DigitalOcean Regular (1 GB) vs. UpCloud Balanced (1 GB)
Welcome to another round of the VPS Showdown. Today I spun up fresh instances from DigitalOcean and UpCloud and did some benchmarking. Each instance was running 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 – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Last Benchmarked
Sat, 01 Aug 2026 05:00:48 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
$6.00
€7.00
RAM (GB)
1
1
CPU Cores
1
1
Storage (TB)
25
25
Storage Type
SSD
SSD
Transfer (TB)
1
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)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Value (CPU events per $/mo)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) takes 5 of 5 categories.
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
3,295.46
CPU Cache Size (KB)
4,096.00
512.00
BogoMips
4,988.28
6,590.91
Events per Second
815.71
5,281.40
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.98
0.17
Average Latency (ms)
1.22
0.19
Maximum Latency (ms)
2.86
5.63
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.5
0.21
Memory
Memory Read
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Operations per second
3,956,759.89
7,916,721.84
Mebibytes per second
3,864.02
7,731.17
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
2.03
0.56
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
Memory Write
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Operations per second
3,883,080.49
7,831,276.08
Mebibytes per second
3,792.07
7,647.73
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
6.51
0.33
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
File I/O
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Reads per Second
2,180.62
3,918.58
Writes per Second
1,453.75
2,612.35
Fsyncs per Second
4,652.64
8,362.41
Read Mebibytes per Second
34.07
61.23
Written Mebibytes per Second
22.71
40.82
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.12
0.07
Maximum Latency (ms)
8.63
56.19
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.34
0.2
Mutex
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms)
2,077.12
1,149.76
Average Latency (ms)
2,109.98
1,155.73
Maximum Latency (ms)
2,125.57
1,166.28
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2,120.76
1,170.65
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
6,111.00
0.00
Queries per second
61,110.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.13
0
Average Latency (ms)
1.63
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
16.53
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.3
0
MySQL Write-only
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
3,456.00
0.00
Queries per second
34,560.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.3
0
Average Latency (ms)
2.89
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
17.71
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
4.57
0
MySQL Read/Write
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
2,206.00
0.00
Queries per second
22,060.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
2.57
0
Average Latency (ms)
4.53
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
12.36
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
6.55
0
MySQL INSERT
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
6,940.00
0.00
Queries per second
69,400.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.52
0
Average Latency (ms)
1.43
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
22.94
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.57
0
MySQL Bulk INSERT
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
1,084,592.00
0.00
Queries per second
10,845,920.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.01
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
506.06
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
MySQL SELECT
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
160,315.00
0.00
Queries per second
1,603,150.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.04
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.06
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
1.76
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.1
0
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
3,209.00
0.00
Queries per second
32,090.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.96
0
Average Latency (ms)
3.11
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
10.53
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
4.57
0
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
5,822.00
0.00
Queries per second
58,220.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.52
0
Average Latency (ms)
1.71
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
5.33
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.86
0
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
9,262.00
0.00
Queries per second
92,620.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.52
0
Average Latency (ms)
1.08
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
21.4
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.82
0
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
8,187.00
0.00
Queries per second
81,870.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.53
0
Average Latency (ms)
1.22
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
14.67
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.18
0
MySQL DELETE
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
79,336.00
0.00
Queries per second
793,360.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.04
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.13
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
11.85
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.34
0
Redis
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second
44,722.72
45,871.56
PING_MBULK per Second
44,267.38
57,870.37
SET per Second
47,687.18
60,096.15
GET per Second
45,351.48
59,347.18
INCR per Second
43,535.05
58,997.05
LPUSH per Second
39,047.25
60,024.01
RPUSH per Second
37,481.26
59,206.63
LPOP per Second
40,404.04
59,952.04
RPOP per Second
38,595.14
59,206.63
SADD per Second
38,834.95
58,754.41
HSET per Second
35,932.45
58,275.06
SPOP per Second
32,000.00
59,559.26
ZADD per Second
30,750.31
61,312.08
ZPOPMIN per Second
30,854.68
61,050.06
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second
24,789.29
45,392.64
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second
13,390.47
25,859.84
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second
8,059.32
16,854.88
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second
7,098.74
17,455.05
MSET (10 keys) per Second
41,928.72
49,578.58
Redis Average Latency (ms)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
PING_INLINE
0.69
0.73
PING_MBULK
0.69
0.51
SET
0.65
0.51
GET
0.68
0.51
INCR
0.71
0.52
LPUSH
0.80
0.52
RPUSH
0.82
0.52
LPOP
0.78
0.52
RPOP
0.81
0.53
SADD
0.79
0.52
HSET
0.86
0.53
SPOP
0.96
0.50
ZADD
1.01
0.51
ZPOPMIN
1.00
0.50
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)
1.31
0.72
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)
2.44
1.24
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)
3.79
1.89
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)
4.25
1.79
MSET (10 keys)
0.81
0.71
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
Based on the benchmark results, the UpCloud Balanced (1 GB) instance outperforms the DigitalOcean Regular (1 GB) instance across most metrics, especially in Redis throughput where it registers significantly higher requests per second and lower latency. While DigitalOcean shows competitive performance in MySQL bulk inserts, UpCloud's superior CPU events per second and overall higher Redis performance suggest it is the better choice for CPU-intensive and I/O-heavy tasks, making it ideal for applications requiring high throughput and low latency.
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.
