UpCloud Balanced (1 GB) vs. Vultr High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Fresh benchmarks coming at ya. Today I spun up fresh instances from UpCloud and Vultr and ran my world famous suite of benchmarking scripts. Each instance was spun up with Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 and were created in the New York area (or close to it). Without further ado, here's the results.
Overview
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Last Benchmarked
Thu, 01 Oct 2026 05:02:17 GMT
Tue, 01 Sep 2026 05:13:32 GMT
Linux Distro
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64
Kernel Version
7.0.0-29-generic
7.0.0-29-generic
MySQL Version
8.4.11-0ubuntu0.26.04.1
8.4.11-0ubuntu0.26.04.1
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
50
Storage Type
SSD
NVMe
Transfer (TB)
1
3
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)
Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Redis (GET/sec)
Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Value (CPU events per $/mo)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) takes 3 of 5 categories.
CPU
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Vendor
AuthenticAMD
GenuineIntel
Model Name
AMD EPYC 9575F 64-Core Processor
Intel Xeon Processor (Cascadelake)
Clock Speed (MHz)
3,295.42
2,893.21
CPU Cache Size (KB)
512.00
16,384.00
BogoMips
6,590.84
5,786.41
Events per Second
4,771.17
1,011.48
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.19
0.89
Average Latency (ms)
0.21
0.99
Maximum Latency (ms)
4.26
2.15
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.23
1.25
Memory
Memory Read
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Operations per second
6,936,402.22
5,186,399.33
Mebibytes per second
6,773.83
5,064.84
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
0.35
0.58
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
Memory Write
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Operations per second
6,762,728.29
5,103,338.99
Mebibytes per second
6,604.23
4,983.73
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
5.65
1.94
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
File I/O
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Reads per Second
2,763.16
3,831.53
Writes per Second
1,842.11
2,554.36
Fsyncs per Second
5,897.24
8,179.23
Read Mebibytes per Second
43.17
59.87
Written Mebibytes per Second
28.78
39.91
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.09
0.07
Maximum Latency (ms)
44.23
2.28
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.3
0.21
Mutex
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms)
1,275.54
1,735.94
Average Latency (ms)
1,282.62
1,756.88
Maximum Latency (ms)
1,289.72
1,766.31
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1,280.93
1,771.29
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second
0.00
8,164.00
Queries per second
0.00
81,640.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0.99
Average Latency (ms)
0
1.22
Maximum Latency (ms)
0
7.57
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
1.67
MySQL Write-only
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second
0.00
10,122.00
Queries per second
0.00
101,220.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0.72
Average Latency (ms)
0
0.99
Maximum Latency (ms)
0
8.81
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
1.37
MySQL Read/Write
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second
0.00
3,490.00
Queries per second
0.00
34,900.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
1.98
Average Latency (ms)
0
2.86
Maximum Latency (ms)
0
12.95
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
4.03
MySQL INSERT
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second
0.00
15,691.00
Queries per second
0.00
156,910.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0.42
Average Latency (ms)
0
0.63
Maximum Latency (ms)
0
6.6
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0.87
MySQL Bulk INSERT
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second
0.00
1,084,592.00
Queries per second
0.00
10,845,920.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0.01
Maximum Latency (ms)
0
581.84
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
MySQL SELECT
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second
0.00
225,553.00
Queries per second
0.00
2,255,530.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0.04
Average Latency (ms)
0
0.04
Maximum Latency (ms)
0
1.59
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0.07
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second
0.00
5,528.00
Queries per second
0.00
55,280.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0.64
Average Latency (ms)
0
1.81
Maximum Latency (ms)
0
5.91
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
2.52
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second
0.00
7,887.00
Queries per second
0.00
78,870.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0.41
Average Latency (ms)
0
1.27
Maximum Latency (ms)
0
7.06
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
1.89
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second
0.00
16,393.00
Queries per second
0.00
163,930.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0.42
Average Latency (ms)
0
0.61
Maximum Latency (ms)
0
5.96
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0.84
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second
0.00
17,497.00
Queries per second
0.00
174,970.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0.4
Average Latency (ms)
0
0.57
Maximum Latency (ms)
0
4.42
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0.74
MySQL DELETE
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second
0.00
145,609.00
Queries per second
0.00
1,456,090.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0.03
Average Latency (ms)
0
0.07
Maximum Latency (ms)
0
4.46
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0.12
Redis
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second
36,218.76
64,892.93
PING_MBULK per Second
45,454.54
69,108.50
SET per Second
48,449.61
69,735.01
GET per Second
48,685.49
70,821.53
INCR per Second
48,449.61
63,371.36
LPUSH per Second
50,175.61
61,576.36
RPUSH per Second
48,828.12
64,808.82
LPOP per Second
50,942.43
61,842.92
RPOP per Second
49,603.17
61,312.08
SADD per Second
47,438.33
63,411.54
HSET per Second
48,685.49
63,331.22
SPOP per Second
46,403.71
63,371.36
ZADD per Second
47,687.18
63,979.53
ZPOPMIN per Second
47,103.16
65,231.57
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second
36,114.12
36,456.43
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second
23,266.64
17,639.79
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second
15,227.65
11,498.22
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second
11,837.12
9,613.54
MSET (10 keys) per Second
44,964.03
54,347.82
Redis Average Latency (ms)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
PING_INLINE
0.88
0.49
PING_MBULK
0.64
0.46
SET
0.63
0.46
GET
0.61
0.45
INCR
0.62
0.51
LPUSH
0.61
0.52
RPUSH
0.62
0.50
LPOP
0.61
0.52
RPOP
0.62
0.53
SADD
0.63
0.50
HSET
0.62
0.51
SPOP
0.64
0.50
ZADD
0.65
0.50
ZPOPMIN
0.63
0.49
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)
0.87
0.92
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)
1.38
1.83
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)
2.08
2.82
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)
2.62
3.27
MSET (10 keys)
0.76
0.72
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
The Vultr High Performance Intel (2 GB) instance outperforms the UpCloud Balanced (1 GB) in nearly all benchmarks, particularly in Redis benchmarks where it achieves significantly higher requests per second and lower latency. The Vultr instance delivers superior CPU performance and memory throughput, making it more suitable for CPU-intensive and I/O-heavy applications, whereas the UpCloud instance, despite its lower cost, is better for more budget-conscious, basic use cases.
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.
