DigitalOcean Regular (1 GB) vs. UpCloud Balanced (2 GB)
Welcome to another round of the VPS Showdown. Today I've spun up brand new instance from DigitalOcean and UpCloud and ran my world famous suite of benchmarking scripts. Each instance was running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and were created in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Without further ado, here's the results.
Overview
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Mon, 11 May 2026 21:00:52 GMT | Wed, 13 May 2026 07:00:52 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 | $6.00 | €13.00 |
| RAM (GB) | 1 | 2 |
| CPU Cores | 1 | 1 |
| Storage (TB) | 25 | 50 |
| Storage Type | SSD | SSD |
| Transfer (TB) | 1 | 2 |
CPU
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | GenuineIntel | AuthenticAMD |
| Model Name | DO-Regular | AMD EPYC 9575F 64-Core Processor |
| Clock Speed (MHz) | 2,294.61 | 3,295.48 |
| CPU Cache Size (KB) | 4,096.00 | 512.00 |
| BogoMips | 4,589.21 | 6,590.95 |
| Events per Second | 391.48 | 5,025.21 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.98 | 0.18 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.54 | 0.2 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 18.15 | 5.35 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4.18 | 0.22 |
Memory
Memory Read
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 2,259,417.59 | 5,932,400.60 |
| Mebibytes per second | 2,206.46 | 5,793.36 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.72 | 2.22 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 3,368,745.66 | 6,706,599.41 |
| Mebibytes per second | 3,289.79 | 6,549.41 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 1.05 | 1.56 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
File I/O
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 889.11 | 3,214.64 |
| Writes per Second | 592.67 | 2,143.03 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 1,902.95 | 6,864.71 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 13.89 | 50.23 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 9.26 | 33.48 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.29 | 0.08 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 402.47 | 20.14 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.74 | 0.31 |
Mutex
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 4,181.67 | 1,349.13 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 4,205.36 | 1,353.60 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 4,220.03 | 1,361.99 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4,203.93 | 1,352.03 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 4,588.00 | 19,090.00 |
| Queries per second | 45,880.00 | 190,900.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.23 | 0.31 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.17 | 0.52 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 9.83 | 5.34 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.76 | 0.64 |
MySQL Write-only
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,411.00 | 3,974.00 |
| Queries per second | 14,110.00 | 39,740.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 3.14 | 0.87 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 7.08 | 2.51 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 154.82 | 38.67 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 11.45 | 5 |
MySQL Read/Write
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,189.00 | 2,830.00 |
| Queries per second | 11,890.00 | 28,300.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 4.82 | 1.29 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 8.4 | 3.53 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 48.54 | 56.72 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 12.08 | 6.32 |
MySQL INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 2,901.00 | 4,647.00 |
| Queries per second | 29,010.00 | 46,470.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.99 | 0.61 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.44 | 2.15 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 177.02 | 28.58 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4.91 | 4.41 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 734,741.00 | 2,249,592.00 |
| Queries per second | 7,347,410.00 | 22,495,920.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 781.89 | 207.34 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 139,504.00 | 645,161.00 |
| Queries per second | 1,395,040.00 | 6,451,610.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.01 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.07 | 0.02 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 2.28 | 2.26 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.11 | 0.02 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,395.00 | 8,546.00 |
| Queries per second | 33,950.00 | 85,460.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.91 | 0.13 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.94 | 1.17 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 42.56 | 172.57 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4.03 | 1.58 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 2,856.00 | 11,562.00 |
| Queries per second | 28,560.00 | 115,620.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.77 | 0.22 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.49 | 0.86 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 8.63 | 4.07 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 5.18 | 1.27 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 2,521.00 | 4,711.00 |
| Queries per second | 25,210.00 | 47,110.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.89 | 0.73 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.96 | 2.12 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 307.35 | 30.41 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 6.21 | 3.96 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 2,183.00 | 5,393.00 |
| Queries per second | 21,830.00 | 53,930.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 2.43 | 0.48 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 4.57 | 1.85 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 45.26 | 39 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 7.84 | 3.43 |
MySQL DELETE
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 16,082.00 | 101,195.00 |
| Queries per second | 160,820.00 | 1,011,950.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.01 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.62 | 0.1 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 370.75 | 39.3 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.25 | 0.17 |
Redis
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 38,328.86 | 130,208.34 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 38,834.95 | 130,208.34 |
| SET per Second | 35,236.08 | 130,890.05 |
| GET per Second | 35,739.81 | 129,198.97 |
| INCR per Second | 38,299.50 | 128,534.70 |
| LPUSH per Second | 40,436.71 | 128,040.97 |
| RPUSH per Second | 39,339.10 | 126,582.27 |
| LPOP per Second | 36,350.42 | 124,688.28 |
| RPOP per Second | 37,119.52 | 127,226.46 |
| SADD per Second | 40,436.71 | 129,198.97 |
| HSET per Second | 35,549.23 | 133,511.34 |
| SPOP per Second | 38,895.37 | 139,275.77 |
| ZADD per Second | 39,698.29 | 130,039.02 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 34,650.04 | 129,701.68 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 16,672.22 | 55,524.71 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 8,573.39 | 28,785.26 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 5,704.51 | 18,942.98 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 4,624.28 | 17,038.68 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 28,768.70 | 108,225.10 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 0.87 | 0.25 |
| PING_MBULK | 0.85 | 0.25 |
| SET | 0.94 | 0.26 |
| GET | 0.92 | 0.26 |
| INCR | 0.86 | 0.26 |
| LPUSH | 0.84 | 0.26 |
| RPUSH | 0.85 | 0.27 |
| LPOP | 0.93 | 0.27 |
| RPOP | 0.91 | 0.27 |
| SADD | 0.83 | 0.26 |
| HSET | 0.94 | 0.26 |
| SPOP | 0.85 | 0.24 |
| ZADD | 0.85 | 0.26 |
| ZPOPMIN | 0.94 | 0.26 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 2.17 | 0.66 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 4.19 | 1.27 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 6.16 | 1.95 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 7.61 | 2.16 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 1.25 | 0.34 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
Upon comparing the benchmark results of DigitalOcean's Regular (1 GB) instance and UpCloud's Balanced (2 GB) instance, it's evident that UpCloud's offering significantly outperforms in various metrics, particularly in CPU utilization and Redis benchmark tests where it achieves substantially higher requests per second and lower latency across a wide range of operations. UpCloud's instance also excels in file I/O throughput and memory operations, reflecting its superior overall performance. DigitalOcean's instance, while competent with reasonable benchmarks in CPU, memory, and MySQL operations, lags behind in Redis throughput and latency, as well as in file I/O performance. Given these results, UpCloud's Balanced instance is better suited for CPU-intensive and I/O-heavy workloads, whereas DigitalOcean's Regular instance may serve well for more modest requirements or cost-sensitive applications.
From the friendly human:
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