Welcome to another round of the VPS Showdown. Today I spun up fresh instances from Linode and UpCloud and ran some benchmarks. Each instance was running Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 and were created in the New York area (or close to it). Time to see who showed up today.
Overview
Linode – (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Last Benchmarked
Sat, 01 Aug 2026 05:04:32 GMT
Thu, 09 Jul 2026 00:42:22 GMT
Linux Distro
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64
Kernel Version
7.0.0-22-generic
7.0.0-14-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
$12.00
€7.00
RAM (GB)
2
1
CPU Cores
1
1
Storage (TB)
50
25
Storage Type
SSD
SSD
Transfer (TB)
2
1
Head-to-head
Category winners from the latest benchmarks.
Category
Winner
CPU (events/sec)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Memory (read MiB/s)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Disk I/O (MiB/s)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Redis (GET/sec)
Linode – (2 GB)
Value (CPU events per $/mo)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) takes 4 of 5 categories.
CPU
Linode – (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vendor
AuthenticAMD
AuthenticAMD
Model Name
AMD EPYC 7642 48-Core Processor
AMD EPYC 9575F 64-Core Processor
Clock Speed (MHz)
2,300.00
3,295.46
CPU Cache Size (KB)
512.00
512.00
BogoMips
4,600.00
6,590.91
Events per Second
737.68
5,281.40
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.66
0.17
Average Latency (ms)
1.35
0.19
Maximum Latency (ms)
10.12
5.63
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.52
0.21
Memory
Memory Read
Linode – (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Operations per second
5,317,370.64
7,916,721.84
Mebibytes per second
5,192.74
7,731.17
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
7.57
0.56
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
Memory Write
Linode – (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Operations per second
5,086,007.31
7,831,276.08
Mebibytes per second
4,966.80
7,647.73
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
5.07
0.33
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
File I/O
Linode – (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Reads per Second
1,006.42
3,918.58
Writes per Second
670.92
2,612.35
Fsyncs per Second
2,147.89
8,362.41
Read Mebibytes per Second
15.73
61.23
Written Mebibytes per Second
10.48
40.82
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.26
0.07
Maximum Latency (ms)
138.62
56.19
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.56
0.2
Mutex
Linode – (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms)
1,559.26
1,149.76
Average Latency (ms)
1,564.38
1,155.73
Maximum Latency (ms)
1,570.82
1,166.28
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1,561.52
1,170.65
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
Linode – (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
8,336.00
0.00
Queries per second
83,360.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.15
0
Average Latency (ms)
1.2
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
6.16
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.32
0
MySQL Write-only
Linode – (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
7,039.00
0.00
Queries per second
70,390.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.01
0
Average Latency (ms)
1.42
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
150.2
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.76
0
MySQL Read/Write
Linode – (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
3,717.00
0.00
Queries per second
37,170.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
2.29
0
Average Latency (ms)
2.69
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
26.26
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
3.19
0
MySQL INSERT
Linode – (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
11,835.00
0.00
Queries per second
118,350.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.61
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.84
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
6.31
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.12
0
MySQL Bulk INSERT
Linode – (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
1,288,467.00
0.00
Queries per second
12,884,670.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.01
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
393.46
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
MySQL SELECT
Linode – (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
179,147.00
0.00
Queries per second
1,791,470.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.05
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.06
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
5.33
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.07
0
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
Linode – (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
6,122.00
0.00
Queries per second
61,220.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.55
0
Average Latency (ms)
1.63
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
8.04
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.52
0
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
Linode – (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
7,561.00
0.00
Queries per second
75,610.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.5
0
Average Latency (ms)
1.32
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
6.3
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.73
0
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
Linode – (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
11,379.00
0.00
Queries per second
113,790.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.62
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.88
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
5.5
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.14
0
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
Linode – (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
12,535.00
0.00
Queries per second
125,350.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.59
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.8
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
5.91
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.99
0
MySQL DELETE
Linode – (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
93,260.00
0.00
Queries per second
932,600.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.04
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.11
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
106.79
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.17
0
Redis
Linode – (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second
76,103.50
45,871.56
PING_MBULK per Second
75,930.14
57,870.37
SET per Second
76,923.08
60,096.15
GET per Second
77,579.52
59,347.18
INCR per Second
77,639.75
58,997.05
LPUSH per Second
77,459.34
60,024.01
RPUSH per Second
76,569.68
59,206.63
LPOP per Second
76,103.50
59,952.04
RPOP per Second
77,220.08
59,206.63
SADD per Second
78,554.59
58,754.41
HSET per Second
78,369.91
58,275.06
SPOP per Second
78,864.35
59,559.26
ZADD per Second
75,244.55
61,312.08
ZPOPMIN per Second
72,621.64
61,050.06
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second
41,017.23
45,392.64
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second
19,712.20
25,859.84
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second
12,941.63
16,854.88
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second
11,352.03
17,455.05
MSET (10 keys) per Second
65,104.17
49,578.58
Redis Average Latency (ms)
Linode – (2 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
PING_INLINE
0.42
0.73
PING_MBULK
0.41
0.51
SET
0.42
0.51
GET
0.41
0.51
INCR
0.41
0.52
LPUSH
0.42
0.52
RPUSH
0.42
0.52
LPOP
0.43
0.52
RPOP
0.42
0.53
SADD
0.41
0.52
HSET
0.41
0.53
SPOP
0.40
0.50
ZADD
0.43
0.51
ZPOPMIN
0.43
0.50
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)
0.87
0.72
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)
1.70
1.24
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)
2.66
1.89
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)
2.98
1.79
MSET (10 keys)
0.64
0.71
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
The Linode (2 GB) instance outperforms the UpCloud Balanced (1 GB) instance across the board, particularly in Redis benchmarks where it handles significantly higher requests per second (rps) and maintains lower latency. The Linode instance demonstrates superior performance in CPU-intensive tasks, memory operations, and file I/O, making it more suitable for CPU-heavy or memory-intensive applications, while the UpCloud instance, though competent, falls short in these areas. Thus, Linode is the preferred choice for workloads that demand high processing power and efficient memory handling.
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.
