Linode Nanode (1 GB) vs. UpCloud Balanced (1 GB)

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New day, new benchmarks. Today I've spun up some brand new instance from Linode and UpCloud to run some benchmarks on. Each instance was running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and were created in the New York area (or close to it). Without further ado, here's the results.

Overview

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Last Benchmarked Thu, 28 Aug 2025 14:00:52 GMT Thu, 28 Aug 2025 21:00:52 GMT
Linux Distro Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64
Kernel Version 6.8.0-71-generic 6.8.0-63-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 Newark, NJ New York, NY
Monthly Price $5.00 €7.00
RAM (GB) 1 1
CPU Cores 1 1
Storage (TB) 25 25
Storage Type SSD SSD
Transfer (TB) 1 1

CPU

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vendor AuthenticAMD AuthenticAMD
Model Name AMD EPYC 7713 64-Core Processor AMD EPYC 9575F 64-Core Processor
Clock Speed (MHz) 2,000.00 3,295.45
CPU Cache Size (KB) 512.00 512.00
BogoMips 4,000.00 6,590.90
Events per Second 1,650.93 5,629.42
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.28 0.16
Average Latency (ms) 0.58 0.18
Maximum Latency (ms) 8.21 1.18
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2 0.19

Memory

Memory Read

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Operations per second 4,927,442.99 7,963,109.25
Mebibytes per second 4,811.96 7,776.47
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 4.53 0.34
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Operations per second 5,257,941.95 8,095,507.97
Mebibytes per second 5,134.71 7,905.77
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 0.49 0.23
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Reads per Second 2,218.74 4,345.79
Writes per Second 1,479.09 2,897.13
Fsyncs per Second 4,743.32 9,273.36
Read Mebibytes per Second 34.67 67.90
Written Mebibytes per Second 23.11 45.27
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.12 0.06
Maximum Latency (ms) 3.48 50.25
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.29 0.2

Mutex

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms) 1,961.34 1,213.29
Average Latency (ms) 1,984.15 1,216.99
Maximum Latency (ms) 1,998.99 1,221.47
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2,009.23 1,213.57

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second 7,095.00 27,224.00
Queries per second 70,950.00 272,240.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.18 0.28
Average Latency (ms) 1.41 0.37
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.2 5.33
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.7 0.55

MySQL Write-only

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second 5,076.00 7,561.00
Queries per second 50,760.00 75,610.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.27 0.59
Average Latency (ms) 1.97 1.32
Maximum Latency (ms) 36.68 34.61
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.71 1.93

MySQL Read/Write

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second 2,632.00 5,492.00
Queries per second 26,320.00 54,920.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 2.65 1.03
Average Latency (ms) 3.8 1.82
Maximum Latency (ms) 12.4 39.24
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 4.91 2.52

MySQL INSERT

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second 8,202.00 11,345.00
Queries per second 82,020.00 113,450.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.7 0.37
Average Latency (ms) 1.22 0.88
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.39 41.1
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.61 1.23

MySQL Bulk INSERT

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second 1,346,717.00 2,453,467.00
Queries per second 13,467,170.00 24,534,670.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.01 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 354.69 281.11
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second 148,527.00 889,267.00
Queries per second 1,485,270.00 8,892,670.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.05 0.01
Average Latency (ms) 0.07 0.01
Maximum Latency (ms) 1.88 108.54
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.1 0.01

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second 8,990.00 17,187.00
Queries per second 89,900.00 171,870.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.36 0.17
Average Latency (ms) 1.11 0.58
Maximum Latency (ms) 7.44 3.93
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.47 0.97

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second 9,334.00 19,319.00
Queries per second 93,340.00 193,190.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.33 0.12
Average Latency (ms) 1.07 0.52
Maximum Latency (ms) 4.69 1.87
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.39 0.84

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second 7,438.00 11,536.00
Queries per second 74,380.00 115,360.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.72 0.37
Average Latency (ms) 1.34 0.87
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.68 21.17
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.89 1.27

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second 8,173.00 11,402.00
Queries per second 81,730.00 114,020.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.69 0.37
Average Latency (ms) 1.22 0.88
Maximum Latency (ms) 4.69 48.73
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.64 1.23

MySQL DELETE

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second 67,586.00 357,575.00
Queries per second 675,860.00 3,575,750.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.05 0.01
Average Latency (ms) 0.15 0.03
Maximum Latency (ms) 4.9 42.78
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.99 0.03

Redis

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second 45,850.53 184,162.06
PING_MBULK per Second 47,080.98 184,162.06
SET per Second 45,558.09 187,265.92
GET per Second 47,370.91 179,856.11
INCR per Second 44,247.79 183,823.52
LPUSH per Second 41,511.00 171,526.58
RPUSH per Second 46,040.52 176,991.16
LPOP per Second 44,923.63 173,611.12
RPOP per Second 43,936.73 178,571.42
SADD per Second 44,326.24 173,310.22
HSET per Second 42,900.04 170,357.75
SPOP per Second 46,382.19 173,010.38
ZADD per Second 46,061.72 157,232.70
ZPOPMIN per Second 46,663.56 173,611.12
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 31,007.75 88,261.25
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 17,367.14 41,118.42
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 11,980.35 25,826.45
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 10,639.43 21,267.54
MSET (10 keys) per Second 41,614.64 141,843.97

Redis Average Latency (ms)

Linode – Nanode (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
PING_INLINE0.760.18
PING_MBULK0.740.18
SET0.760.18
GET0.730.18
INCR0.760.18
LPUSH0.820.19
RPUSH0.750.19
LPOP0.770.19
RPOP0.780.19
SADD0.790.19
HSET0.820.20
SPOP0.750.19
ZADD0.760.21
ZPOPMIN0.740.19
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)1.130.41
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)2.040.87
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)2.891.33
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)3.271.70
MSET (10 keys)0.850.26

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

After analyzing the benchmark results for both Linode's Nanode (1 GB) and UpCloud's Balanced (1 GB), it's clear that UpCloud's instance outperforms Linode's in most metrics, especially in Redis operations, where it achieves significantly higher requests per second with lower latencies. UpCloud's CPU also shows higher events per second and better thread fairness. However, Linode's instance provides slightly better performance in file I/O operations and memory operations. Given these results, UpCloud's instance is better suited for workloads that benefit from high throughput and low latency, such as caching and high-speed data processing, while Linode's might be more appropriate for tasks that require efficient file and memory handling.

From the friendly human:

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