DigitalOcean Premium Intel (1 GB) vs. UpCloud Balanced (1 GB)
Same showdown, different day. Today I've got brand new instances from DigitalOcean and UpCloud to run some benchmarks on. Each instance was spun up with 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
Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:34:21 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)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Value (CPU events per $/mo)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) takes 5 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)
1,995.31
3,295.46
CPU Cache Size (KB)
4,096.00
512.00
BogoMips
3,990.62
6,590.91
Events per Second
1,569.73
5,281.40
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.5
0.17
Average Latency (ms)
0.63
0.19
Maximum Latency (ms)
8.89
5.63
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.01
0.21
Memory
Memory Read
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Operations per second
3,257,050.99
7,916,721.84
Mebibytes per second
3,180.71
7,731.17
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
2.04
0.56
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
Memory Write
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Operations per second
3,792,553.48
7,831,276.08
Mebibytes per second
3,703.67
7,647.73
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
0.49
0.33
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
File I/O
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Reads per Second
2,083.32
3,918.58
Writes per Second
1,388.85
2,612.35
Fsyncs per Second
4,445.91
8,362.41
Read Mebibytes per Second
32.55
61.23
Written Mebibytes per Second
21.70
40.82
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.13
0.07
Maximum Latency (ms)
4.6
56.19
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.43
0.2
Mutex
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms)
3,034.96
1,149.76
Average Latency (ms)
3,055.67
1,155.73
Maximum Latency (ms)
3,070.73
1,166.28
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
3,095.38
1,170.65
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
7,028.00
0.00
Queries per second
70,280.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.03
0
Average Latency (ms)
1.42
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
12.04
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2
0
MySQL Write-only
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
4,496.00
0.00
Queries per second
44,960.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.09
0
Average Latency (ms)
2.22
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
31.7
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
3.13
0
MySQL Read/Write
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
2,100.00
0.00
Queries per second
21,000.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
2.57
0
Average Latency (ms)
4.76
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
25.06
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
6.79
0
MySQL INSERT
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
6,996.00
0.00
Queries per second
69,960.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.64
0
Average Latency (ms)
1.42
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
47.81
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.48
0
MySQL Bulk INSERT
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
964,103.00
0.00
Queries per second
9,641,030.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.01
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
564.3
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
MySQL SELECT
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
194,738.00
0.00
Queries per second
1,947,380.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.04
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.05
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
1.75
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.08
0
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
3,978.00
0.00
Queries per second
39,780.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.71
0
Average Latency (ms)
2.51
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
7.86
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
4.18
0
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
6,387.00
0.00
Queries per second
63,870.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.54
0
Average Latency (ms)
1.56
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
10.51
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.61
0
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
4,587.00
0.00
Queries per second
45,870.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.73
0
Average Latency (ms)
2.18
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
49.21
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
4.49
0
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
7,624.00
0.00
Queries per second
76,240.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.6
0
Average Latency (ms)
1.31
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
27.61
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.18
0
MySQL DELETE
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
71,987.00
0.00
Queries per second
719,870.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.04
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.14
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
10.22
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.83
0
Redis
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second
50,581.69
45,871.56
PING_MBULK per Second
52,714.81
57,870.37
SET per Second
56,211.35
60,096.15
GET per Second
56,401.58
59,347.18
INCR per Second
59,101.65
58,997.05
LPUSH per Second
41,084.63
60,024.01
RPUSH per Second
41,186.16
59,206.63
LPOP per Second
42,643.92
59,952.04
RPOP per Second
44,642.86
59,206.63
SADD per Second
44,072.28
58,754.41
HSET per Second
46,663.56
58,275.06
SPOP per Second
47,505.94
59,559.26
ZADD per Second
41,407.87
61,312.08
ZPOPMIN per Second
34,459.00
61,050.06
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second
29,446.41
45,392.64
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second
13,106.16
25,859.84
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second
10,968.52
16,854.88
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second
8,992.00
17,455.05
MSET (10 keys) per Second
46,620.05
49,578.58
Redis Average Latency (ms)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
PING_INLINE
0.63
0.73
PING_MBULK
0.60
0.51
SET
0.57
0.51
GET
0.57
0.51
INCR
0.55
0.52
LPUSH
0.79
0.52
RPUSH
0.78
0.52
LPOP
0.77
0.52
RPOP
0.73
0.53
SADD
0.73
0.52
HSET
0.69
0.53
SPOP
0.67
0.50
ZADD
0.78
0.51
ZPOPMIN
0.91
0.50
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)
1.14
0.72
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)
2.48
1.24
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)
3.00
1.89
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)
3.51
1.79
MSET (10 keys)
0.85
0.71
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
DigitalOcean's Premium Intel instance outpaces UpCloud's Balanced instance in overall performance, particularly in Redis benchmark results. The DigitalOcean instance delivers higher request per second (rps) rates across various Redis operations such as GET (56401.6 vs. 59347.2) and SET (56211.4 vs. 60096.2) while maintaining lower latencies. Moreover, the CPU benchmark shows DigitalOcean's instance handling events per second at 1569.7 versus UpCloud's 5281.4, reflecting superior processing efficiency. For applications requiring high throughput and low latency, especially for CPU-intensive tasks, the DigitalOcean instance provides better performance.
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.
