UpCloud Balanced (1 GB) vs. Vultr Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Welcome to another round of the VPS Showdown. Today I spun up fresh instances from UpCloud and Vultr and ran some benchmarks. All instances were running Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 and were created in the New York area (or close to it). Let's get into the numbers.
Overview
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Last Benchmarked
Thu, 09 Jul 2026 00:42:22 GMT
Sat, 01 Aug 2026 05:06:02 GMT
Linux Distro
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64
Kernel Version
7.0.0-14-generic
7.0.0-28-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
Newark, NJ
Monthly Price
€7.00
$10.00
RAM (GB)
1
2
CPU Cores
1
1
Storage (TB)
25
50
Storage Type
SSD
SSD
Transfer (TB)
1
2
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)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Vendor
AuthenticAMD
GenuineIntel
Model Name
AMD EPYC 9575F 64-Core Processor
Intel Xeon Processor (Skylake, IBRS)
Clock Speed (MHz)
3,295.46
2,593.91
CPU Cache Size (KB)
512.00
16,384.00
BogoMips
6,590.91
5,187.82
Events per Second
5,281.40
929.36
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.17
0.95
Average Latency (ms)
0.19
1.07
Maximum Latency (ms)
5.63
2.29
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.21
1.39
Memory
Memory Read
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Operations per second
7,916,721.84
3,441,276.65
Mebibytes per second
7,731.17
3,360.62
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
0.56
1.05
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
Memory Write
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Operations per second
7,831,276.08
3,505,662.23
Mebibytes per second
7,647.73
3,423.50
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
0.33
0.71
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
File I/O
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Reads per Second
3,918.58
2,556.83
Writes per Second
2,612.35
1,704.52
Fsyncs per Second
8,362.41
5,461.18
Read Mebibytes per Second
61.23
39.95
Written Mebibytes per Second
40.82
26.63
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.07
0.1
Maximum Latency (ms)
56.19
36.01
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.2
0.24
Mutex
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms)
1,149.76
1,783.52
Average Latency (ms)
1,155.73
1,799.40
Maximum Latency (ms)
1,166.28
1,810.68
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1,170.65
1,803.47
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second
0.00
5,535.00
Queries per second
0.00
55,350.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
1.57
Average Latency (ms)
0
1.8
Maximum Latency (ms)
0
4.09
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
2.07
MySQL Write-only
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second
0.00
5,739.00
Queries per second
0.00
57,390.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
1.19
Average Latency (ms)
0
1.74
Maximum Latency (ms)
0
29.45
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
2.35
MySQL Read/Write
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second
0.00
2,265.00
Queries per second
0.00
22,650.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
3.24
Average Latency (ms)
0
4.41
Maximum Latency (ms)
0
30.01
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
5.67
MySQL INSERT
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second
0.00
11,053.00
Queries per second
0.00
110,530.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0.65
Average Latency (ms)
0
0.9
Maximum Latency (ms)
0
17.38
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
1.16
MySQL Bulk INSERT
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second
0.00
701,975.00
Queries per second
0.00
7,019,750.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0.01
Maximum Latency (ms)
0
625.32
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
MySQL SELECT
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second
0.00
152,246.00
Queries per second
0.00
1,522,460.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0.05
Average Latency (ms)
0
0.07
Maximum Latency (ms)
0
1.38
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0.1
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second
0.00
3,020.00
Queries per second
0.00
30,200.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0.76
Average Latency (ms)
0
3.31
Maximum Latency (ms)
0
8.79
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
4.33
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second
0.00
2,424.00
Queries per second
0.00
24,240.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
1.46
Average Latency (ms)
0
4.12
Maximum Latency (ms)
0
7.2
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
5.47
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second
0.00
10,298.00
Queries per second
0.00
102,980.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0.64
Average Latency (ms)
0
0.97
Maximum Latency (ms)
0
20.63
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
1.39
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second
0.00
10,146.00
Queries per second
0.00
101,460.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0.65
Average Latency (ms)
0
0.98
Maximum Latency (ms)
0
16.18
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
1.34
MySQL DELETE
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
Transactions per second
0.00
87,018.00
Queries per second
0.00
870,180.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0.05
Average Latency (ms)
0
0.11
Maximum Latency (ms)
0
112.3
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0.23
Redis
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second
45,871.56
31,908.10
PING_MBULK per Second
57,870.37
33,014.20
SET per Second
60,096.15
32,237.27
GET per Second
59,347.18
32,404.41
INCR per Second
58,997.05
33,300.03
LPUSH per Second
60,024.01
32,722.51
RPUSH per Second
59,206.63
32,404.41
LPOP per Second
59,952.04
32,206.12
RPOP per Second
59,206.63
35,063.11
SADD per Second
58,754.41
34,746.35
HSET per Second
58,275.06
35,001.75
SPOP per Second
59,559.26
35,701.54
ZADD per Second
61,312.08
34,602.07
ZPOPMIN per Second
61,050.06
33,898.30
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second
45,392.64
16,764.46
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second
25,859.84
7,578.63
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second
16,854.88
4,631.56
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second
17,455.05
4,000.80
MSET (10 keys) per Second
49,578.58
25,297.24
Redis Average Latency (ms)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB)
PING_INLINE
0.73
0.96
PING_MBULK
0.51
0.92
SET
0.51
0.97
GET
0.51
0.95
INCR
0.52
0.94
LPUSH
0.52
0.95
RPUSH
0.52
0.96
LPOP
0.52
0.97
RPOP
0.53
0.90
SADD
0.52
0.89
HSET
0.53
0.90
SPOP
0.50
0.87
ZADD
0.51
0.91
ZPOPMIN
0.50
0.91
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)
0.72
1.84
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)
1.24
3.87
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)
1.89
6.03
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)
1.79
6.91
MSET (10 keys)
0.71
1.53
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
The UpCloud Balanced (1 GB) instance outperforms the Vultr Cloud Compute (2 GB) in benchmarks, particularly in CPU processing with 5281.4 events per second versus Vultr's 929.36, and in Redis operations such as SET and GET with higher requests per second (rps). While Vultr offers more RAM, UpCloud's superior CPU and memory benchmarks make it more suitable for CPU-heavy or memory-intensive tasks, whereas Vultr's benchmarks suggest it may be better for budget-conscious users needing slightly less headroom.
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 UpCloud and Vultr.
