Welcome to another round of the VPS Showdown. Today I've spun up some brand new instance from Linode and UpCloud and ran some benchmarks. 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
Fri, 22 May 2026 11:00:52 GMT
Sat, 23 May 2026 13:00:52 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
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 7642 48-Core Processor
Clock Speed (MHz)
3,295.45
2,300.00
CPU Cache Size (KB)
512.00
512.00
BogoMips
6,590.90
4,600.00
Events per Second
5,248.20
905.04
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.18
0.61
Average Latency (ms)
0.19
1.1
Maximum Latency (ms)
1.79
22.05
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.2
2.48
Memory
Memory Read
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Operations per second
6,801,282.43
5,013,583.91
Mebibytes per second
6,641.88
4,896.08
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
2.29
9.43
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
Memory Write
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Operations per second
5,773,502.12
4,999,712.46
Mebibytes per second
5,638.19
4,882.53
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
3.02
9.49
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
File I/O
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Reads per Second
3,347.40
1,752.56
Writes per Second
2,231.60
1,168.34
Fsyncs per Second
7,151.99
3,745.40
Read Mebibytes per Second
52.30
27.38
Written Mebibytes per Second
34.87
18.26
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.08
0.15
Maximum Latency (ms)
45.95
75.52
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.25
0.42
Mutex
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms)
1,448.88
1,654.93
Average Latency (ms)
1,453.66
1,667.46
Maximum Latency (ms)
1,458.86
1,678.80
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1,453.01
1,678.14
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second
186.00
6,108.00
Queries per second
1,860.00
61,080.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.33
1.43
Average Latency (ms)
54.83
1.64
Maximum Latency (ms)
1519.77
22.63
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
320.17
2
MySQL Write-only
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second
7.00
4,788.00
Queries per second
70.00
47,880.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1299.84
1.33
Average Latency (ms)
1584.29
2.09
Maximum Latency (ms)
1904.57
24.02
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1903.57
3.07
MySQL Read/Write
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second
1.00
2,490.00
Queries per second
10.00
24,900.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
16296.58
3.03
Average Latency (ms)
16296.58
4.02
Maximum Latency (ms)
16296.58
15.36
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
16224.31
5.09
MySQL INSERT
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second
92.00
8,775.00
Queries per second
920.00
87,750.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.47
0.68
Average Latency (ms)
110.5
1.14
Maximum Latency (ms)
255.29
20.34
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
204.11
1.47
MySQL Bulk INSERT
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second
2,307,842.00
898,571.00
Queries per second
23,078,420.00
8,985,710.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0.01
Maximum Latency (ms)
293.41
1312.33
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
MySQL SELECT
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second
613,969.00
131,900.00
Queries per second
6,139,690.00
1,319,000.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.01
0.06
Average Latency (ms)
0.02
0.08
Maximum Latency (ms)
211.08
12.86
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.02
0.11
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second
36.00
6,799.00
Queries per second
360.00
67,990.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
132
0.48
Average Latency (ms)
280.61
1.47
Maximum Latency (ms)
683.5
12.9
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
411.96
2.03
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second
33.00
6,912.00
Queries per second
330.00
69,120.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
107.87
0.36
Average Latency (ms)
311.59
1.45
Maximum Latency (ms)
710.24
5.54
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
493.24
1.93
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second
756.00
7,586.00
Queries per second
7,560.00
75,860.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.6
0.75
Average Latency (ms)
13.32
1.32
Maximum Latency (ms)
591.87
19.75
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
82.96
2
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second
22.00
7,848.00
Queries per second
220.00
78,480.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
288.94
0.7
Average Latency (ms)
468.04
1.27
Maximum Latency (ms)
695.61
23.83
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
612.21
1.82
MySQL DELETE
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
Transactions per second
128.00
61,230.00
Queries per second
1,280.00
612,300.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
18.77
0.06
Average Latency (ms)
77.86
0.16
Maximum Latency (ms)
170.32
19.09
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
116.8
0.97
Redis
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second
93,370.68
38,804.81
PING_MBULK per Second
114,285.71
39,154.27
SET per Second
72,254.34
38,789.76
GET per Second
57,636.89
38,431.98
INCR per Second
114,547.53
38,971.16
LPUSH per Second
54,054.05
39,154.27
RPUSH per Second
121,951.22
38,505.97
LPOP per Second
76,745.97
38,476.34
RPOP per Second
102,145.05
38,925.65
SADD per Second
89,445.44
38,255.55
HSET per Second
93,720.71
36,737.70
SPOP per Second
92,081.03
38,925.65
ZADD per Second
81,900.09
38,580.25
ZPOPMIN per Second
99,601.60
39,603.96
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second
48,473.10
26,602.82
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second
17,497.81
14,660.61
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second
14,285.71
10,073.54
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second
10,760.79
8,647.53
MSET (10 keys) per Second
91,074.68
34,141.35
Redis Average Latency (ms)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Linode – Nanode (1 GB)
PING_INLINE
0.40
0.87
PING_MBULK
0.30
0.86
SET
0.55
0.87
GET
0.70
0.87
INCR
0.30
0.86
LPUSH
0.74
0.86
RPUSH
0.29
0.88
LPOP
0.51
0.88
RPOP
0.35
0.88
SADD
0.42
0.88
HSET
0.40
0.91
SPOP
0.40
0.86
ZADD
0.44
0.88
ZPOPMIN
0.37
0.85
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)
0.80
1.30
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)
2.31
2.48
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)
2.73
3.57
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)
3.65
4.12
MSET (10 keys)
0.43
1.02
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
The UpCloud Balanced instance outperforms the Linode Nanode in most benchmarks, particularly in Redis throughput where it shows significantly higher request rates per second and lower latency. The UpCloud instance also exhibits higher CPU event processing rates and lower file I/O latencies. Memory operations show similar throughput and low latencies for both instances, but UpCloud's MySQL benchmarks are more erratic with notably higher latencies for certain operations. Given its superior performance in CPU-intensive and I/O-heavy tasks, the UpCloud instance is better suited for applications requiring high throughput and low latency, such as real-time data processing or high-frequency trading platforms, whereas the Linode Nanode, with its more consistent performance across various metrics, could be more appropriate for general-purpose workloads or where budget constraints are a significant factor.
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 Linode and UpCloud.