DigitalOcean Regular (1 GB) vs. UpCloud Balanced (1 GB)
Same showdown, different day. Today I've spun up some brand new instance from DigitalOcean and UpCloud and did some benchmarking. Each instance was running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and were created in the New York area (or close to it). Time to see who showed up today.
Overview
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Last Benchmarked
Tue, 26 Aug 2025 14:00:52 GMT
Mon, 25 Aug 2025 19:00:53 GMT
Linux Distro
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64
Kernel Version
6.8.0-71-generic
6.8.0-63-generic
MySQL Version
8.0.43-0ubuntu0.24.04.1
8.0.43-0ubuntu0.24.04.1
Redis Version
7.0.15
7.0.15
Location
New York, NY
New York, NY
Monthly Price
$6.00
€7.00
RAM (GB)
1
1
CPU Cores
1
1
Storage (TB)
25
25
Storage Type
SSD
SSD
Transfer (TB)
1
1
CPU
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vendor
GenuineIntel
AuthenticAMD
Model Name
DO-Regular
AMD EPYC 9575F 64-Core Processor
Clock Speed (MHz)
2,494.14
3,295.45
CPU Cache Size (KB)
4,096.00
512.00
BogoMips
4,988.28
6,590.90
Events per Second
954.20
5,197.84
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.91
0.17
Average Latency (ms)
1.05
0.19
Maximum Latency (ms)
2.11
1.49
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.27
0.22
Memory
Memory Read
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Operations per second
4,209,859.81
6,990,244.41
Mebibytes per second
4,111.19
6,826.41
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
1.49
0.69
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
Memory Write
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Operations per second
4,189,329.99
6,855,048.18
Mebibytes per second
4,091.14
6,694.38
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
1.03
0.93
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
File I/O
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Reads per Second
2,467.11
4,115.12
Writes per Second
1,644.74
2,743.41
Fsyncs per Second
5,269.57
8,789.69
Read Mebibytes per Second
38.55
64.30
Written Mebibytes per Second
25.70
42.87
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.11
0.06
Maximum Latency (ms)
14.6
21.65
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.3
0.22
Mutex
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms)
2,239.74
1,293.41
Average Latency (ms)
2,269.10
1,298.04
Maximum Latency (ms)
2,285.87
1,305.02
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2,279.14
1,304.21
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
6,274.00
21,643.00
Queries per second
62,740.00
216,430.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.15
0.29
Average Latency (ms)
1.59
0.46
Maximum Latency (ms)
5.02
6.72
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.26
0.65
MySQL Write-only
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
4,050.00
7,317.00
Queries per second
40,500.00
73,170.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.18
0.59
Average Latency (ms)
2.46
1.37
Maximum Latency (ms)
45.75
67.35
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
3.96
2.18
MySQL Read/Write
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
1,942.00
4,249.00
Queries per second
19,420.00
42,490.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
3.07
1.15
Average Latency (ms)
5.14
2.35
Maximum Latency (ms)
40.59
45.57
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
7.04
3.75
MySQL INSERT
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
6,791.00
8,829.00
Queries per second
67,910.00
88,290.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.58
0.44
Average Latency (ms)
1.47
1.13
Maximum Latency (ms)
21.15
40.83
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.48
1.67
MySQL Bulk INSERT
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
1,026,342.00
2,744,717.00
Queries per second
10,263,420.00
27,447,170.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.01
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
577.57
179.6
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
MySQL SELECT
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
156,704.00
793,218.00
Queries per second
1,567,040.00
7,932,180.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.04
0.01
Average Latency (ms)
0.06
0.01
Maximum Latency (ms)
2.29
111.29
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.1
0.02
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
4,865.00
13,589.00
Queries per second
48,650.00
135,890.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.62
0.18
Average Latency (ms)
2.05
0.73
Maximum Latency (ms)
12.45
3.88
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
3.19
1.16
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
5,861.00
14,875.00
Queries per second
58,610.00
148,750.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.65
0.19
Average Latency (ms)
1.7
0.67
Maximum Latency (ms)
5.66
3.04
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.76
1.04
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
5,999.00
8,322.00
Queries per second
59,990.00
83,220.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.61
0.48
Average Latency (ms)
1.66
1.2
Maximum Latency (ms)
43.09
50.42
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.91
1.89
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
7,513.00
9,391.00
Queries per second
75,130.00
93,910.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.54
0.42
Average Latency (ms)
1.33
1.06
Maximum Latency (ms)
43.22
45.75
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2
1.7
MySQL DELETE
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
60,867.00
320,169.00
Queries per second
608,670.00
3,201,690.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.04
0.01
Average Latency (ms)
0.16
0.03
Maximum Latency (ms)
16.04
39.95
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.99
0.03
Redis
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second
49,529.47
146,627.56
PING_MBULK per Second
49,067.71
137,362.64
SET per Second
48,007.68
130,039.02
GET per Second
48,520.13
132,100.39
INCR per Second
50,025.02
140,646.97
LPUSH per Second
46,446.82
131,752.31
RPUSH per Second
49,431.54
144,092.22
LPOP per Second
49,164.21
134,952.77
RPOP per Second
48,590.86
158,227.84
SADD per Second
44,642.86
158,730.16
HSET per Second
30,562.35
157,232.70
SPOP per Second
35,739.81
163,132.14
ZADD per Second
42,643.92
156,739.81
ZPOPMIN per Second
44,782.80
159,235.66
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second
22,212.35
75,414.78
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second
9,703.09
38,240.92
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second
8,345.85
26,274.30
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second
7,045.73
19,860.97
MSET (10 keys) per Second
38,299.50
129,032.27
Redis Average Latency (ms)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
PING_INLINE
0.67
0.23
PING_MBULK
0.67
0.24
SET
0.70
0.26
GET
0.69
0.25
INCR
0.67
0.24
LPUSH
0.73
0.26
RPUSH
0.68
0.23
LPOP
0.69
0.25
RPOP
0.70
0.21
SADD
0.75
0.21
HSET
1.09
0.22
SPOP
0.93
0.20
ZADD
0.80
0.22
ZPOPMIN
0.75
0.21
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)
1.61
0.48
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)
3.73
0.95
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)
4.31
1.38
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)
5.03
1.82
MSET (10 keys)
0.93
0.28
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
After analyzing the benchmark results for both DigitalOcean's Regular (1 GB) and UpCloud's Balanced (1 GB) instances, it is evident that UpCloud's instance outperforms DigitalOcean's in most metrics, especially in Redis operations where it achieves significantly higher requests per second and lower latencies, indicating superior performance in memory-intensive tasks. UpCloud's CPU also shows higher events per second and better thread fairness, suggesting it handles concurrent processes more efficiently. However, DigitalOcean's instance provides slightly better file I/O performance and lower latency in MySQL operations, which could be beneficial for workloads that require more disk-intensive tasks. Overall, UpCloud's instance is ideal for CPU-intensive and memory-bound applications, while DigitalOcean's might be more suitable for workloads that benefit from better file I/O and MySQL performance.
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.