UpCloud Balanced (1 GB) vs. Vultr Cloud Compute (1 GB)

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New day, new benchmarks. Today I've spun up some brand new instance from UpCloud and Vultr and ran some benchmarks. Each instance was running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and were created in the New York area (or close to it). Enough talk. Here's the data.

Overview

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Last Benchmarked Tue, 17 Feb 2026 12:00:52 GMT Wed, 18 Feb 2026 07:00:51 GMT
Linux Distro Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64
Kernel Version 6.8.0-87-generic 6.8.0-100-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) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Vendor AuthenticAMD GenuineIntel
Model Name AMD EPYC 9575F 64-Core Processor Intel Core Processor (Haswell, no TSX, IBRS)
Clock Speed (MHz) 3,295.46 2,400.00
CPU Cache Size (KB) 512.00 16,384.00
BogoMips 6,590.91 4,799.99
Events per Second 5,269.12 789.59
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.17 1.16
Average Latency (ms) 0.19 1.27
Maximum Latency (ms) 0.78 3.45
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.2 1.34

Memory

Memory Read

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Operations per second 6,495,754.58 3,918,177.35
Mebibytes per second 6,343.51 3,826.35
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.62 0.23
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Operations per second 6,653,943.56 3,908,567.36
Mebibytes per second 6,497.99 3,816.96
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 4.05 0.45
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Reads per Second 2,843.26 1,594.63
Writes per Second 1,895.51 1,063.09
Fsyncs per Second 6,077.14 3,407.62
Read Mebibytes per Second 44.43 24.92
Written Mebibytes per Second 29.62 16.61
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.09 0.16
Maximum Latency (ms) 130.72 32.52
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.29 0.42

Mutex

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms) 1,405.90 2,039.00
Average Latency (ms) 1,420.12 2,047.18
Maximum Latency (ms) 1,430.71 2,058.11
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1,427.08 2,045.74

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Transactions per second 20,293.00 4,857.00
Queries per second 202,930.00 48,570.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.32 1.84
Average Latency (ms) 0.49 2.06
Maximum Latency (ms) 6.79 8.4
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.62 2.18

MySQL Write-only

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Transactions per second 4,585.00 2,825.00
Queries per second 45,850.00 28,250.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.66 1.95
Average Latency (ms) 2.18 3.54
Maximum Latency (ms) 97.21 32.06
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 4.91 6.32

MySQL Read/Write

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Transactions per second 3,152.00 1,532.00
Queries per second 31,520.00 15,320.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.31 4.34
Average Latency (ms) 3.17 6.52
Maximum Latency (ms) 38.87 35
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 6.09 10.27

MySQL INSERT

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Transactions per second 7,436.00 4,892.00
Queries per second 74,360.00 48,920.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.44 1.12
Average Latency (ms) 1.34 2.04
Maximum Latency (ms) 47.68 19.75
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.96 3.96

MySQL Bulk INSERT

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Transactions per second 2,220,467.00 833,039.00
Queries per second 22,204,670.00 8,330,390.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0.01
Maximum Latency (ms) 240.79 655.03
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Transactions per second 716,229.00 102,586.00
Queries per second 7,162,290.00 1,025,860.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.01 0.07
Average Latency (ms) 0.01 0.1
Maximum Latency (ms) 3.14 2.33
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.02 0.13

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Transactions per second 8,118.00 5,155.00
Queries per second 81,180.00 51,550.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.23 0.65
Average Latency (ms) 1.23 1.94
Maximum Latency (ms) 12.44 10.67
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.79 2.52

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Transactions per second 13,131.00 5,999.00
Queries per second 131,310.00 59,990.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.2 0.53
Average Latency (ms) 0.76 1.67
Maximum Latency (ms) 4.01 7.75
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.14 2.18

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Transactions per second 6,728.00 3,979.00
Queries per second 67,280.00 39,790.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.51 1.1
Average Latency (ms) 1.48 2.51
Maximum Latency (ms) 42.6 36.68
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.43 4.91

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Transactions per second 5,255.00 4,131.00
Queries per second 52,550.00 41,310.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.51 1.21
Average Latency (ms) 1.9 2.42
Maximum Latency (ms) 42.38 24.52
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 4.18 4.91

MySQL DELETE

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Transactions per second 259,230.00 30,696.00
Queries per second 2,592,300.00 306,960.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.01 0.08
Average Latency (ms) 0.04 0.32
Maximum Latency (ms) 67.05 51.16
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.04 1.76

Redis

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second 87,719.30 33,715.44
PING_MBULK per Second 127,064.80 35,663.34
SET per Second 104,821.80 34,602.07
GET per Second 110,375.27 37,243.95
INCR per Second 125,786.16 35,310.73
LPUSH per Second 125,944.58 35,549.23
RPUSH per Second 133,511.34 35,739.81
LPOP per Second 134,228.19 36,818.85
RPOP per Second 128,534.70 35,460.99
SADD per Second 133,689.83 36,589.83
HSET per Second 127,713.92 36,114.12
SPOP per Second 142,247.52 37,299.52
ZADD per Second 143,884.89 35,511.36
ZPOPMIN per Second 152,905.20 37,009.62
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 77,041.60 23,986.57
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 31,836.99 12,658.23
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 20,064.21 8,469.55
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 19,708.32 7,245.33
MSET (10 keys) per Second 131,061.59 32,819.17

Redis Average Latency (ms)

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
PING_INLINE0.430.99
PING_MBULK0.260.91
SET0.320.95
GET0.300.88
INCR0.270.93
LPUSH0.270.93
RPUSH0.250.93
LPOP0.250.91
RPOP0.260.94
SADD0.250.90
HSET0.260.91
SPOP0.230.88
ZADD0.240.93
ZPOPMIN0.220.89
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)0.471.39
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)1.142.66
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)1.834.01
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)1.864.62
MSET (10 keys)0.281.06

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

In comparing the benchmarks for UpCloud and Vultr's 1 GB instances, UpCloud excels in Redis benchmarks with higher RPS rates and lower latency across various operations, showcasing superior performance in memory-intensive tasks. Vultr, while slightly cheaper, lags behind in both Redis and MySQL benchmarks, with higher latencies and lower throughput in file I/O operations. UpCloud's AMD EPYC processor, despite being part of a more expensive package, offers a more balanced performance, making it ideal for applications that demand high I/O speeds and low latency, such as web servers, database management systems, and real-time analytics. On the other hand, Vultr's instance might suffice for cost-sensitive applications with less demanding performance requirements.

From the friendly human:

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