Fresh benchmarks coming at ya. Today I've spun up brand new instance from DigitalOcean and UpCloud and ran my world famous suite of benchmarking scripts. All instances were running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and all resided in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Enough talk. Here's the data.
Overview
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Last Benchmarked
Tue, 12 May 2026 23:00:52 GMT
Mon, 11 May 2026 04:00:52 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
$12.00
€26.00
RAM (GB)
2
4
CPU Cores
1
2
Storage (TB)
50
80
Storage Type
SSD
SSD
Transfer (TB)
2
4
CPU
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores)
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
408.72
5,480.14
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.98
0.17
Average Latency (ms)
2.44
0.18
Maximum Latency (ms)
30.57
0.89
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
4.1
0.19
Memory
Memory Read
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Operations per second
1,633,276.41
7,629,833.62
Mebibytes per second
1,595.00
7,451.01
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
3.35
0.19
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
Memory Write
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Operations per second
1,592,941.48
7,354,528.83
Mebibytes per second
1,555.61
7,182.16
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
5.53
0.61
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
File I/O
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Reads per Second
1,584.78
328.06
Writes per Second
1,056.52
218.70
Fsyncs per Second
3,385.97
710.09
Read Mebibytes per Second
24.76
5.13
Written Mebibytes per Second
16.51
3.42
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.16
0.8
Maximum Latency (ms)
20.31
180.23
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.51
3.75
Mutex
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Minimum Latency (ms)
2,434.32
664.04
Average Latency (ms)
2,473.55
676.90
Maximum Latency (ms)
2,489.41
694.32
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2,493.86
694.45
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second
4,752.00
19,233.00
Queries per second
47,520.00
192,330.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.23
0.34
Average Latency (ms)
2.1
0.52
Maximum Latency (ms)
5.76
41.17
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.66
0.64
MySQL Write-only
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second
1,930.00
686.00
Queries per second
19,300.00
6,860.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
2.65
0.98
Average Latency (ms)
5.18
14.57
Maximum Latency (ms)
56.83
76.51
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
7.98
23.52
MySQL Read/Write
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second
1,306.00
605.00
Queries per second
13,060.00
6,050.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
4.6
1.5
Average Latency (ms)
7.65
16.53
Maximum Latency (ms)
28.54
73.72
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
10.09
26.68
MySQL INSERT
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second
3,148.00
902.00
Queries per second
31,480.00
9,020.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.72
0.7
Average Latency (ms)
3.17
11.09
Maximum Latency (ms)
32.67
145.44
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
4.41
16.71
MySQL Bulk INSERT
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second
669,209.00
1,637,967.00
Queries per second
6,692,090.00
16,379,670.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.02
0.01
Maximum Latency (ms)
772.1
1200.07
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
MySQL SELECT
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second
136,020.00
554,660.00
Queries per second
1,360,200.00
5,546,600.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.04
0.01
Average Latency (ms)
0.07
0.02
Maximum Latency (ms)
3.33
9.98
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.11
0.03
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second
3,617.00
15,653.00
Queries per second
36,170.00
156,530.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.82
0.15
Average Latency (ms)
2.76
0.64
Maximum Latency (ms)
12.27
61.82
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
3.82
0.95
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second
3,087.00
16,879.00
Queries per second
30,870.00
168,790.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.67
0.16
Average Latency (ms)
3.23
0.59
Maximum Latency (ms)
8.52
1.46
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
5.18
0.9
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second
2,586.00
1,408.00
Queries per second
25,860.00
14,080.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.8
0.58
Average Latency (ms)
3.86
7.1
Maximum Latency (ms)
45.13
86.41
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
6.21
21.89
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second
3,094.00
1,217.00
Queries per second
30,940.00
12,170.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.83
0.61
Average Latency (ms)
3.23
8.22
Maximum Latency (ms)
35.75
74.51
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
4.65
16.41
MySQL DELETE
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Transactions per second
19,562.00
2,891.00
Queries per second
195,620.00
28,910.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.04
0.01
Average Latency (ms)
0.51
3.46
Maximum Latency (ms)
32.94
168.08
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
3.02
16.12
Redis
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores)
PING_INLINE per Second
39,729.84
204,081.62
PING_MBULK per Second
42,176.30
257,069.41
SET per Second
40,833.00
252,525.25
GET per Second
34,590.11
249,376.56
INCR per Second
35,410.77
248,756.22
LPUSH per Second
39,184.95
257,069.41
RPUSH per Second
36,509.68
243,902.44
LPOP per Second
36,791.76
251,889.16
RPOP per Second
38,834.95
256,410.27
SADD per Second
35,727.05
255,102.05
HSET per Second
35,790.98
245,700.25
SPOP per Second
39,478.88
252,525.25
ZADD per Second
38,850.04
252,525.25
ZPOPMIN per Second
40,338.84
253,807.11
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second
17,461.15
160,000.00
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second
7,711.29
73,421.44
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second
4,860.50
39,572.62
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second
4,094.67
29,299.74
MSET (10 keys) per Second
32,041.01
193,798.45
Redis Average Latency (ms)
DigitalOcean – Regular (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores)
PING_INLINE
0.83
0.15
PING_MBULK
0.78
0.11
SET
0.82
0.12
GET
0.94
0.11
INCR
0.93
0.11
LPUSH
0.85
0.12
RPUSH
0.91
0.13
LPOP
0.92
0.11
RPOP
0.87
0.10
SADD
0.92
0.10
HSET
0.93
0.11
SPOP
0.84
0.10
ZADD
0.86
0.11
ZPOPMIN
0.82
0.10
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)
2.05
0.19
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)
4.59
0.40
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)
7.19
0.68
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)
8.42
1.06
MSET (10 keys)
1.12
0.18
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
When comparing the DigitalOcean and UpCloud benchmarks, it's clear that the UpCloud instance outperforms the DigitalOcean one in most aspects, particularly in Redis operations where it achieves significantly higher request rates per second and lower latencies. The UpCloud server also shows higher CPU performance with more events per second and lower latency. File I/O operations also favor the UpCloud instance with higher throughput rates and lower average latencies. Although both servers demonstrate excellent memory performance with nearly instantaneous latencies for read and write operations, the UpCloud's additional CPU cores and higher RAM provide a significant advantage for multi-threaded workloads. Overall, the UpCloud Balanced instance is better suited for CPU-intensive and I/O-heavy workloads, making it ideal for applications requiring high concurrency and performance, whereas the DigitalOcean Regular instance offers a cost-effective solution for less demanding, single-threaded applications.
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.