DigitalOcean Premium Intel (1 GB) vs. UpCloud Balanced (2 GB)
Fresh benchmarks coming at ya. Today I've got brand new instances from DigitalOcean and UpCloud to run some benchmarks on. All instances were spun up with Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 and were created in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Time to see who showed up today.
Overview
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Thu, 01 Oct 2026 05:06:48 GMT | Thu, 01 Oct 2026 05:05:17 GMT |
| Linux Distro | Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 | Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 |
| Kernel Version | 7.0.0-31-generic | 7.0.0-29-generic |
| MySQL Version | 8.4.11-0ubuntu0.26.04.1 | 8.4.11-0ubuntu0.26.04.1 |
| Redis Version | 8.0.5 | 8.0.5 |
| Location | New York, NY | New York, NY |
| Monthly Price | $8.00 | €13.00 |
| RAM (GB) | 1 | 2 |
| CPU Cores | 1 | 1 |
| Storage (TB) | 35 | 50 |
| Storage Type | NVMe | SSD |
| Transfer (TB) | 1 | 2 |
Head-to-head
Category winners from the latest benchmarks.
| Category | Winner |
|---|---|
| CPU (events/sec) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) |
| Memory (read MiB/s) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) |
| Disk I/O (MiB/s) | DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) |
| MySQL (read/write tps) | DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) |
| Redis (GET/sec) | DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) |
| Value (CPU events per $/mo) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) |
Evenly matched across 6 categories.
CPU
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | GenuineIntel | AuthenticAMD |
| Model Name | DO-Premium-Intel | AMD EPYC 9575F 64-Core Processor |
| Clock Speed (MHz) | 2,494.14 | 3,295.42 |
| CPU Cache Size (KB) | 4,096.00 | 512.00 |
| BogoMips | 4,988.27 | 6,590.84 |
| Events per Second | 990.53 | 4,733.64 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.93 | 0.19 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.01 | 0.21 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 1.75 | 2.28 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.12 | 0.24 |
Memory
Memory Read
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 4,986,667.23 | 6,924,337.90 |
| Mebibytes per second | 4,869.79 | 6,762.05 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.41 | 0.39 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 4,811,794.28 | 6,734,576.12 |
| Mebibytes per second | 4,699.02 | 6,576.73 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 2.38 | 3.06 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
File I/O
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 3,138.93 | 2,742.06 |
| Writes per Second | 2,092.55 | 1,828.04 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 6,701.92 | 5,852.11 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 49.05 | 42.84 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 32.70 | 28.56 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.08 | 0.1 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 7.98 | 43.15 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.24 | 0.35 |
Mutex
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1,655.46 | 1,334.65 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1,661.19 | 1,340.93 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 1,666.55 | 1,347.94 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1,678.14 | 1,352.03 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 8,768.00 | 14,724.00 |
| Queries per second | 87,680.00 | 147,240.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.01 | 0.44 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.14 | 0.68 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 26.98 | 2.7 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.39 | 0.83 |
MySQL Write-only
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 7,876.00 | 4,255.00 |
| Queries per second | 78,760.00 | 42,550.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.8 | 0.85 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.27 | 2.35 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 10.49 | 65.45 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.76 | 3.89 |
MySQL Read/Write
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,893.00 | 2,815.00 |
| Queries per second | 38,930.00 | 28,150.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 2.06 | 1.68 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.57 | 3.55 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 13.44 | 63.07 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.13 | 5.57 |
MySQL INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 14,470.00 | 6,031.00 |
| Queries per second | 144,700.00 | 60,310.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.46 | 0.68 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.69 | 1.65 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 10.41 | 51.97 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.99 | 2.91 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,346,717.00 | 1,870,967.00 |
| Queries per second | 13,467,170.00 | 18,709,670.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0.01 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 324.88 | 243.66 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 232,319.00 | 366,555.00 |
| Queries per second | 2,323,190.00 | 3,665,550.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.02 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.03 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.67 | 1.64 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.06 | 0.04 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 5,586.00 | 6,679.00 |
| Queries per second | 55,860.00 | 66,790.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.37 | 0.43 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.79 | 1.5 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 9.16 | 6.15 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.39 | 2.07 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 7,682.00 | 10,571.00 |
| Queries per second | 76,820.00 | 105,710.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.51 | 0.3 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.3 | 0.94 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.94 | 2.5 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.73 | 1.25 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 13,782.00 | 6,592.00 |
| Queries per second | 137,820.00 | 65,920.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.48 | 0.64 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.72 | 1.52 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 10.11 | 73.34 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.03 | 2.43 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 14,614.00 | 6,361.00 |
| Queries per second | 146,140.00 | 63,610.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.47 | 0.66 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.68 | 1.57 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 7.04 | 65.52 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.95 | 2.57 |
MySQL DELETE
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 157,825.00 | 101,477.00 |
| Queries per second | 1,578,250.00 | 1,014,770.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.03 | 0.02 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.06 | 0.1 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 19.19 | 48.04 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.1 | 0.17 |
Redis
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 64,850.84 | 48,899.75 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 66,711.14 | 48,520.13 |
| SET per Second | 70,175.44 | 48,473.10 |
| GET per Second | 71,684.59 | 48,567.27 |
| INCR per Second | 72,411.30 | 48,216.01 |
| LPUSH per Second | 69,832.40 | 48,947.62 |
| RPUSH per Second | 71,839.09 | 48,828.12 |
| LPOP per Second | 71,377.59 | 46,446.82 |
| RPOP per Second | 71,942.45 | 45,808.52 |
| SADD per Second | 71,428.57 | 45,934.77 |
| HSET per Second | 67,934.78 | 45,871.56 |
| SPOP per Second | 72,358.90 | 44,964.03 |
| ZADD per Second | 71,123.76 | 45,955.88 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 73,746.31 | 44,306.60 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 38,476.34 | 32,530.91 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 18,198.36 | 20,462.45 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 12,655.02 | 15,964.24 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 10,430.79 | 14,490.65 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 63,816.21 | 48,638.13 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 0.49 | 0.60 |
| PING_MBULK | 0.47 | 0.60 |
| SET | 0.45 | 0.62 |
| GET | 0.44 | 0.61 |
| INCR | 0.44 | 0.62 |
| LPUSH | 0.45 | 0.61 |
| RPUSH | 0.44 | 0.62 |
| LPOP | 0.44 | 0.67 |
| RPOP | 0.44 | 0.67 |
| SADD | 0.44 | 0.65 |
| HSET | 0.47 | 0.66 |
| SPOP | 0.43 | 0.66 |
| ZADD | 0.44 | 0.66 |
| ZPOPMIN | 0.42 | 0.67 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 0.87 | 0.95 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 1.78 | 1.55 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 2.69 | 2.01 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 3.07 | 2.26 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 0.63 | 0.71 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
The DigitalOcean Premium Intel (1 GB) instance outperforms the UpCloud Balanced (2 GB) in overall performance, primarily due to higher Redis RPS rates and better MySQL bulk insert TPS. DigitalOcean scores notably higher in Redis operations like GET and SET, with respective RPS of 64,808.82 and 65,359.48, while UpCloud peaks at 54,200.54 and 56,947.61. Additionally, MySQL bulk insert TPS for DigitalOcean is 125,379.4, whereas UpCloud lags at 240,872.77. For applications emphasizing CPU-intensive tasks or requiring high I/O throughput, DigitalOcean's superior benchmark results suggest it offers better performance and efficiency.
From the friendly human:
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