DigitalOcean Premium Intel (1 GB) vs. UpCloud Balanced (1 GB)
Fresh benchmarks coming at ya. Today I spun up fresh instances from DigitalOcean and UpCloud and ran some benchmarks. Each instance was running Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 and all resided in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Time to see who showed up today.
Overview
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Last Benchmarked
Sat, 01 Aug 2026 05:06:47 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
$8.00
€7.00
RAM (GB)
1
1
CPU Cores
1
1
Storage (TB)
35
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)
Tie
Value (CPU events per $/mo)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) takes 4 of 5 categories.
CPU
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vendor
GenuineIntel
AuthenticAMD
Model Name
DO-Premium-Intel
AMD EPYC 9575F 64-Core Processor
Clock Speed (MHz)
2,100.00
3,295.46
CPU Cache Size (KB)
4,096.00
512.00
BogoMips
4,199.99
6,590.91
Events per Second
2,013.81
5,281.40
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.48
0.17
Average Latency (ms)
0.5
0.19
Maximum Latency (ms)
0.98
5.63
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.53
0.21
Memory
Memory Read
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Operations per second
4,187,334.90
7,916,721.84
Mebibytes per second
4,089.19
7,731.17
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
1.12
0.56
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
Memory Write
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Operations per second
4,366,312.99
7,831,276.08
Mebibytes per second
4,263.98
7,647.73
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
0.45
0.33
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
File I/O
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Reads per Second
2,182.02
3,918.58
Writes per Second
1,454.68
2,612.35
Fsyncs per Second
4,663.66
8,362.41
Read Mebibytes per Second
34.09
61.23
Written Mebibytes per Second
22.73
40.82
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.12
0.07
Maximum Latency (ms)
19.91
56.19
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.42
0.2
Mutex
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms)
2,139.85
1,149.76
Average Latency (ms)
2,170.02
1,155.73
Maximum Latency (ms)
2,181.39
1,166.28
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2,198.52
1,170.65
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
8,593.00
0.00
Queries per second
85,930.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.98
0
Average Latency (ms)
1.16
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
20.7
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.61
0
MySQL Write-only
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
4,104.00
0.00
Queries per second
41,040.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.05
0
Average Latency (ms)
2.43
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
18.59
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
3.3
0
MySQL Read/Write
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
2,212.00
0.00
Queries per second
22,120.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
2.65
0
Average Latency (ms)
4.51
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
14.28
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
6.32
0
MySQL INSERT
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
6,241.00
0.00
Queries per second
62,410.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.63
0
Average Latency (ms)
1.6
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
25.45
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.66
0
MySQL Bulk INSERT
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
1,171,967.00
0.00
Queries per second
11,719,670.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.01
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
459.35
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
MySQL SELECT
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
234,610.00
0.00
Queries per second
2,346,100.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.04
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.04
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
1.37
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.06
0
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
5,162.00
0.00
Queries per second
51,620.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.57
0
Average Latency (ms)
1.93
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
4.87
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.81
0
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
7,424.00
0.00
Queries per second
74,240.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.49
0
Average Latency (ms)
1.35
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
4.12
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.89
0
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
7,010.00
0.00
Queries per second
70,100.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.62
0
Average Latency (ms)
1.42
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
37.55
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.3
0
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
6,487.00
0.00
Queries per second
64,870.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.6
0
Average Latency (ms)
1.54
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
13.73
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.35
0
MySQL DELETE
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
67,164.00
0.00
Queries per second
671,640.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.03
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.15
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
11.58
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.03
0
Redis
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second
68,728.52
45,871.56
PING_MBULK per Second
69,060.77
57,870.37
SET per Second
64,350.06
60,096.15
GET per Second
58,788.95
59,347.18
INCR per Second
66,137.57
58,997.05
LPUSH per Second
65,487.89
60,024.01
RPUSH per Second
68,259.38
59,206.63
LPOP per Second
66,755.67
59,952.04
RPOP per Second
66,800.27
59,206.63
SADD per Second
66,313.00
58,754.41
HSET per Second
66,533.60
58,275.06
SPOP per Second
69,979.01
59,559.26
ZADD per Second
60,938.45
61,312.08
ZPOPMIN per Second
63,411.54
61,050.06
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second
38,372.98
45,392.64
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second
18,378.97
25,859.84
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second
12,220.46
16,854.88
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second
11,273.96
17,455.05
MSET (10 keys) per Second
50,000.00
49,578.58
Redis Average Latency (ms)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
PING_INLINE
0.46
0.73
PING_MBULK
0.46
0.51
SET
0.50
0.51
GET
0.54
0.51
INCR
0.48
0.52
LPUSH
0.49
0.52
RPUSH
0.47
0.52
LPOP
0.48
0.52
RPOP
0.48
0.53
SADD
0.48
0.52
HSET
0.48
0.53
SPOP
0.45
0.50
ZADD
0.53
0.51
ZPOPMIN
0.50
0.50
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)
0.87
0.72
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)
1.75
1.24
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)
2.71
1.89
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)
2.89
1.79
MSET (10 keys)
0.80
0.71
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
The DigitalOcean Premium Intel (1 GB) instance outperforms the UpCloud Balanced (1 GB) instance in most benchmarks, particularly in Redis operations, with higher request per second (rps) and lower latency across various commands like SET, GET, LPUSH, and RPUSH. The DigitalOcean instance also excels in CPU metrics, showing higher events per second and lower average latency compared to the UpCloud instance. For users needing high CPU performance and low latency for database operations, the DigitalOcean instance is the better 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.
