DigitalOcean Regular (1 GB) vs. UpCloud Balanced (1 GB)
Fresh benchmarks coming at ya. Today I spun up fresh instances from DigitalOcean and UpCloud and did some benchmarking. Each instance was spun up with Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 and were created in the New York area (or close to it). Without further ado, here's the results.
Overview
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Last Benchmarked
Thu, 01 Oct 2026 05:00:49 GMT
Thu, 01 Oct 2026 05:02:17 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
$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
3,295.42
CPU Cache Size (KB)
4,096.00
512.00
BogoMips
4,988.27
6,590.84
Events per Second
705.37
4,771.17
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.98
0.19
Average Latency (ms)
1.41
0.21
Maximum Latency (ms)
12.76
4.26
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2
0.23
Memory
Memory Read
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Operations per second
3,663,208.77
6,936,402.22
Mebibytes per second
3,577.35
6,773.83
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
5.47
0.35
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
Memory Write
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Operations per second
3,890,887.47
6,762,728.29
Mebibytes per second
3,799.69
6,604.23
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
2.33
5.65
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
File I/O
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Reads per Second
2,194.30
2,763.16
Writes per Second
1,462.87
1,842.11
Fsyncs per Second
4,688.57
5,897.24
Read Mebibytes per Second
34.29
43.17
Written Mebibytes per Second
22.86
28.78
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.12
0.09
Maximum Latency (ms)
10.7
44.23
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.32
0.3
Mutex
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms)
2,352.19
1,275.54
Average Latency (ms)
2,382.76
1,282.62
Maximum Latency (ms)
2,393.79
1,289.72
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2,405.65
1,280.93
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
4,593.00
0.00
Queries per second
45,930.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.29
0
Average Latency (ms)
2.17
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
13.82
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
3.02
0
MySQL Write-only
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
3,486.00
0.00
Queries per second
34,860.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.26
0
Average Latency (ms)
2.86
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
33.41
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
4.33
0
MySQL Read/Write
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
1,761.00
0.00
Queries per second
17,610.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
3.36
0
Average Latency (ms)
5.67
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
16.69
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
7.98
0
MySQL INSERT
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
6,877.00
0.00
Queries per second
68,770.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.65
0
Average Latency (ms)
1.45
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
9.48
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.35
0
MySQL Bulk INSERT
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
833,039.00
0.00
Queries per second
8,330,390.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.01
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
670.02
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
MySQL SELECT
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
122,209.00
0.00
Queries per second
1,222,090.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.04
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.08
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
8.73
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.14
0
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
3,294.00
0.00
Queries per second
32,940.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.13
0
Average Latency (ms)
3.03
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
17.77
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
4.65
0
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
5,143.00
0.00
Queries per second
51,430.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.52
0
Average Latency (ms)
1.94
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
8.8
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
3.02
0
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
5,821.00
0.00
Queries per second
58,210.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.62
0
Average Latency (ms)
1.71
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
21.71
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
3.3
0
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
7,391.00
0.00
Queries per second
73,910.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.57
0
Average Latency (ms)
1.35
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
8.09
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.14
0
MySQL DELETE
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
51,002.00
0.00
Queries per second
510,020.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.04
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.19
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
9.61
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.12
0
Redis
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second
31,026.99
36,218.76
PING_MBULK per Second
34,530.39
45,454.54
SET per Second
35,945.36
48,449.61
GET per Second
34,293.55
48,685.49
INCR per Second
23,820.87
48,449.61
LPUSH per Second
30,931.02
50,175.61
RPUSH per Second
33,014.20
48,828.12
LPOP per Second
30,553.01
50,942.43
RPOP per Second
34,459.00
49,603.17
SADD per Second
37,285.61
47,438.33
HSET per Second
29,002.32
48,685.49
SPOP per Second
32,195.75
46,403.71
ZADD per Second
30,562.35
47,687.18
ZPOPMIN per Second
29,342.72
47,103.16
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second
20,024.03
36,114.12
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second
11,069.29
23,266.64
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second
6,976.42
15,227.65
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second
6,141.75
11,837.12
MSET (10 keys) per Second
27,609.06
44,964.03
Redis Average Latency (ms)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
PING_INLINE
0.99
0.88
PING_MBULK
0.88
0.64
SET
0.86
0.63
GET
0.90
0.61
INCR
1.33
0.62
LPUSH
1.00
0.61
RPUSH
0.94
0.62
LPOP
1.03
0.61
RPOP
0.91
0.62
SADD
0.83
0.63
HSET
1.07
0.62
SPOP
0.95
0.64
ZADD
1.01
0.65
ZPOPMIN
1.06
0.63
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)
1.62
0.87
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)
2.90
1.38
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)
4.30
2.08
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)
4.79
2.62
MSET (10 keys)
1.25
0.76
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
The UpCloud Balanced instance outperforms the DigitalOcean Regular instance across most benchmarks, particularly in Redis operations with higher requests per second and lower latencies, as well as in CPU metrics with significantly higher events per second. For instance, the UpCloud instance achieves a Redis SET rate of 48,449.61 rps compared to DigitalOcean's 35,945.36 rps, and it has a CPU event rate of 4,771.17 per second against DigitalOcean's 705.37. This suggests the UpCloud instance is better suited for CPU-intensive and high-throughput applications, whereas the DigitalOcean instance may be more cost-effective for less demanding tasks.
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.
