UpCloud Balanced (1 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Regular (1 GB)
Welcome to another round of the VPS Showdown. Today I spun up fresh instances from DigitalOcean and UpCloud and did some benchmarking. Each instance was running Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 and were created in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Time to see who showed up today.
Overview
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Last Benchmarked
Thu, 09 Jul 2026 00:42:22 GMT
Sat, 01 Aug 2026 05:00:48 GMT
Linux Distro
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64
Kernel Version
7.0.0-14-generic
7.0.0-27-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
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
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)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Value (CPU events per $/mo)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) takes 5 of 5 categories.
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)
3,295.46
2,494.14
CPU Cache Size (KB)
512.00
4,096.00
BogoMips
6,590.91
4,988.28
Events per Second
5,281.40
815.71
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.17
0.98
Average Latency (ms)
0.19
1.22
Maximum Latency (ms)
5.63
2.86
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.21
1.5
Memory
Memory Read
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Operations per second
7,916,721.84
3,956,759.89
Mebibytes per second
7,731.17
3,864.02
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
0.56
2.03
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
Memory Write
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Operations per second
7,831,276.08
3,883,080.49
Mebibytes per second
7,647.73
3,792.07
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
0.33
6.51
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
File I/O
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Reads per Second
3,918.58
2,180.62
Writes per Second
2,612.35
1,453.75
Fsyncs per Second
8,362.41
4,652.64
Read Mebibytes per Second
61.23
34.07
Written Mebibytes per Second
40.82
22.71
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.07
0.12
Maximum Latency (ms)
56.19
8.63
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.2
0.34
Mutex
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms)
1,149.76
2,077.12
Average Latency (ms)
1,155.73
2,109.98
Maximum Latency (ms)
1,166.28
2,125.57
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1,170.65
2,120.76
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second
0.00
6,111.00
Queries per second
0.00
61,110.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
1.13
Average Latency (ms)
0
1.63
Maximum Latency (ms)
0
16.53
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
2.3
MySQL Write-only
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second
0.00
3,456.00
Queries per second
0.00
34,560.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
1.3
Average Latency (ms)
0
2.89
Maximum Latency (ms)
0
17.71
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
4.57
MySQL Read/Write
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second
0.00
2,206.00
Queries per second
0.00
22,060.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
2.57
Average Latency (ms)
0
4.53
Maximum Latency (ms)
0
12.36
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
6.55
MySQL INSERT
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second
0.00
6,940.00
Queries per second
0.00
69,400.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0.52
Average Latency (ms)
0
1.43
Maximum Latency (ms)
0
22.94
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
2.57
MySQL Bulk INSERT
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second
0.00
1,084,592.00
Queries per second
0.00
10,845,920.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0.01
Maximum Latency (ms)
0
506.06
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
MySQL SELECT
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second
0.00
160,315.00
Queries per second
0.00
1,603,150.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0.04
Average Latency (ms)
0
0.06
Maximum Latency (ms)
0
1.76
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0.1
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second
0.00
3,209.00
Queries per second
0.00
32,090.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0.96
Average Latency (ms)
0
3.11
Maximum Latency (ms)
0
10.53
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
4.57
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second
0.00
5,822.00
Queries per second
0.00
58,220.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0.52
Average Latency (ms)
0
1.71
Maximum Latency (ms)
0
5.33
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
2.86
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second
0.00
9,262.00
Queries per second
0.00
92,620.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0.52
Average Latency (ms)
0
1.08
Maximum Latency (ms)
0
21.4
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
1.82
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second
0.00
8,187.00
Queries per second
0.00
81,870.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0.53
Average Latency (ms)
0
1.22
Maximum Latency (ms)
0
14.67
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
2.18
MySQL DELETE
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
Transactions per second
0.00
79,336.00
Queries per second
0.00
793,360.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0.04
Average Latency (ms)
0
0.13
Maximum Latency (ms)
0
11.85
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0.34
Redis
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second
45,871.56
44,722.72
PING_MBULK per Second
57,870.37
44,267.38
SET per Second
60,096.15
47,687.18
GET per Second
59,347.18
45,351.48
INCR per Second
58,997.05
43,535.05
LPUSH per Second
60,024.01
39,047.25
RPUSH per Second
59,206.63
37,481.26
LPOP per Second
59,952.04
40,404.04
RPOP per Second
59,206.63
38,595.14
SADD per Second
58,754.41
38,834.95
HSET per Second
58,275.06
35,932.45
SPOP per Second
59,559.26
32,000.00
ZADD per Second
61,312.08
30,750.31
ZPOPMIN per Second
61,050.06
30,854.68
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second
45,392.64
24,789.29
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second
25,859.84
13,390.47
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second
16,854.88
8,059.32
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second
17,455.05
7,098.74
MSET (10 keys) per Second
49,578.58
41,928.72
Redis Average Latency (ms)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
DigitalOcean – Regular (1 GB)
PING_INLINE
0.73
0.69
PING_MBULK
0.51
0.69
SET
0.51
0.65
GET
0.51
0.68
INCR
0.52
0.71
LPUSH
0.52
0.80
RPUSH
0.52
0.82
LPOP
0.52
0.78
RPOP
0.53
0.81
SADD
0.52
0.79
HSET
0.53
0.86
SPOP
0.50
0.96
ZADD
0.51
1.01
ZPOPMIN
0.50
1.00
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)
0.72
1.31
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)
1.24
2.44
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)
1.89
3.79
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)
1.79
4.25
MSET (10 keys)
0.71
0.81
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
Based on the benchmark results, the UpCloud Balanced (1 GB) instance outperforms the DigitalOcean Regular (1 GB) instance across most metrics, especially in Redis throughput where it registers significantly higher requests per second and lower latency. While DigitalOcean shows competitive performance in MySQL bulk inserts, UpCloud's superior CPU events per second and overall higher Redis performance suggest it is the better choice for CPU-intensive and I/O-heavy tasks, making it ideal for applications requiring high throughput and low latency.
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.
