Linode Linode (4 GB) vs. UpCloud Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores)

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Welcome to another round of the VPS Showdown. 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 or around the New York / New Jersey area. Let's get into the numbers.

Overview

Linode – (4 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores)
Last Benchmarked Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:52 GMT Sun, 31 May 2026 19:00:52 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 €52.00
RAM (GB) 4 8
CPU Cores 2 4
Storage (TB) 80 160
Storage Type SSD SSD
Transfer (TB) 4 5

CPU

Linode – (4 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores)
Vendor AuthenticAMD AuthenticAMD
Model Name AMD EPYC 7713 64-Core Processor AMD EPYC 9575F 64-Core Processor
Clock Speed (MHz) 2,000.00 3,295.46
CPU Cache Size (KB) 512.00 512.00
BogoMips 3,999.99 6,590.91
Events per Second 3,444.02 5,628.46
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.28 0.16
Average Latency (ms) 0.29 0.18
Maximum Latency (ms) 4.83 0.31
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.3 0.19

Memory

Memory Read

Linode – (4 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores)
Operations per second 5,349,213.60 7,929,659.23
Mebibytes per second 5,223.84 7,743.81
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 3.16 0.17
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

Linode – (4 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores)
Operations per second 5,332,401.09 7,814,821.77
Mebibytes per second 5,207.42 7,631.66
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 3.25 0.1
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

Linode – (4 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores)
Reads per Second 3,325.24 7,270.40
Writes per Second 2,216.89 4,846.94
Fsyncs per Second 7,095.98 15,522.49
Read Mebibytes per Second 51.96 113.60
Written Mebibytes per Second 34.64 75.73
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.08 0.04
Maximum Latency (ms) 13.12 16.66
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.22 0.19

Mutex

Linode – (4 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores)
Minimum Latency (ms) 864.93 235.51
Average Latency (ms) 931.61 282.02
Maximum Latency (ms) 968.34 313.16
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 960.30 314.45

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

Linode – (4 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores)
Transactions per second 5,919.00 22,259.00
Queries per second 59,190.00 222,590.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.29 0.32
Average Latency (ms) 1.69 0.45
Maximum Latency (ms) 8 1.33
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.03 0.59

MySQL Write-only

Linode – (4 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores)
Transactions per second 5,152.00 7,108.00
Queries per second 51,520.00 71,080.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.22 0.7
Average Latency (ms) 1.94 1.41
Maximum Latency (ms) 24.88 25.2
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.52 1.93

MySQL Read/Write

Linode – (4 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores)
Transactions per second 2,609.00 5,280.00
Queries per second 26,090.00 52,800.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 2.83 1.01
Average Latency (ms) 3.83 1.89
Maximum Latency (ms) 8.83 33.44
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 4.74 2.57

MySQL INSERT

Linode – (4 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores)
Transactions per second 7,493.00 9,445.00
Queries per second 74,930.00 94,450.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.73 0.48
Average Latency (ms) 1.33 1.06
Maximum Latency (ms) 15.06 26.94
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.86 1.44

MySQL Bulk INSERT

Linode – (4 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores)
Transactions per second 1,754,467.00 3,327,217.00
Queries per second 17,544,670.00 33,272,170.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.01 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 418.75 150.75
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

Linode – (4 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores)
Transactions per second 130,180.00 664,037.00
Queries per second 1,301,800.00 6,640,370.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.05 0.01
Average Latency (ms) 0.08 0.01
Maximum Latency (ms) 4.63 0.31
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.1 0.02

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

Linode – (4 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores)
Transactions per second 8,212.00 16,890.00
Queries per second 82,120.00 168,900.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.33 0.16
Average Latency (ms) 1.22 0.59
Maximum Latency (ms) 11.27 3.66
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.3 0.92

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

Linode – (4 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores)
Transactions per second 8,956.00 17,978.00
Queries per second 89,560.00 179,780.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.42 0.15
Average Latency (ms) 1.12 0.56
Maximum Latency (ms) 4.66 1.62
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.44 0.89

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

Linode – (4 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores)
Transactions per second 7,381.00 7,331.00
Queries per second 73,810.00 73,310.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.81 0.5
Average Latency (ms) 1.35 1.36
Maximum Latency (ms) 8.43 24.1
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.76 2.26

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

Linode – (4 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores)
Transactions per second 7,379.00 8,267.00
Queries per second 73,790.00 82,670.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.82 0.48
Average Latency (ms) 1.35 1.21
Maximum Latency (ms) 7.2 14.03
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.73 1.64

MySQL DELETE

Linode – (4 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores)
Transactions per second 58,502.00 289,336.00
Queries per second 585,020.00 2,893,360.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.04 0.01
Average Latency (ms) 0.17 0.03
Maximum Latency (ms) 8.26 33.11
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.14 0.03

Redis

Linode – (4 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores)
PING_INLINE per Second 44,444.45 239,234.44
PING_MBULK per Second 42,158.52 223,214.28
SET per Second 43,725.41 257,731.95
GET per Second 43,084.88 269,541.78
INCR per Second 43,917.44 240,963.86
LPUSH per Second 44,169.61 258,397.94
RPUSH per Second 42,918.46 267,379.66
LPOP per Second 43,630.02 267,379.66
RPOP per Second 42,900.04 272,479.56
SADD per Second 43,066.32 280,898.88
HSET per Second 42,826.55 258,397.94
SPOP per Second 43,821.21 253,164.55
ZADD per Second 43,706.29 250,626.58
ZPOPMIN per Second 46,554.93 269,541.78
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 30,084.24 165,289.25
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 21,141.65 70,372.98
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 17,825.31 38,699.69
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 15,969.34 35,298.27
MSET (10 keys) per Second 45,578.85 225,225.22

Redis Average Latency (ms)

Linode – (4 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores)
PING_INLINE0.580.11
PING_MBULK0.610.12
SET0.590.10
GET0.600.10
INCR0.590.11
LPUSH0.580.10
RPUSH0.600.10
LPOP0.590.10
RPOP0.600.11
SADD0.600.09
HSET0.600.10
SPOP0.590.10
ZADD0.590.11
ZPOPMIN0.550.10
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)0.890.18
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)1.250.41
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)1.500.76
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)1.590.84
MSET (10 keys)0.570.14

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

Comparing the benchmarks from both Linode and UpCloud instances, the UpCloud Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores) instance outperforms the Linode (4 GB) configuration across most metrics, reflecting higher throughput and lower latencies in tasks like Redis operations, CPU handling, and file I/O. The UpCloud instance shows superior performance in most benchmarks, especially evident in Redis benchmarks where it achieves significantly higher requests per second with lower latencies. However, Linode does relatively better in memory operations, displaying lower latencies in memory read and write operations compared to UpCloud. Both instances have their unique strengths: UpCloud is ideal for CPU-intensive and memory-heavy workloads requiring higher core counts and more RAM, while Linode would be better suited for less resource-demanding tasks or where lower memory latency is critical.

From the friendly human:

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