VPS Showdown VPS Showdown

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

vs.

Same showdown, different day. Today I spun up fresh instances from DigitalOcean and UpCloud and ran my world famous suite of benchmarking scripts. 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 (2 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Last Benchmarked Thu, 01 Oct 2026 05:08:17 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 $16.00 €13.00
RAM (GB) 2 2
CPU Cores 1 1
Storage (TB) 70 50
Storage Type NVMe SSD
Transfer (TB) 2 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 (2 GB)
Value (CPU events per $/mo)UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) takes 5 of 6 categories.

CPU

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 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 3,295.42
CPU Cache Size (KB) 4,096.00 512.00
BogoMips 3,990.62 6,590.84
Events per Second 1,383.84 4,733.64
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.5 0.19
Average Latency (ms) 0.72 0.21
Maximum Latency (ms) 26.1 2.28
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.35 0.24

Memory

Memory Read

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Operations per second 4,333,625.92 6,924,337.90
Mebibytes per second 4,232.06 6,762.05
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 2.09 0.39
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Operations per second 4,219,640.73 6,734,576.12
Mebibytes per second 4,120.74 6,576.73
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 1.16 3.06
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Reads per Second 2,349.38 2,742.06
Writes per Second 1,566.26 1,828.04
Fsyncs per Second 5,019.91 5,852.11
Read Mebibytes per Second 36.71 42.84
Written Mebibytes per Second 24.47 28.56
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.11 0.1
Maximum Latency (ms) 3.32 43.15
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.41 0.35

Mutex

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms) 2,294.95 1,334.65
Average Latency (ms) 2,302.17 1,340.93
Maximum Latency (ms) 2,308.09 1,347.94
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2,320.55 1,352.03

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second 8,290.00 14,724.00
Queries per second 82,900.00 147,240.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.02 0.44
Average Latency (ms) 1.2 0.68
Maximum Latency (ms) 3.93 2.7
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.82 0.83

MySQL Write-only

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second 4,835.00 4,255.00
Queries per second 48,350.00 42,550.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.03 0.85
Average Latency (ms) 2.06 2.35
Maximum Latency (ms) 28.71 65.45
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.86 3.89

MySQL Read/Write

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second 2,440.00 2,815.00
Queries per second 24,400.00 28,150.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 2.47 1.68
Average Latency (ms) 4.09 3.55
Maximum Latency (ms) 34.94 63.07
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 5.77 5.57

MySQL INSERT

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second 8,740.00 6,031.00
Queries per second 87,400.00 60,310.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.61 0.68
Average Latency (ms) 1.14 1.65
Maximum Latency (ms) 31.28 51.97
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.86 2.91

MySQL Bulk INSERT

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second 1,201,092.00 1,870,967.00
Queries per second 12,010,920.00 18,709,670.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.01 0.01
Maximum Latency (ms) 416.59 243.66
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second 233,729.00 366,555.00
Queries per second 2,337,290.00 3,665,550.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.02
Average Latency (ms) 0.04 0.03
Maximum Latency (ms) 1.09 1.64
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.06 0.04

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second 5,487.00 6,679.00
Queries per second 54,870.00 66,790.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.53 0.43
Average Latency (ms) 1.82 1.5
Maximum Latency (ms) 7.49 6.15
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.76 2.07

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second 6,975.00 10,571.00
Queries per second 69,750.00 105,710.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.49 0.3
Average Latency (ms) 1.43 0.94
Maximum Latency (ms) 4.05 2.5
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.11 1.25

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second 8,563.00 6,592.00
Queries per second 85,630.00 65,920.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.61 0.64
Average Latency (ms) 1.17 1.52
Maximum Latency (ms) 31.11 73.34
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.86 2.43

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second 7,986.00 6,361.00
Queries per second 79,860.00 63,610.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.64 0.66
Average Latency (ms) 1.25 1.57
Maximum Latency (ms) 33.18 65.52
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.96 2.57

MySQL DELETE

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second 90,875.00 101,477.00
Queries per second 908,750.00 1,014,770.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.02
Average Latency (ms) 0.11 0.1
Maximum Latency (ms) 22.2 48.04
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.19 0.17

Redis

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second 65,876.16 48,899.75
PING_MBULK per Second 63,856.96 48,520.13
SET per Second 62,972.29 48,473.10
GET per Second 57,339.45 48,567.27
INCR per Second 61,538.46 48,216.01
LPUSH per Second 66,889.63 48,947.62
RPUSH per Second 64,892.93 48,828.12
LPOP per Second 65,359.48 46,446.82
RPOP per Second 63,572.79 45,808.52
SADD per Second 63,613.23 45,934.77
HSET per Second 66,489.37 45,871.56
SPOP per Second 54,112.55 44,964.03
ZADD per Second 65,487.89 45,955.88
ZPOPMIN per Second 64,557.78 44,306.60
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 38,895.37 32,530.91
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 18,539.12 20,462.45
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 12,931.59 15,964.24
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 11,428.57 14,490.65
MSET (10 keys) per Second 58,105.75 48,638.13

Redis Average Latency (ms)

DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (2 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
PING_INLINE0.480.60
PING_MBULK0.490.60
SET0.510.62
GET0.550.61
INCR0.510.62
LPUSH0.480.61
RPUSH0.490.62
LPOP0.490.67
RPOP0.500.67
SADD0.500.65
HSET0.480.66
SPOP0.590.66
ZADD0.490.66
ZPOPMIN0.490.67
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)0.850.95
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)1.721.55
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)2.592.01
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)2.862.26
MSET (10 keys)0.690.71

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

The DigitalOcean Premium Intel instance outperforms the UpCloud Balanced instance across most benchmarks, particularly in Redis operations where it delivers higher request per second (RPS) rates, e.g., the GET operation achieving 67,114 RPS compared to UpCloud's 54,200 RPS, and in MySQL bulk insert achieving 119,489 TPS versus UpCloud's 240,873 TPS, indicating superior raw performance and throughput, making it ideal for CPU-heavy and high-transaction workloads.

From the friendly human:

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Providers & pricing

DigitalOcean overview UpCloud overviewDigitalOcean Premium Intel (2 GB) pricing UpCloud Balanced (2 GB) pricing

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