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DigitalOcean Premium Intel (1 GB) vs. UpCloud Balanced (2 GB)

vs.

Fresh benchmarks coming at ya. Today I spun up fresh instances from DigitalOcean and UpCloud to run some benchmarks on. All instances were spun up with Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 and all resided in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Without further ado, here's the results.

Overview

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Last Benchmarked Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:34:21 GMT Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:32:51 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 €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.

CategoryWinner
CPU (events/sec)UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Memory (read MiB/s)UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Disk I/O (MiB/s)UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
MySQL (read/write tps)UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Redis (GET/sec)DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB)
Value (CPU events per $/mo)UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) takes 5 of 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) 1,995.31 3,295.48
CPU Cache Size (KB) 4,096.00 512.00
BogoMips 3,990.62 6,590.95
Events per Second 1,569.73 4,956.10
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.5 0.18
Average Latency (ms) 0.63 0.2
Maximum Latency (ms) 8.89 2.23
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.01 0.21

Memory

Memory Read

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Operations per second 3,257,050.99 7,348,809.99
Mebibytes per second 3,180.71 7,176.57
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 2.04 0.4
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Operations per second 3,792,553.48 7,078,785.07
Mebibytes per second 3,703.67 6,912.88
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 0.49 1.2
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Reads per Second 2,083.32 3,766.66
Writes per Second 1,388.85 2,511.11
Fsyncs per Second 4,445.91 8,036.14
Read Mebibytes per Second 32.55 58.85
Written Mebibytes per Second 21.70 39.24
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.13 0.07
Maximum Latency (ms) 4.6 19.19
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.43 0.24

Mutex

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms) 3,034.96 1,248.77
Average Latency (ms) 3,055.67 1,256.62
Maximum Latency (ms) 3,070.73 1,260.30
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3,095.38 1,258.08

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second 7,028.00 16,759.00
Queries per second 70,280.00 167,590.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.03 0.41
Average Latency (ms) 1.42 0.6
Maximum Latency (ms) 12.04 2.26
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2 0.75

MySQL Write-only

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second 4,496.00 6,115.00
Queries per second 44,960.00 61,150.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.09 0.73
Average Latency (ms) 2.22 1.63
Maximum Latency (ms) 31.7 30.18
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.13 2.76

MySQL Read/Write

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second 2,100.00 4,692.00
Queries per second 21,000.00 46,920.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 2.57 1.24
Average Latency (ms) 4.76 2.13
Maximum Latency (ms) 25.06 23.43
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 6.79 2.86

MySQL INSERT

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second 6,996.00 8,886.00
Queries per second 69,960.00 88,860.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.64 0.5
Average Latency (ms) 1.42 1.12
Maximum Latency (ms) 47.81 26.84
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.48 1.93

MySQL Bulk INSERT

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second 964,103.00 2,278,717.00
Queries per second 9,641,030.00 22,787,170.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.01 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 564.3 236.89
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second 194,738.00 425,431.00
Queries per second 1,947,380.00 4,254,310.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.02
Average Latency (ms) 0.05 0.02
Maximum Latency (ms) 1.75 1.3
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.08 0.03

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second 3,978.00 9,684.00
Queries per second 39,780.00 96,840.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.71 0.29
Average Latency (ms) 2.51 1.03
Maximum Latency (ms) 7.86 5.24
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 4.18 1.37

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second 6,387.00 15,489.00
Queries per second 63,870.00 154,890.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.54 0.15
Average Latency (ms) 1.56 0.64
Maximum Latency (ms) 10.51 2.79
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.61 0.99

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second 4,587.00 10,759.00
Queries per second 45,870.00 107,590.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.73 0.46
Average Latency (ms) 2.18 0.93
Maximum Latency (ms) 49.21 34.7
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 4.49 1.39

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second 7,624.00 11,023.00
Queries per second 76,240.00 110,230.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.6 0.45
Average Latency (ms) 1.31 0.91
Maximum Latency (ms) 27.61 33.4
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.18 1.32

MySQL DELETE

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second 71,987.00 212,798.00
Queries per second 719,870.00 2,127,980.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.02
Average Latency (ms) 0.14 0.05
Maximum Latency (ms) 10.22 19.8
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.83 0.05

Redis

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second 50,581.69 55,126.79
PING_MBULK per Second 52,714.81 54,794.52
SET per Second 56,211.35 55,710.31
GET per Second 56,401.58 55,340.34
INCR per Second 59,101.65 54,734.54
LPUSH per Second 41,084.63 52,994.17
RPUSH per Second 41,186.16 56,689.34
LPOP per Second 42,643.92 57,240.98
RPOP per Second 44,642.86 57,110.22
SADD per Second 44,072.28 55,401.66
HSET per Second 46,663.56 55,218.11
SPOP per Second 47,505.94 55,524.71
ZADD per Second 41,407.87 56,561.09
ZPOPMIN per Second 34,459.00 53,191.49
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 29,446.41 45,998.16
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 13,106.16 24,987.51
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 10,968.52 18,031.01
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 8,992.00 16,369.29
MSET (10 keys) per Second 46,620.05 54,884.74

Redis Average Latency (ms)

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
PING_INLINE0.630.54
PING_MBULK0.600.53
SET0.570.55
GET0.570.55
INCR0.550.56
LPUSH0.790.58
RPUSH0.780.54
LPOP0.770.54
RPOP0.730.54
SADD0.730.55
HSET0.690.56
SPOP0.670.54
ZADD0.780.55
ZPOPMIN0.910.56
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)1.140.71
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)2.481.29
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)3.001.77
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)3.512.06
MSET (10 keys)0.850.65

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

The DigitalOcean Premium Intel instance outperforms the UpCloud Balanced instance across most benchmarks, especially in Redis operations and MySQL bulk insert, with notably higher requests per second and lower average latency. For example, the DigitalOcean instance achieves 56,401.58 RPS for GET operations versus UpCloud's 55,340.34 RPS, and for MySQL bulk insert, DigitalOcean scores 92,686.57 TPS compared to UpCloud's 226,686.27 TPS. Opt for the DigitalOcean instance if you prioritize CPU-intensive tasks and high transactional throughput.

From the friendly human:

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Related comparisons

vs. DigitalOcean Regular (1 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Regular (1 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Regular (2 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Regular (2 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Premium Intel (2 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Premium AMD (1 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Premium Intel (2 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Premium AMD (2 GB)