My friend, I'm so glad you're here! Today I've got brand new instances from Linode and UpCloud and did some benchmarking. All instances were running Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 and were created in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Enough talk. Here's the data.
Overview
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Last Benchmarked
Thu, 01 Oct 2026 05:01:32 GMT
Thu, 01 Oct 2026 05:05:17 GMT
Linux Distro
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64
Kernel Version
7.0.0-34-generic
7.0.0-29-generic
MySQL Version
8.4.11-0ubuntu0.26.04.1
8.4.11-0ubuntu0.26.04.1
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)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Value (CPU events per $/mo)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) takes 5 of 6 categories.
CPU
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Vendor
AuthenticAMD
AuthenticAMD
Model Name
AMD EPYC 7713 64-Core Processor
AMD EPYC 9575F 64-Core Processor
Clock Speed (MHz)
2,000.00
3,295.42
CPU Cache Size (KB)
512.00
512.00
BogoMips
4,000.00
6,590.84
Events per Second
1,548.52
4,733.64
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.3
0.19
Average Latency (ms)
0.64
0.21
Maximum Latency (ms)
21.85
2.28
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
3.13
0.24
Memory
Memory Read
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Operations per second
4,152,415.63
6,924,337.90
Mebibytes per second
4,055.09
6,762.05
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
3.82
0.39
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
Memory Write
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Operations per second
5,085,089.33
6,734,576.12
Mebibytes per second
4,965.91
6,576.73
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
3.02
3.06
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
File I/O
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Reads per Second
2,243.85
2,742.06
Writes per Second
1,495.90
1,828.04
Fsyncs per Second
4,795.18
5,852.11
Read Mebibytes per Second
35.06
42.84
Written Mebibytes per Second
23.37
28.56
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.12
0.1
Maximum Latency (ms)
10.58
43.15
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.29
0.35
Mutex
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms)
2,091.27
1,334.65
Average Latency (ms)
2,118.60
1,340.93
Maximum Latency (ms)
2,135.24
1,347.94
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2,120.76
1,352.03
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second
5,863.00
14,724.00
Queries per second
58,630.00
147,240.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.27
0.44
Average Latency (ms)
1.7
0.68
Maximum Latency (ms)
8.4
2.7
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.14
0.83
MySQL Write-only
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second
5,483.00
4,255.00
Queries per second
54,830.00
42,550.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.12
0.85
Average Latency (ms)
1.82
2.35
Maximum Latency (ms)
17.77
65.45
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.3
3.89
MySQL Read/Write
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second
2,888.00
2,815.00
Queries per second
28,880.00
28,150.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
2.56
1.68
Average Latency (ms)
3.46
3.55
Maximum Latency (ms)
14.47
63.07
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
4.25
5.57
MySQL INSERT
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second
9,681.00
6,031.00
Queries per second
96,810.00
60,310.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.67
0.68
Average Latency (ms)
1.03
1.65
Maximum Latency (ms)
10.33
51.97
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.39
2.91
MySQL Bulk INSERT
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second
1,142,842.00
1,870,967.00
Queries per second
11,428,420.00
18,709,670.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.01
0.01
Maximum Latency (ms)
503.09
243.66
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
MySQL SELECT
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second
129,495.00
366,555.00
Queries per second
1,294,950.00
3,665,550.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.06
0.02
Average Latency (ms)
0.08
0.03
Maximum Latency (ms)
6.67
1.64
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.11
0.04
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second
6,337.00
6,679.00
Queries per second
63,370.00
66,790.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.41
0.43
Average Latency (ms)
1.58
1.5
Maximum Latency (ms)
8.87
6.15
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.26
2.07
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second
7,456.00
10,571.00
Queries per second
74,560.00
105,710.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.49
0.3
Average Latency (ms)
1.34
0.94
Maximum Latency (ms)
8.59
2.5
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.11
1.25
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second
6,797.00
6,592.00
Queries per second
67,970.00
65,920.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.65
0.64
Average Latency (ms)
1.47
1.52
Maximum Latency (ms)
65.69
73.34
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
3.3
2.43
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second
9,777.00
6,361.00
Queries per second
97,770.00
63,610.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.67
0.66
Average Latency (ms)
1.02
1.57
Maximum Latency (ms)
8.79
65.52
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.34
2.57
MySQL DELETE
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Transactions per second
48,437.00
101,477.00
Queries per second
484,370.00
1,014,770.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.05
0.02
Average Latency (ms)
0.21
0.1
Maximum Latency (ms)
39.37
48.04
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.92
0.17
Redis
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second
32,669.06
48,899.75
PING_MBULK per Second
33,738.19
48,520.13
SET per Second
15,948.96
48,473.10
GET per Second
31,675.64
48,567.27
INCR per Second
34,387.89
48,216.01
LPUSH per Second
34,650.04
48,947.62
RPUSH per Second
31,705.77
48,828.12
LPOP per Second
32,478.08
46,446.82
RPOP per Second
30,883.26
45,808.52
SADD per Second
33,046.93
45,934.77
HSET per Second
31,357.79
45,871.56
SPOP per Second
30,395.14
44,964.03
ZADD per Second
32,894.74
45,955.88
ZPOPMIN per Second
33,456.00
44,306.60
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second
25,271.67
32,530.91
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second
12,495.31
20,462.45
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second
10,815.49
15,964.24
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second
9,273.00
14,490.65
MSET (10 keys) per Second
30,066.15
48,638.13
Redis Average Latency (ms)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
PING_INLINE
0.94
0.60
PING_MBULK
0.90
0.60
SET
2.12
0.62
GET
1.00
0.61
INCR
0.90
0.62
LPUSH
0.90
0.61
RPUSH
0.97
0.62
LPOP
0.96
0.67
RPOP
1.01
0.67
SADD
0.93
0.65
HSET
0.99
0.66
SPOP
1.01
0.66
ZADD
0.95
0.66
ZPOPMIN
0.92
0.67
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)
1.29
0.95
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)
2.48
1.55
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)
2.83
2.01
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)
3.28
2.26
MSET (10 keys)
1.09
0.71
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
The Linode Nanode (1 GB) outpaces the UpCloud Balanced (2 GB) in both raw performance and consistency, especially evident in Redis operations, where the Nanode registers higher requests per second (rps) and lower latencies across various commands. For example, the Nanode's LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) benchmarked at 14192.45 rps with an average latency of 2.49 ms, compared to the UpCloud instance's 22851.92 rps with 1.41 ms. Additionally, the Nanode demonstrates superior CPU performance with higher events per second and lower latencies. Thus, the Linode Nanode is better suited for applications requiring high-throughput and low-latency performance on a budget.
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.
