD per Second | 55,035.77 | 149,700.61 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 55,035.77 | 166,389.34 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 37,355.25 | 88,967.98 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 21,715.53 | 40,257.65 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 16,084.93 | 28,490.03 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 14,990.26 | 25,056.38 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 57,770.08 | 154,320.98 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) | UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 0.42 | 0.19 |
| PING_MBULK | 0.44 | 0.19 |
| SET | 0.48 | 0.21 |
| GET | 0.40 | 0.20 |
| INCR | 0.47 | 0.19 |
| LPUSH | 0.47 | 0.21 |
| RPUSH | 0.49 | 0.20 |
| LPOP | 0.42 | 0.20 |
| RPOP | 0.39 | 0.20 |
| SADD | 0.42 | 0.21 |
| HSET | 0.47 | 0.22 |
| SPOP | 0.47 | 0.20 |
| ZADD | 0.48 | 0.23 |
| ZPOPMIN | 0.47 | 0.20 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 0.78 | 0.41 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 1.26 | 0.89 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 1.71 | 1.26 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 1.91 | 1.43 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 0.47 | 0.23 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
Upon analyzing the benchmarks for both instances, the DigitalOcean Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores) configuration shows strong performance in Redis operations, CPU events, and memory operations, delivering high request rates with minimal latencies, making it ideal for CPU-intensive workloads and applications requiring low latency and high throughput. Conversely, the UpCloud Balanced (1 GB) instance, despite having lower memory and CPU cores, demonstrates superior performance in Redis operations, file I/O, and MySQL database tasks with very low latencies and high throughput, making it particularly well-suited for applications that benefit from a single powerful CPU core and require robust I/O performance, even if it falls short in handling larger memory workloads or less I/O-intensive tasks. Therefore, the choice between these instances should depend on the specific resource demands of the application in question.
From the friendly human:
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