Linode Linode (4 GB) vs. UpCloud Balanced (2 GB)
New day, new benchmarks. Today I've spun up brand new instance from Linode and UpCloud and did some benchmarking. All instances were running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and were created in the New York area (or close to it). Let's get into the numbers.
Overview
| Linode – (4 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Sun, 10 May 2026 11:00:52 GMT | Wed, 13 May 2026 07:00:52 GMT |
| Linux Distro | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 |
| Kernel Version | 6.8.0-111-generic | 6.8.0-111-generic |
| MySQL Version | 8.0.45-0ubuntu0.24.04.1 | 8.0.45-0ubuntu0.24.04.1 |
| Redis Version | 7.0.15 | 7.0.15 |
| Location | Newark, NJ | New York, NY |
| Monthly Price | $24.00 | €13.00 |
| RAM (GB) | 4 | 2 |
| CPU Cores | 2 | 1 |
| Storage (TB) | 80 | 50 |
| Storage Type | SSD | SSD |
| Transfer (TB) | 4 | 2 |
CPU
| Linode – (4 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 | 3,295.48 |
| CPU Cache Size (KB) | 512.00 | 512.00 |
| BogoMips | 4,599.99 | 6,590.95 |
| Events per Second | 1,565.18 | 5,025.21 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.61 | 0.18 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.64 | 0.2 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 29.29 | 5.35 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.67 | 0.22 |
Memory
Memory Read
| Linode – (4 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 5,196,836.70 | 5,932,400.60 |
| Mebibytes per second | 5,075.04 | 5,793.36 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 6.67 | 2.22 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| Linode – (4 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 5,265,799.25 | 6,706,599.41 |
| Mebibytes per second | 5,142.38 | 6,549.41 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.2 | 1.56 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
File I/O
| Linode – (4 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 4,130.88 | 3,214.64 |
| Writes per Second | 2,753.92 | 2,143.03 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 8,824.83 | 6,864.71 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 64.54 | 50.23 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 43.03 | 33.48 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.06 | 0.08 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 13.64 | 20.14 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.2 | 0.31 |
Mutex
| Linode – (4 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1,558.43 | 1,349.13 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1,574.75 | 1,353.60 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 1,589.79 | 1,361.99 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1,589.90 | 1,352.03 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| Linode – (4 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 5,967.00 | 19,090.00 |
| Queries per second | 59,670.00 | 190,900.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.33 | 0.31 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.67 | 0.52 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 8.89 | 5.34 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.96 | 0.64 |
MySQL Write-only
| Linode – (4 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 5,997.00 | 3,974.00 |
| Queries per second | 59,970.00 | 39,740.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.09 | 0.87 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.67 | 2.51 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 6.64 | 38.67 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.22 | 5 |
MySQL Read/Write
| Linode – (4 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 2,949.00 | 2,830.00 |
| Queries per second | 29,490.00 | 28,300.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 2.51 | 1.29 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.39 | 3.53 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 13.89 | 56.72 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4.25 | 6.32 |
MySQL INSERT
| Linode – (4 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 7,651.00 | 4,647.00 |
| Queries per second | 76,510.00 | 46,470.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.87 | 0.61 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.3 | 2.15 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 10.4 | 28.58 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.67 | 4.41 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| Linode – (4 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,463,217.00 | 2,249,592.00 |
| Queries per second | 14,632,170.00 | 22,495,920.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 458.31 | 207.34 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| Linode – (4 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 132,624.00 | 645,161.00 |
| Queries per second | 1,326,240.00 | 6,451,610.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.05 | 0.01 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.08 | 0.02 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 5.29 | 2.26 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.1 | 0.02 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| Linode – (4 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 8,339.00 | 8,546.00 |
| Queries per second | 83,390.00 | 85,460.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.4 | 0.13 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.2 | 1.17 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 8.39 | 172.57 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.58 | 1.58 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| Linode – (4 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 6,885.00 | 11,562.00 |
| Queries per second | 68,850.00 | 115,620.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.38 | 0.22 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.45 | 0.86 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 10.66 | 4.07 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.89 | 1.27 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| Linode – (4 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 6,026.00 | 4,711.00 |
| Queries per second | 60,260.00 | 47,110.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.74 | 0.73 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.66 | 2.12 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 83.52 | 30.41 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.22 | 3.96 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| Linode – (4 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 7,626.00 | 5,393.00 |
| Queries per second | 76,260.00 | 53,930.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.74 | 0.48 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.31 | 1.85 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 8.03 | 39 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.86 | 3.43 |
MySQL DELETE
| Linode – (4 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 39,987.00 | 101,195.00 |
| Queries per second | 399,870.00 | 1,011,950.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.01 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.25 | 0.1 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 117.36 | 39.3 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.23 | 0.17 |
Redis
| Linode – (4 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 53,447.35 | 130,208.34 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 52,192.07 | 130,208.34 |
| SET per Second | 52,273.91 | 130,890.05 |
| GET per Second | 53,475.94 | 129,198.97 |
| INCR per Second | 53,879.31 | 128,534.70 |
| LPUSH per Second | 54,406.96 | 128,040.97 |
| RPUSH per Second | 55,035.77 | 126,582.27 |
| LPOP per Second | 54,794.52 | 124,688.28 |
| RPOP per Second | 54,734.54 | 127,226.46 |
| SADD per Second | 55,991.04 | 129,198.97 |
| HSET per Second | 51,975.05 | 133,511.34 |
| SPOP per Second | 53,219.80 | 139,275.77 |
| ZADD per Second | 50,175.61 | 130,039.02 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 53,937.43 | 129,701.68 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 43,252.59 | 55,524.71 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 26,021.34 | 28,785.26 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 18,214.94 | 18,942.98 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 16,469.04 | 17,038.68 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 55,679.29 | 108,225.10 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| Linode – (4 GB) | UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 0.49 | 0.25 |
| PING_MBULK | 0.51 | 0.25 |
| SET | 0.50 | 0.26 |
| GET | 0.49 | 0.26 |
| INCR | 0.48 | 0.26 |
| LPUSH | 0.48 | 0.26 |
| RPUSH | 0.47 | 0.27 |
| LPOP | 0.47 | 0.27 |
| RPOP | 0.47 | 0.27 |
| SADD | 0.46 | 0.26 |
| HSET | 0.50 | 0.26 |
| SPOP | 0.49 | 0.24 |
| ZADD | 0.51 | 0.26 |
| ZPOPMIN | 0.48 | 0.26 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 0.61 | 0.66 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 1.04 | 1.27 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 1.48 | 1.95 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 1.59 | 2.16 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 0.49 | 0.34 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
After analyzing the benchmark performance data from both Linode's g6-standard-2 (4 GB) and UpCloud's 1xCPU-2GB instances, it's evident that the Linode instance excels in handling more demanding memory and I/O operations with superior Redis performance, especially for complex commands like LRANGE, and offers better CPU and file I/O metrics, with lower latency and higher throughput. Conversely, the UpCloud instance, although less powerful in terms of CPU and RAM, performs impressively with higher Redis request rates per second (rps) and lower latencies for basic Redis commands, indicating a more efficient use of its single CPU core. For workloads that require substantial memory and I/O operations, like complex database queries or large data sets, the Linode instance is the better choice. On the other hand, for scenarios prioritizing high Redis performance and efficiency per core, such as lightweight web services or caching, the UpCloud instance would be more suitable.
From the friendly human:
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