Same showdown, different day. Today I've spun up brand new instance from DigitalOcean and UpCloud and ran my world famous suite of benchmarking scripts. All instances were running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and were created in the New York area (or close to it). Enough talk. Here's the data.
Overview
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores)
UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Last Benchmarked
Sun, 31 May 2026 20:00:52 GMT
Mon, 01 Jun 2026 17:00:52 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
€26.00
RAM (GB)
8
4
CPU Cores
4
2
Storage (TB)
160
80
Storage Type
NVMe
SSD
Transfer (TB)
5
4
CPU
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores)
UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores)
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
5,538.02
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.59
0.16
Average Latency (ms)
0.65
0.18
Maximum Latency (ms)
0.89
0.43
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.69
0.19
Memory
Memory Read
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores)
UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Operations per second
4,867,578.39
7,744,795.06
Mebibytes per second
4,753.49
7,563.28
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
0.19
0.11
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
Memory Write
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores)
UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Operations per second
4,347,879.44
7,915,291.33
Mebibytes per second
4,245.98
7,729.78
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
0.56
0.1
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
File I/O
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores)
UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Reads per Second
2,384.51
5,263.44
Writes per Second
1,589.67
3,508.96
Fsyncs per Second
5,095.64
11,231.28
Read Mebibytes per Second
37.26
82.24
Written Mebibytes per Second
24.84
54.83
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.11
0.05
Maximum Latency (ms)
9.42
30.56
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.58
0.19
Mutex
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores)
UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Minimum Latency (ms)
325.10
519.77
Average Latency (ms)
435.66
597.61
Maximum Latency (ms)
487.90
637.22
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
484.44
634.66
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores)
UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second
5,392.00
19,719.00
Queries per second
53,920.00
197,190.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.37
0.34
Average Latency (ms)
1.85
0.51
Maximum Latency (ms)
3
1.29
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.35
0.63
MySQL Write-only
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores)
UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second
3,296.00
6,768.00
Queries per second
32,960.00
67,680.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.47
0.63
Average Latency (ms)
3.03
1.48
Maximum Latency (ms)
19.45
50.87
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
4.41
2.14
MySQL Read/Write
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores)
UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second
1,930.00
4,707.00
Queries per second
19,300.00
47,070.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
3.41
1.08
Average Latency (ms)
5.18
2.12
Maximum Latency (ms)
26.77
37.62
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
6.55
2.97
MySQL INSERT
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores)
UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second
4,756.00
7,393.00
Queries per second
47,560.00
73,930.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.08
0.44
Average Latency (ms)
2.1
1.35
Maximum Latency (ms)
40.66
63.1
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
3.25
1.7
MySQL Bulk INSERT
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores)
UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second
1,434,092.00
3,356,342.00
Queries per second
14,340,920.00
33,563,420.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.01
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
418.16
151.04
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
MySQL SELECT
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores)
UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second
125,686.00
592,464.00
Queries per second
1,256,860.00
5,924,640.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.05
0.01
Average Latency (ms)
0.08
0.02
Maximum Latency (ms)
0.84
10.21
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.11
0.02
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores)
UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second
7,055.00
12,203.00
Queries per second
70,550.00
122,030.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.33
0.25
Average Latency (ms)
1.42
0.82
Maximum Latency (ms)
7.12
11.39
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.07
1.21
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores)
UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second
6,592.00
16,394.00
Queries per second
65,920.00
163,940.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.43
0.13
Average Latency (ms)
1.52
0.61
Maximum Latency (ms)
3.28
1.5
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.03
0.97
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores)
UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second
5,138.00
8,134.00
Queries per second
51,380.00
81,340.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.07
0.45
Average Latency (ms)
1.94
1.23
Maximum Latency (ms)
39.78
30.98
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.81
1.73
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores)
UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second
4,781.00
7,953.00
Queries per second
47,810.00
79,530.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.13
0.45
Average Latency (ms)
2.09
1.26
Maximum Latency (ms)
19.23
76.32
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
3.07
1.86
MySQL DELETE
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores)
UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second
41,513.00
245,730.00
Queries per second
415,130.00
2,457,300.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.05
0.01
Average Latency (ms)
0.24
0.04
Maximum Latency (ms)
11.7
112.01
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.67
0.04
Redis
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores)
UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores)
PING_INLINE per Second
62,073.25
210,084.03
PING_MBULK per Second
58,719.91
251,889.16
SET per Second
54,171.18
258,397.94
GET per Second
64,308.68
239,808.16
INCR per Second
55,648.30
268,096.53
LPUSH per Second
55,493.89
267,379.66
RPUSH per Second
52,938.06
263,157.91
LPOP per Second
62,539.09
272,479.56
RPOP per Second
66,269.05
274,725.28
SADD per Second
62,189.05
269,541.78
HSET per Second
55,157.20
246,305.42
SPOP per Second
54,674.69
256,410.27
ZADD per Second
55,035.77
252,525.25
ZPOPMIN per Second
55,035.77
247,524.75
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second
37,355.25
147,275.41
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second
21,715.53
59,136.61
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second
16,084.93
38,850.04
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second
14,990.26
38,461.54
MSET (10 keys) per Second
57,770.08
220,264.31
Redis Average Latency (ms)
DigitalOcean – Premium AMD (8 GB, 4 Cores)
UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores)
PING_INLINE
0.42
0.16
PING_MBULK
0.44
0.11
SET
0.48
0.11
GET
0.40
0.11
INCR
0.47
0.12
LPUSH
0.47
0.13
RPUSH
0.49
0.10
LPOP
0.42
0.11
RPOP
0.39
0.10
SADD
0.42
0.10
HSET
0.47
0.11
SPOP
0.47
0.10
ZADD
0.48
0.11
ZPOPMIN
0.47
0.11
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)
0.78
0.24
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)
1.26
0.48
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)
1.71
0.67
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)
1.91
0.72
MSET (10 keys)
0.47
0.18
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
After analyzing the benchmark results, it's clear that both VPS configurations exhibit strong performance but cater to different use cases. DigitalOcean's Premium AMD instance with 8GB RAM and 4 cores offers high throughput and low latency in Redis operations, making it ideal for CPU-intensive and memory-bound workloads. UpCloud's Balanced instance with 4GB RAM and 2 cores, while lower in raw performance metrics, shows excellent scalability and efficiency in Redis and MySQL operations, particularly in handling bulk data insertions and complex queries, which is ideal for database-driven applications requiring cost-effective solutions with robust file I/O and memory operations. Both instances show great thread fairness and low average latencies, but DigitalOcean excels in memory-bound tasks while UpCloud shines in database-heavy and I/O-intensive tasks.
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.