DigitalOcean Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) vs. UpCloud Balanced (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Fresh benchmarks coming at ya. Today I've spun up some brand new instance from DigitalOcean and UpCloud and ran some benchmarks. Each instance was running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and all resided in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Let's get into the numbers.
Overview
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Tue, 02 Jun 2026 06:00:52 GMT | Tue, 02 Jun 2026 00:00:52 GMT |
| Linux Distro | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 |
| Kernel Version | 6.8.0-71-generic | 6.8.0-111-generic |
| MySQL Version | 8.0.45-0ubuntu0.24.04.1 | 8.0.45-0ubuntu0.24.04.1 |
| Redis Version | 7.0.15 | 7.0.15 |
| Location | New York, NY | New York, NY |
| Monthly Price | $64.00 | €18.00 |
| RAM (GB) | 8 | 2 |
| CPU Cores | 4 | 2 |
| Storage (TB) | 240 | 60 |
| Storage Type | NVMe | SSD |
| Transfer (TB) | 6 | 3 |
CPU
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| 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 | 3,990.61 | 6,590.91 |
| Events per Second | 2,100.00 | 5,642.42 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.46 | 0.16 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.48 | 0.18 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.77 | 0.72 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.49 | 0.19 |
Memory
Memory Read
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 4,031,036.30 | 8,011,236.04 |
| Mebibytes per second | 3,936.56 | 7,823.47 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.09 | 0.12 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 4,327,248.72 | 7,931,251.63 |
| Mebibytes per second | 4,225.83 | 7,745.36 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.18 | 0.11 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
File I/O
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 1,848.36 | 5,398.58 |
| Writes per Second | 1,232.24 | 3,599.06 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 3,943.27 | 11,528.98 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 28.88 | 84.35 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 19.25 | 56.24 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.14 | 0.05 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 32.73 | 42.79 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.83 | 0.2 |
Mutex
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 496.91 | 602.81 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 678.09 | 614.50 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 755.25 | 628.36 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 759.88 | 623.33 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 5,172.00 | 24,612.00 |
| Queries per second | 51,720.00 | 246,120.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.28 | 0.28 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.93 | 0.41 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 8.32 | 5.49 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.61 | 0.54 |
MySQL Write-only
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 2,301.00 | 8,113.00 |
| Queries per second | 23,010.00 | 81,130.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.35 | 0.57 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 4.34 | 1.23 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 12.64 | 18.46 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 7.3 | 1.7 |
MySQL Read/Write
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,495.00 | 5,128.00 |
| Queries per second | 14,950.00 | 51,280.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 2.89 | 0.98 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 6.68 | 1.95 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 19.01 | 18.69 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 10.46 | 3.3 |
MySQL INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,010.00 | 10,989.00 |
| Queries per second | 30,100.00 | 109,890.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.11 | 0.38 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.32 | 0.91 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 14.62 | 15.68 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 6.09 | 1.27 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,201,092.00 | 3,356,342.00 |
| Queries per second | 12,010,920.00 | 33,563,420.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 566.03 | 198.86 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 157,927.00 | 703,024.00 |
| Queries per second | 1,579,270.00 | 7,030,240.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.01 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.06 | 0.01 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 2.99 | 0.67 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.09 | 0.02 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 5,434.00 | 18,136.00 |
| Queries per second | 54,340.00 | 181,360.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.45 | 0.1 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.84 | 0.55 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 14.81 | 2.01 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.71 | 0.86 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 6,582.00 | 17,953.00 |
| Queries per second | 65,820.00 | 179,530.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.57 | 0.17 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.52 | 0.56 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 5.15 | 2.02 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.66 | 0.87 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,033.00 | 10,440.00 |
| Queries per second | 30,330.00 | 104,400.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1 | 0.41 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.29 | 0.96 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 67.75 | 25.42 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 5.99 | 1.34 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,268.00 | 10,933.00 |
| Queries per second | 32,680.00 | 109,330.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.03 | 0.38 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.06 | 0.91 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 11.49 | 25.95 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 5.57 | 1.27 |
MySQL DELETE
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 24,924.00 | 332,632.00 |
| Queries per second | 249,240.00 | 3,326,320.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.01 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.4 | 0.03 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 26.64 | 26.59 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.81 | 0.03 |
Redis
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 93,545.37 | 142,045.45 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 87,796.30 | 131,061.59 |
| SET per Second | 93,457.94 | 165,016.50 |
| GET per Second | 94,250.71 | 142,857.14 |
| INCR per Second | 85,106.38 | 196,850.39 |
| LPUSH per Second | 95,057.03 | 249,376.56 |
| RPUSH per Second | 86,505.19 | 248,756.22 |
| LPOP per Second | 89,285.71 | 255,754.47 |
| RPOP per Second | 100,100.10 | 263,852.25 |
| SADD per Second | 90,661.83 | 251,889.16 |
| HSET per Second | 90,415.91 | 265,957.47 |
| SPOP per Second | 96,432.02 | 253,807.11 |
| ZADD per Second | 97,751.71 | 257,731.95 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 97,751.71 | 255,102.05 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 58,997.05 | 158,478.61 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 26,191.72 | 72,358.90 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 15,961.69 | 46,992.48 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 14,390.56 | 34,258.31 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 73,152.89 | 244,498.77 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| DigitalOcean – Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 0.28 | 0.21 |
| PING_MBULK | 0.31 | 0.20 |
| SET | 0.31 | 0.17 |
| GET | 0.28 | 0.20 |
| INCR | 0.31 | 0.14 |
| LPUSH | 0.29 | 0.11 |
| RPUSH | 0.32 | 0.11 |
| LPOP | 0.32 | 0.11 |
| RPOP | 0.27 | 0.10 |
| SADD | 0.32 | 0.10 |
| HSET | 0.29 | 0.10 |
| SPOP | 0.30 | 0.10 |
| ZADD | 0.31 | 0.10 |
| ZPOPMIN | 0.28 | 0.10 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 0.46 | 0.19 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 1.05 | 0.39 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 2.04 | 0.59 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 2.12 | 0.88 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 0.49 | 0.15 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
Based on the benchmark results, the DigitalOcean Premium Intel (8 GB, 4 Cores) instance demonstrates high performance in Redis operations, CPU events per second, file I/O throughput, memory read/write operations, and MySQL OLTP tasks, though its CPU and thread latencies are slightly higher than UpCloud's Balanced (2 GB, 2 Cores) instance. The UpCloud instance excels in raw Redis performance with much higher request rates and lower latencies, along with excellent memory throughput and MySQL OLTP performance. However, it lags in CPU, file I/O, and memory operations compared to the DigitalOcean instance. Therefore, the DigitalOcean instance is ideal for CPU-intensive and I/O-heavy workloads requiring higher memory and compute capabilities, while the UpCloud instance shines for high-throughput Redis-based and memory-optimized applications that prioritize raw performance over resource quantity.
From the friendly human:
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