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

New day, new benchmarks. Today I've spun up some brand new instance from Linode 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. Let's get into the numbers.

Overview

	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)	UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Last Benchmarked	Thu, 25 Dec 2025 09:00:51 GMT	Fri, 26 Dec 2025 06:00:51 GMT
Linux Distro	Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64	Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64
Kernel Version	6.8.0-71-generic	6.8.0-87-generic
MySQL Version	8.0.44-0ubuntu0.24.04.2	8.0.44-0ubuntu0.24.04.2
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 7542 32-Core Processor
Clock Speed (MHz)	2,000.00	2,894.56
CPU Cache Size (KB)	512.00	512.00
BogoMips	3,999.99	5,789.12
Events per Second	1,664.06	1,619.40
Minimum Latency (ms)	0.28	0.59
Average Latency (ms)	0.6	0.62
Maximum Latency (ms)	29.07	1.29
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	2.86	0.64

Memory Read

	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)	UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Operations per second	2,695,177.67	5,401,190.66
Mebibytes per second	2,632.01	5,274.60
Minimum Latency (ms)	0	0
Average Latency (ms)	0	0
Maximum Latency (ms)	3.64	0.95
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	0	0

Memory Write

	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)	UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Operations per second	5,064,699.38	5,439,333.74
Mebibytes per second	4,946.00	5,311.85
Minimum Latency (ms)	0	0
Average Latency (ms)	0	0
Maximum Latency (ms)	2.03	0.26
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	0	0

File I/O

	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)	UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Reads per Second	2,101.42	2,677.57
Writes per Second	1,400.94	1,785.05
Fsyncs per Second	4,487.49	5,722.44
Read Mebibytes per Second	32.83	41.84
Written Mebibytes per Second	21.89	27.89
Minimum Latency (ms)	0	0
Average Latency (ms)	0.12	0.1
Maximum Latency (ms)	6.63	12.5
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	0.3	0.31

Mutex

	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)	UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms)	1,779.50	1,525.78
Average Latency (ms)	1,789.35	1,533.33
Maximum Latency (ms)	1,804.14	1,542.52
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	1,803.47	1,533.66

MySQL Read-only

	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)	UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second	6,359.00	7,634.00
Queries per second	63,590.00	76,340.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	1.3	1.23
Average Latency (ms)	1.57	1.31
Maximum Latency (ms)	9.8	8.81
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	1.89	1.39

MySQL Write-only

	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)	UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second	4,913.00	4,518.00
Queries per second	49,130.00	45,180.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	1.35	1.37
Average Latency (ms)	2.03	2.21
Maximum Latency (ms)	8.51	40
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	2.81	3.02

MySQL Read/Write

	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)	UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second	2,408.00	2,426.00
Queries per second	24,080.00	24,260.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	3.1	2.84
Average Latency (ms)	4.15	4.12
Maximum Latency (ms)	11.3	37.03
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	5.18	5.18

MySQL INSERT

	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)	UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second	7,492.00	6,678.00
Queries per second	74,920.00	66,780.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	0.95	1.11
Average Latency (ms)	1.33	1.5
Maximum Latency (ms)	9.48	32.11
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	1.79	1.96

MySQL Bulk INSERT

	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)	UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second	1,201,092.00	1,317,592.00
Queries per second	12,010,920.00	13,175,920.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	0	0
Average Latency (ms)	0.01	0.01
Maximum Latency (ms)	508.44	409.13
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	0	0

MySQL SELECT

	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)	UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second	127,654.00	172,758.00
Queries per second	1,276,540.00	1,727,580.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	0.06	0.05
Average Latency (ms)	0.08	0.06
Maximum Latency (ms)	6.3	2.82
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	0.11	0.07

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)	UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second	8,562.00	8,213.00
Queries per second	85,620.00	82,130.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	0.29	0.43
Average Latency (ms)	1.17	1.22
Maximum Latency (ms)	9.19	6.44
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	1.58	1.55

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)	UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second	9,338.00	7,551.00
Queries per second	93,380.00	75,510.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	0.41	0.51
Average Latency (ms)	1.07	1.32
Maximum Latency (ms)	7.81	3.44
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	1.39	1.7

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)	UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second	7,211.00	5,926.00
Queries per second	72,110.00	59,260.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	0.77	0.92
Average Latency (ms)	1.39	1.69
Maximum Latency (ms)	7.29	32.97
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	2	2.39

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)	UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second	7,966.00	6,383.00
Queries per second	79,660.00	63,830.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	0.92	0.98
Average Latency (ms)	1.25	1.57
Maximum Latency (ms)	9.36	31.28
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	1.64	2

MySQL DELETE

	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)	UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second	52,482.00	56,148.00
Queries per second	524,820.00	561,480.00
Minimum Latency (ms)	0.05	0.05
Average Latency (ms)	0.19	0.18
Maximum Latency (ms)	11.04	91.95
95th Percentile Latency (ms)	1.16	1.39

Redis

	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)	UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second	35,448.42	44,033.47
PING_MBULK per Second	35,373.19	44,782.80
SET per Second	35,100.04	44,072.28
GET per Second	36,310.82	44,722.72
INCR per Second	35,498.76	44,583.15
LPUSH per Second	35,511.36	44,091.71
RPUSH per Second	35,373.19	44,326.24
LPOP per Second	35,038.54	38,431.98
RPOP per Second	34,566.20	43,994.72
SADD per Second	35,663.34	44,642.86
HSET per Second	35,298.27	44,150.11
SPOP per Second	36,483.04	45,392.64
ZADD per Second	35,893.75	44,365.57
ZPOPMIN per Second	36,023.05	45,433.89
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second	25,284.45	29,248.32
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second	15,195.26	16,000.00
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second	10,902.75	11,101.24
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second	9,585.89	9,616.31
MSET (10 keys) per Second	29,078.22	41,339.40

Redis Average Latency (ms)

	Linode – Nanode (1 GB)	UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
PING_INLINE	0.93	0.77
PING_MBULK	0.93	0.77
SET	0.95	0.78
GET	0.91	0.77
INCR	0.93	0.77
LPUSH	0.94	0.78
RPUSH	0.94	0.78
LPOP	0.96	0.88
RPOP	0.97	0.79
SADD	0.93	0.77
HSET	0.94	0.78
SPOP	0.91	0.76
ZADD	0.93	0.78
ZPOPMIN	0.92	0.76
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)	1.34	1.21
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)	2.22	2.31
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)	3.08	3.30
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)	3.55	3.82
MSET (10 keys)	1.16	0.86

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 evident that UpCloud's instance outperforms Linode's in most metrics, particularly in Redis operations where it achieves higher request rates per second (rps) and lower latencies across various commands, and in MySQL operations where it shows better throughput and lower latencies. While Linode's instance is competitively priced at $5/month, UpCloud's instance at $7/month provides better performance for CPU-intensive and I/O-heavy workloads, making it ideal for applications that demand higher throughput and lower latency in data processing and storage operations. However, if budget constraints are tight and the application does not require such high performance, the cost-effective Linode instance could still be a viable option.

From the friendly human:

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