UpCloud Balanced (1 GB) vs. Linode Nanode (1 GB)

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My friend, I'm so glad you're here! Today I've spun up brand new instance from Linode and UpCloud and did some benchmarking. All instances were spun up with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and were created in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Without further ado, here's the results.

Overview

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Last Benchmarked Wed, 08 Apr 2026 23:00:52 GMT Mon, 06 Apr 2026 20:00:52 GMT
Linux Distro Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64
Kernel Version 6.8.0-106-generic 6.8.0-71-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 New York, NY Newark, NJ
Monthly Price €7.00 $5.00
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) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Vendor AuthenticAMD AuthenticAMD
Model Name AMD EPYC 9575F 64-Core Processor AMD EPYC 7713 64-Core Processor
Clock Speed (MHz) 3,295.48 2,000.00
CPU Cache Size (KB) 512.00 512.00
BogoMips 6,590.95 3,999.99
Events per Second 5,498.48 1,620.95
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.16 0.28
Average Latency (ms) 0.18 0.61
Maximum Latency (ms) 1.19 16.58
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.2 2.97

Memory

Memory Read

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Operations per second 7,536,293.91 2,785,205.91
Mebibytes per second 7,359.66 2,719.93
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 0.25 3.98
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Operations per second 7,610,312.91 5,247,741.79
Mebibytes per second 7,431.95 5,124.75
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 0.18 4.41
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Reads per Second 4,958.78 2,319.13
Writes per Second 3,305.85 1,546.08
Fsyncs per Second 10,581.62 4,957.36
Read Mebibytes per Second 77.48 36.24
Written Mebibytes per Second 51.65 24.16
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.05 0.11
Maximum Latency (ms) 23.72 8.17
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.2 0.25

Mutex

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms) 1,200.46 2,349.38
Average Latency (ms) 1,205.89 2,390.79
Maximum Latency (ms) 1,209.97 2,412.13
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1,213.57 2,405.65

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second 23,913.00 6,608.00
Queries per second 239,130.00 66,080.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.29 1.28
Average Latency (ms) 0.42 1.51
Maximum Latency (ms) 3.69 8.96
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.55 1.79

MySQL Write-only

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second 7,390.00 4,539.00
Queries per second 73,900.00 45,390.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.59 1.33
Average Latency (ms) 1.35 2.2
Maximum Latency (ms) 151.26 18.39
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.18 3.25

MySQL Read/Write

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second 5,643.00 2,306.00
Queries per second 56,430.00 23,060.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.07 3.11
Average Latency (ms) 1.77 4.33
Maximum Latency (ms) 18.59 10.82
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.39 5.67

MySQL INSERT

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second 10,691.00 7,556.00
Queries per second 106,910.00 75,560.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.4 0.83
Average Latency (ms) 0.93 1.32
Maximum Latency (ms) 28.16 8.91
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.52 1.82

MySQL Bulk INSERT

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second 2,861,217.00 1,171,967.00
Queries per second 28,612,170.00 11,719,670.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0.01
Maximum Latency (ms) 190.34 511.73
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second 797,057.00 127,249.00
Queries per second 7,970,570.00 1,272,490.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.01 0.05
Average Latency (ms) 0.01 0.08
Maximum Latency (ms) 1.08 7.66
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.02 0.11

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second 14,716.00 8,151.00
Queries per second 147,160.00 81,510.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.19 0.39
Average Latency (ms) 0.68 1.22
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.31 5.53
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.01 1.7

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second 18,683.00 9,239.00
Queries per second 186,830.00 92,390.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.15 0.33
Average Latency (ms) 0.53 1.08
Maximum Latency (ms) 2.69 8.4
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.77 1.42

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second 11,777.00 7,280.00
Queries per second 117,770.00 72,800.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.39 0.71
Average Latency (ms) 0.85 1.37
Maximum Latency (ms) 16.28 23.45
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.23 2.03

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second 11,468.00 7,428.00
Queries per second 114,680.00 74,280.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.35 0.72
Average Latency (ms) 0.87 1.34
Maximum Latency (ms) 15.13 6.56
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.23 1.86

MySQL DELETE

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second 397,047.00 54,792.00
Queries per second 3,970,470.00 547,920.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.01 0.05
Average Latency (ms) 0.02 0.18
Maximum Latency (ms) 12.77 11.29
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.03 1.14

Redis

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second 163,132.14 28,910.09
PING_MBULK per Second 146,412.88 34,328.87
SET per Second 168,067.22 33,178.50
GET per Second 163,666.12 33,670.04
INCR per Second 168,067.22 34,650.04
LPUSH per Second 158,730.16 32,992.41
RPUSH per Second 166,666.66 32,992.41
LPOP per Second 157,232.70 33,068.79
RPOP per Second 157,232.70 33,388.98
SADD per Second 161,030.59 33,014.20
HSET per Second 157,977.88 33,967.39
SPOP per Second 165,562.92 35,549.23
ZADD per Second 158,730.16 34,071.55
ZPOPMIN per Second 167,785.23 34,364.26
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 89,285.71 20,876.83
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 42,354.93 13,976.24
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 28,042.62 10,399.33
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 23,635.07 8,848.77
MSET (10 keys) per Second 140,845.08 31,240.24

Redis Average Latency (ms)

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
PING_INLINE0.211.11
PING_MBULK0.220.97
SET0.200.99
GET0.200.97
INCR0.200.95
LPUSH0.210.99
RPUSH0.200.99
LPOP0.221.00
RPOP0.220.98
SADD0.210.98
HSET0.210.96
SPOP0.200.93
ZADD0.210.96
ZPOPMIN0.200.94
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)0.401.61
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)0.842.39
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)1.263.26
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)1.523.83
MSET (10 keys)0.261.08

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

The UpCloud Balanced instance significantly outperforms the Linode Nanode in most benchmarks. While the Linode instance shows reasonable Redis performance with high request rates and low latencies, it struggles with larger data range operations in Redis. The UpCloud instance excels in overall Redis request rates and latency, making it ideal for high-throughput caching and data operations. Both instances have similar CPU performance metrics, but UpCloud slightly edges out with higher CPU events per second. The UpCloud instance also demonstrates superior file I/O throughput and latency, making it preferable for workloads involving intensive file read/write operations. Given these results, the UpCloud Balanced instance is highly recommended for applications requiring high Redis performance, high CPU utilization, and intensive file I/O, while the Linode Nanode may be more suitable for less demanding tasks or where cost is a primary consideration.

From the friendly human:

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