My friend, I'm so glad you're here! Today I spun up fresh instances from Linode and UpCloud and ran some benchmarks. All instances were spun up with Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 and were created in the New York area (or close to it). Enough talk. Here's the data.
Overview
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Last Benchmarked
Sat, 01 Aug 2026 05:01:32 GMT
Sat, 01 Aug 2026 05:05:17 GMT
Linux Distro
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64
Kernel Version
7.0.0-22-generic
7.0.0-27-generic
MySQL Version
8.4.10-0ubuntu0.26.04.1
8.4.10-0ubuntu0.26.04.1
Redis Version
8.0.5
8.0.5
Location
Newark, NJ
New York, NY
Monthly Price
$5.00
€13.00
RAM (GB)
1
2
CPU Cores
1
1
Storage (TB)
25
50
Storage Type
SSD
SSD
Transfer (TB)
1
2
Head-to-head
Category winners from the latest benchmarks.
Category
Winner
CPU (events/sec)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Memory (read MiB/s)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Disk I/O (MiB/s)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
MySQL (read/write tps)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Redis (GET/sec)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Value (CPU events per $/mo)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) takes 4 of 6 categories.
CPU
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Vendor
AuthenticAMD
AuthenticAMD
Model Name
AMD EPYC 7642 48-Core Processor
AMD EPYC 9575F 64-Core Processor
Clock Speed (MHz)
2,300.00
3,295.42
CPU Cache Size (KB)
512.00
512.00
BogoMips
4,600.00
6,590.84
Events per Second
1,479.09
4,736.09
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.65
0.19
Average Latency (ms)
0.68
0.21
Maximum Latency (ms)
4.07
2.23
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.69
0.24
Memory
Memory Read
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Operations per second
5,162,780.30
7,122,400.62
Mebibytes per second
5,041.78
6,955.47
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
1.07
0.37
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
Memory Write
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Operations per second
5,347,459.67
7,139,007.40
Mebibytes per second
5,222.13
6,971.69
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
0.26
0.29
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
File I/O
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Reads per Second
2,518.00
3,511.30
Writes per Second
1,678.67
2,340.87
Fsyncs per Second
5,375.23
7,490.87
Read Mebibytes per Second
39.34
54.86
Written Mebibytes per Second
26.23
36.58
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.1
0.07
Maximum Latency (ms)
14.25
29.46
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.35
0.26
Mutex
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms)
1,639.75
1,305.60
Average Latency (ms)
1,650.21
1,313.28
Maximum Latency (ms)
1,660.37
1,319.54
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1,648.20
1,327.91
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second
9,017.00
15,488.00
Queries per second
90,170.00
154,880.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.02
0.44
Average Latency (ms)
1.11
0.64
Maximum Latency (ms)
5.75
2.13
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.27
0.77
MySQL Write-only
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second
8,101.00
5,617.00
Queries per second
81,010.00
56,170.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.87
0.87
Average Latency (ms)
1.23
1.78
Maximum Latency (ms)
11.04
47.05
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.64
2.81
MySQL Read/Write
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second
3,971.00
3,612.00
Queries per second
39,710.00
36,120.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.98
1.68
Average Latency (ms)
2.52
2.76
Maximum Latency (ms)
17.34
29.34
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
3.07
3.96
MySQL INSERT
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second
12,157.00
8,793.00
Queries per second
121,570.00
87,930.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.58
0.53
Average Latency (ms)
0.82
1.13
Maximum Latency (ms)
13.14
33.56
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.12
1.79
MySQL Bulk INSERT
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second
1,346,717.00
2,016,592.00
Queries per second
13,467,170.00
20,165,920.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.01
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
454.87
214.98
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
MySQL SELECT
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second
211,595.00
421,834.00
Queries per second
2,115,950.00
4,218,340.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.04
0.02
Average Latency (ms)
0.05
0.02
Maximum Latency (ms)
3.28
1.13
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.06
0.03
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second
6,687.00
8,876.00
Queries per second
66,870.00
88,760.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.46
0.3
Average Latency (ms)
1.49
1.13
Maximum Latency (ms)
5
4.11
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.93
1.55
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second
7,633.00
14,529.00
Queries per second
76,330.00
145,290.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.46
0.2
Average Latency (ms)
1.31
0.69
Maximum Latency (ms)
3.52
2.02
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.73
0.99
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second
12,921.00
7,318.00
Queries per second
129,210.00
73,180.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.6
0.57
Average Latency (ms)
0.77
1.36
Maximum Latency (ms)
10.21
38.29
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.99
2.14
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second
11,621.00
8,495.00
Queries per second
116,210.00
84,950.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.59
0.57
Average Latency (ms)
0.86
1.18
Maximum Latency (ms)
70.33
20.17
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.3
1.86
MySQL DELETE
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second
137,539.00
150,571.00
Queries per second
1,375,390.00
1,505,710.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.04
0.02
Average Latency (ms)
0.07
0.07
Maximum Latency (ms)
5.83
73.25
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.1
0.08
Redis
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second
85,324.23
51,626.23
PING_MBULK per Second
72,150.07
51,203.28
SET per Second
83,682.01
51,786.64
GET per Second
86,430.43
52,356.02
INCR per Second
85,984.52
52,882.07
LPUSH per Second
85,324.23
53,390.28
RPUSH per Second
85,543.20
50,479.56
LPOP per Second
85,034.02
54,318.30
RPOP per Second
84,961.77
52,603.89
SADD per Second
85,763.29
51,679.59
HSET per Second
84,961.77
49,091.80
SPOP per Second
85,984.52
47,169.81
ZADD per Second
85,106.38
50,505.05
ZPOPMIN per Second
86,580.09
50,890.59
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second
44,782.80
38,080.73
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second
21,213.41
24,125.45
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second
14,192.45
18,611.58
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second
11,773.02
16,837.85
MSET (10 keys) per Second
72,046.11
49,578.58
Redis Average Latency (ms)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
PING_INLINE
0.37
0.57
PING_MBULK
0.43
0.57
SET
0.39
0.59
GET
0.37
0.57
INCR
0.37
0.57
LPUSH
0.38
0.57
RPUSH
0.38
0.60
LPOP
0.38
0.57
RPOP
0.38
0.59
SADD
0.37
0.58
HSET
0.38
0.62
SPOP
0.37
0.63
ZADD
0.38
0.61
ZPOPMIN
0.37
0.58
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)
0.80
0.83
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)
1.61
1.35
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)
2.49
1.72
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)
2.96
1.90
MSET (10 keys)
0.57
0.73
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
Based on the benchmark results, the Linode Nanode (1 GB) outperforms the UpCloud Balanced (2 GB) across most metrics, especially in Redis operations and CPU performance. The Nanode achieved higher requests per second (rps) in key Redis operations such as LPUSH, GET, and INCR, and had lower average latencies. The CPU benchmark also shows superior event handling per second and lower average latency compared to the UpCloud instance. Consequently, the Linode Nanode is better suited for CPU-heavy tasks and applications requiring high Redis throughput, despite its lower memory and compute resources.
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 Linode and UpCloud.
