UpCloud Balanced (1 GB) vs. Vultr High Frequency Intel (2 GB)

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Same showdown, different day. Today I've got brand new instances from UpCloud and Vultr to run some benchmarks on. Each instance was spun up with Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 and were created in the New York area (or close to it). Time to see who showed up today.

Overview

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Last Benchmarked Thu, 09 Jul 2026 00:42:22 GMT Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:36:36 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 Newark, NJ
Monthly Price €7.00 $12.00
RAM (GB) 1 2
CPU Cores 1 1
Storage (TB) 25 64
Storage Type SSD NVMe
Transfer (TB) 1 2

Head-to-head

Category winners from the latest benchmarks.

CategoryWinner
CPU (events/sec)UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Memory (read MiB/s)UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Disk I/O (MiB/s)Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Redis (GET/sec)UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Value (CPU events per $/mo)UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) takes 4 of 5 categories.

CPU

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Vendor AuthenticAMD GenuineIntel
Model Name AMD EPYC 9575F 64-Core Processor Intel Core Processor (Skylake, IBRS, no TSX)
Clock Speed (MHz) 3,295.46 3,792.05
CPU Cache Size (KB) 512.00 16,384.00
BogoMips 6,590.91 7,584.10
Events per Second 5,281.40 1,466.74
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.17 0.67
Average Latency (ms) 0.19 0.68
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.63 3.3
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.21 0.72

Memory

Memory Read

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Operations per second 7,916,721.84 7,681,495.84
Mebibytes per second 7,731.17 7,501.46
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 0.56 0.58
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Operations per second 7,831,276.08 7,602,534.50
Mebibytes per second 7,647.73 7,424.35
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 0.33 0.35
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Reads per Second 3,918.58 4,496.60
Writes per Second 2,612.35 2,997.70
Fsyncs per Second 8,362.41 9,593.60
Read Mebibytes per Second 61.23 70.26
Written Mebibytes per Second 40.82 46.84
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.07 0.06
Maximum Latency (ms) 56.19 2.12
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.2 0.18

Mutex

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms) 1,149.76 1,184.90
Average Latency (ms) 1,155.73 1,190.04
Maximum Latency (ms) 1,166.28 1,196.73
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1,170.65 1,191.92

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 0.00 9,469.00
Queries per second 0.00 94,690.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0.89
Average Latency (ms) 0 1.06
Maximum Latency (ms) 0 5.85
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 2.03

MySQL Write-only

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 0.00 10,900.00
Queries per second 0.00 109,000.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0.63
Average Latency (ms) 0 0.92
Maximum Latency (ms) 0 8.97
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 1.18

MySQL Read/Write

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 0.00 4,779.00
Queries per second 0.00 47,790.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 1.69
Average Latency (ms) 0 2.09
Maximum Latency (ms) 0 7.55
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 2.52

MySQL INSERT

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 0.00 19,198.00
Queries per second 0.00 191,980.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0.37
Average Latency (ms) 0 0.52
Maximum Latency (ms) 0 4.58
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0.65

MySQL Bulk INSERT

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 0.00 2,016,592.00
Queries per second 0.00 20,165,920.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 0 230.01
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 0.00 218,879.00
Queries per second 0.00 2,188,790.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0 0.05
Maximum Latency (ms) 0 2
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0.05

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 0.00 7,852.00
Queries per second 0.00 78,520.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0.41
Average Latency (ms) 0 1.27
Maximum Latency (ms) 0 3.85
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 1.7

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 0.00 11,560.00
Queries per second 0.00 115,600.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0.29
Average Latency (ms) 0 0.86
Maximum Latency (ms) 0 3.31
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 1.12

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 0.00 18,734.00
Queries per second 0.00 187,340.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0.38
Average Latency (ms) 0 0.53
Maximum Latency (ms) 0 4.34
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0.72

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 0.00 18,579.00
Queries per second 0.00 185,790.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0.37
Average Latency (ms) 0 0.54
Maximum Latency (ms) 0 12.7
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0.69

MySQL DELETE

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 0.00 154,977.00
Queries per second 0.00 1,549,770.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0 0.06
Maximum Latency (ms) 0 4.05
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0.09

Redis

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second 45,871.56 54,734.54
PING_MBULK per Second 57,870.37 53,475.94
SET per Second 60,096.15 54,288.82
GET per Second 59,347.18 54,914.88
INCR per Second 58,997.05 55,401.66
LPUSH per Second 60,024.01 53,792.36
RPUSH per Second 59,206.63 54,525.63
LPOP per Second 59,952.04 53,078.56
RPOP per Second 59,206.63 52,631.58
SADD per Second 58,754.41 54,436.58
HSET per Second 58,275.06 53,619.30
SPOP per Second 59,559.26 54,734.54
ZADD per Second 61,312.08 52,659.29
ZPOPMIN per Second 61,050.06 53,561.86
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 45,392.64 36,845.98
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 25,859.84 22,696.32
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 16,854.88 15,885.62
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 17,455.05 13,700.51
MSET (10 keys) per Second 49,578.58 50,968.40

Redis Average Latency (ms)

UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (2 GB)
PING_INLINE0.730.56
PING_MBULK0.510.57
SET0.510.57
GET0.510.56
INCR0.520.56
LPUSH0.520.58
RPUSH0.520.57
LPOP0.520.59
RPOP0.530.59
SADD0.520.57
HSET0.530.58
SPOP0.500.56
ZADD0.510.59
ZPOPMIN0.500.57
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)0.720.84
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)1.241.44
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)1.892.04
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)1.792.35
MSET (10 keys)0.710.64

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

The UpCloud Balanced (1 GB) instance outperforms the Vultr High Frequency Intel (2 GB) instance based on benchmark results, particularly in Redis benchmarks where UpCloud achieves higher request per second (rps) rates and lower latency for various operations such as LRANGE_500 (16854.88 rps vs 15885.62 rps) and SET (60096.15 rps vs 54288.82 rps). While Vultr shows better CPU performance in bulk MySQL insert operations (199596.07 tps vs 0 tps), UpCloud's superior Redis handling makes it more suitable for applications that rely heavily on fast and efficient in-memory data handling, whereas Vultr's strength in MySQL operations might be better for database-intensive tasks.

From the friendly human:

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