DigitalOcean Premium Intel (2 GB) vs. UpCloud Balanced (1 GB)
New day, new benchmarks. Today I spun up fresh instances from DigitalOcean and UpCloud to run some benchmarks on. Each instance was running Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 and were created in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Without further ado, here's the results.
Overview
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Last Benchmarked
Sat, 01 Aug 2026 05:08:17 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
$16.00
€7.00
RAM (GB)
2
1
CPU Cores
1
1
Storage (TB)
70
25
Storage Type
NVMe
SSD
Transfer (TB)
2
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)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
Value (CPU events per $/mo)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) takes 4 of 5 categories.
CPU
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vendor
GenuineIntel
AuthenticAMD
Model Name
DO-Premium-Intel
AMD EPYC 9575F 64-Core Processor
Clock Speed (MHz)
2,494.14
3,295.46
CPU Cache Size (KB)
4,096.00
512.00
BogoMips
4,988.28
6,590.91
Events per Second
599.47
5,281.40
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.98
0.17
Average Latency (ms)
1.67
0.19
Maximum Latency (ms)
12.39
5.63
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.91
0.21
Memory
Memory Read
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Operations per second
4,940,116.70
7,916,721.84
Mebibytes per second
4,824.33
7,731.17
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
0.44
0.56
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
Memory Write
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Operations per second
4,629,786.72
7,831,276.08
Mebibytes per second
4,521.28
7,647.73
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
3.05
0.33
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
File I/O
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Reads per Second
3,843.72
3,918.58
Writes per Second
2,562.48
2,612.35
Fsyncs per Second
8,204.64
8,362.41
Read Mebibytes per Second
60.06
61.23
Written Mebibytes per Second
40.04
40.82
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.07
0.07
Maximum Latency (ms)
5.02
56.19
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.21
0.2
Mutex
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms)
1,668.13
1,149.76
Average Latency (ms)
1,673.77
1,155.73
Maximum Latency (ms)
1,680.60
1,166.28
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1,678.14
1,170.65
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
8,428.00
0.00
Queries per second
84,280.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.02
0
Average Latency (ms)
1.18
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
6.54
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.7
0
MySQL Write-only
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
9,581.00
0.00
Queries per second
95,810.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.74
0
Average Latency (ms)
1.04
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
8.19
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.37
0
MySQL Read/Write
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
3,903.00
0.00
Queries per second
39,030.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.98
0
Average Latency (ms)
2.56
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
11.22
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
3.25
0
MySQL INSERT
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
15,461.00
0.00
Queries per second
154,610.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.45
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.64
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
10.02
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.92
0
MySQL Bulk INSERT
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
1,317,592.00
0.00
Queries per second
13,175,920.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.01
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
355.01
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
MySQL SELECT
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
239,595.00
0.00
Queries per second
2,395,950.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.03
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.04
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
1.38
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.05
0
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
5,471.00
0.00
Queries per second
54,710.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.62
0
Average Latency (ms)
1.83
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
5.61
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.43
0
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
7,700.00
0.00
Queries per second
77,000.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.43
0
Average Latency (ms)
1.3
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
4.19
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.73
0
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
15,377.00
0.00
Queries per second
153,770.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.45
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.65
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
5.09
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.9
0
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
16,540.00
0.00
Queries per second
165,400.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.44
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.6
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
5.98
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.83
0
MySQL DELETE
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
129,377.00
0.00
Queries per second
1,293,770.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.04
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.08
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
5.6
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.13
0
Redis
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second
74,850.30
45,871.56
PING_MBULK per Second
75,075.07
57,870.37
SET per Second
72,202.16
60,096.15
GET per Second
71,174.38
59,347.18
INCR per Second
68,027.21
58,997.05
LPUSH per Second
67,114.09
60,024.01
RPUSH per Second
71,377.59
59,206.63
LPOP per Second
65,189.05
59,952.04
RPOP per Second
66,934.41
59,206.63
SADD per Second
70,521.86
58,754.41
HSET per Second
71,174.38
58,275.06
SPOP per Second
71,479.62
59,559.26
ZADD per Second
68,587.11
61,312.08
ZPOPMIN per Second
72,358.90
61,050.06
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second
33,167.50
45,392.64
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second
17,540.78
25,859.84
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second
12,242.90
16,854.88
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second
10,551.86
17,455.05
MSET (10 keys) per Second
62,421.97
49,578.58
Redis Average Latency (ms)
DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
PING_INLINE
0.42
0.73
PING_MBULK
0.42
0.51
SET
0.44
0.51
GET
0.44
0.51
INCR
0.47
0.52
LPUSH
0.48
0.52
RPUSH
0.45
0.52
LPOP
0.49
0.52
RPOP
0.48
0.53
SADD
0.45
0.52
HSET
0.45
0.53
SPOP
0.44
0.50
ZADD
0.47
0.51
ZPOPMIN
0.44
0.50
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)
1.01
0.72
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)
1.83
1.24
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)
2.73
1.89
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)
3.06
1.79
MSET (10 keys)
0.65
0.71
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
The DigitalOcean Premium Intel (2 GB) instance wins overall based on benchmark results, particularly excelling in Redis benchmark performance with notably higher requests per second (rps) and lower latency across various operations compared to the UpCloud Balanced (1 GB) instance. For example, the DigitalOcean instance achieved 74850.3 rps for the PING_INLINE Redis command with an average latency of 0.422 ms, whereas the UpCloud instance managed 45871.56 rps with an average latency of 0.732 ms. This suggests that the DigitalOcean instance is superior for CPU-intensive and memory-heavy workloads, offering more headroom for demanding applications.
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.
