UpCloud Balanced (1 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Regular (1 GB)
Same showdown, different day. Today I've spun up some brand new instance from DigitalOcean and UpCloud and did some benchmarking. Each instance was running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and were created in the New York area (or close to it). Time to see who showed up today.
Overview
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Last Benchmarked
Mon, 25 Aug 2025 19:00:53 GMT
Tue, 26 Aug 2025 14:00:52 GMT
Linux Distro
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64
Kernel Version
6.8.0-63-generic
6.8.0-71-generic
MySQL Version
8.0.43-0ubuntu0.24.04.1
8.0.43-0ubuntu0.24.04.1
Redis Version
7.0.15
7.0.15
Location
New York, NY
New York, NY
Monthly Price
€7.00
$6.00
RAM (GB)
1
1
CPU Cores
1
1
Storage (TB)
25
25
Storage Type
SSD
SSD
Transfer (TB)
1
1
CPU
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Vendor
AuthenticAMD
GenuineIntel
Model Name
AMD EPYC 9575F 64-Core Processor
DO-Regular
Clock Speed (MHz)
3,295.45
2,494.14
CPU Cache Size (KB)
512.00
4,096.00
BogoMips
6,590.90
4,988.28
Events per Second
5,197.84
954.20
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.17
0.91
Average Latency (ms)
0.19
1.05
Maximum Latency (ms)
1.49
2.11
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.22
1.27
Memory
Memory Read
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Operations per second
6,990,244.41
4,209,859.81
Mebibytes per second
6,826.41
4,111.19
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
0.69
1.49
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
Memory Write
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Operations per second
6,855,048.18
4,189,329.99
Mebibytes per second
6,694.38
4,091.14
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
0.93
1.03
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
File I/O
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Reads per Second
4,115.12
2,467.11
Writes per Second
2,743.41
1,644.74
Fsyncs per Second
8,789.69
5,269.57
Read Mebibytes per Second
64.30
38.55
Written Mebibytes per Second
42.87
25.70
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.06
0.11
Maximum Latency (ms)
21.65
14.6
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.22
0.3
Mutex
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms)
1,293.41
2,239.74
Average Latency (ms)
1,298.04
2,269.10
Maximum Latency (ms)
1,305.02
2,285.87
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1,304.21
2,279.14
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second
21,643.00
6,274.00
Queries per second
216,430.00
62,740.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.29
1.15
Average Latency (ms)
0.46
1.59
Maximum Latency (ms)
6.72
5.02
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.65
2.26
MySQL Write-only
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second
7,317.00
4,050.00
Queries per second
73,170.00
40,500.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.59
1.18
Average Latency (ms)
1.37
2.46
Maximum Latency (ms)
67.35
45.75
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.18
3.96
MySQL Read/Write
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second
4,249.00
1,942.00
Queries per second
42,490.00
19,420.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.15
3.07
Average Latency (ms)
2.35
5.14
Maximum Latency (ms)
45.57
40.59
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
3.75
7.04
MySQL INSERT
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second
8,829.00
6,791.00
Queries per second
88,290.00
67,910.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.44
0.58
Average Latency (ms)
1.13
1.47
Maximum Latency (ms)
40.83
21.15
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.67
2.48
MySQL Bulk INSERT
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second
2,744,717.00
1,026,342.00
Queries per second
27,447,170.00
10,263,420.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0.01
Maximum Latency (ms)
179.6
577.57
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
MySQL SELECT
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second
793,218.00
156,704.00
Queries per second
7,932,180.00
1,567,040.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.01
0.04
Average Latency (ms)
0.01
0.06
Maximum Latency (ms)
111.29
2.29
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.02
0.1
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second
13,589.00
4,865.00
Queries per second
135,890.00
48,650.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.18
0.62
Average Latency (ms)
0.73
2.05
Maximum Latency (ms)
3.88
12.45
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.16
3.19
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second
14,875.00
5,861.00
Queries per second
148,750.00
58,610.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.19
0.65
Average Latency (ms)
0.67
1.7
Maximum Latency (ms)
3.04
5.66
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.04
2.76
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second
8,322.00
5,999.00
Queries per second
83,220.00
59,990.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.48
0.61
Average Latency (ms)
1.2
1.66
Maximum Latency (ms)
50.42
43.09
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.89
2.91
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second
9,391.00
7,513.00
Queries per second
93,910.00
75,130.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.42
0.54
Average Latency (ms)
1.06
1.33
Maximum Latency (ms)
45.75
43.22
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.7
2
MySQL DELETE
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second
320,169.00
60,867.00
Queries per second
3,201,690.00
608,670.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.01
0.04
Average Latency (ms)
0.03
0.16
Maximum Latency (ms)
39.95
16.04
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.03
0.99
Redis
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second
146,627.56
49,529.47
PING_MBULK per Second
137,362.64
49,067.71
SET per Second
130,039.02
48,007.68
GET per Second
132,100.39
48,520.13
INCR per Second
140,646.97
50,025.02
LPUSH per Second
131,752.31
46,446.82
RPUSH per Second
144,092.22
49,431.54
LPOP per Second
134,952.77
49,164.21
RPOP per Second
158,227.84
48,590.86
SADD per Second
158,730.16
44,642.86
HSET per Second
157,232.70
30,562.35
SPOP per Second
163,132.14
35,739.81
ZADD per Second
156,739.81
42,643.92
ZPOPMIN per Second
159,235.66
44,782.80
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second
75,414.78
22,212.35
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second
38,240.92
9,703.09
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second
26,274.30
8,345.85
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second
19,860.97
7,045.73
MSET (10 keys) per Second
129,032.27
38,299.50
Redis Average Latency (ms)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
PING_INLINE
0.23
0.67
PING_MBULK
0.24
0.67
SET
0.26
0.70
GET
0.25
0.69
INCR
0.24
0.67
LPUSH
0.26
0.73
RPUSH
0.23
0.68
LPOP
0.25
0.69
RPOP
0.21
0.70
SADD
0.21
0.75
HSET
0.22
1.09
SPOP
0.20
0.93
ZADD
0.22
0.80
ZPOPMIN
0.21
0.75
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)
0.48
1.61
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)
0.95
3.73
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)
1.38
4.31
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)
1.82
5.03
MSET (10 keys)
0.28
0.93
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
After analyzing the benchmark results for both DigitalOcean's Regular (1 GB) and UpCloud's Balanced (1 GB) instances, it is evident that UpCloud's instance outperforms DigitalOcean's in most metrics, especially in Redis operations where it achieves significantly higher requests per second and lower latencies, indicating superior performance in memory-intensive tasks. UpCloud's CPU also shows higher events per second and better thread fairness, suggesting it handles concurrent processes more efficiently. However, DigitalOcean's instance provides slightly better file I/O performance and lower latency in MySQL operations, which could be beneficial for workloads that require more disk-intensive tasks. Overall, UpCloud's instance is ideal for CPU-intensive and memory-bound applications, while DigitalOcean's might be more suitable for workloads that benefit from better file I/O and MySQL performance.
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 DigitalOcean and UpCloud.