UpCloud Balanced (2 GB) vs. Vultr Cloud Compute (1 GB)
Same showdown, different day. Today I've spun up brand new instance from UpCloud and Vultr and ran my world famous suite of benchmarking scripts. Each instance was running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and were created in the New York area (or close to it). Let's get into the numbers.
Overview
| UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Wed, 13 May 2026 07:00:52 GMT | Tue, 12 May 2026 18:00:51 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 | €13.00 | $5.00 |
| RAM (GB) | 2 | 1 |
| CPU Cores | 1 | 1 |
| Storage (TB) | 50 | 25 |
| Storage Type | SSD | SSD |
| Transfer (TB) | 2 | 1 |
CPU
| UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | AuthenticAMD | GenuineIntel |
| Model Name | AMD EPYC 9575F 64-Core Processor | Intel Core Processor (Broadwell, no TSX, IBRS) |
| Clock Speed (MHz) | 3,295.48 | 2,394.45 |
| CPU Cache Size (KB) | 512.00 | 16,384.00 |
| BogoMips | 6,590.95 | 4,788.90 |
| Events per Second | 5,025.21 | 795.66 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.18 | 1.14 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.2 | 1.26 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 5.35 | 3.9 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.22 | 1.47 |
Memory
Memory Read
| UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 5,932,400.60 | 3,786,617.05 |
| Mebibytes per second | 5,793.36 | 3,697.87 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 2.22 | 0.43 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 6,706,599.41 | 3,766,621.58 |
| Mebibytes per second | 6,549.41 | 3,678.34 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 1.56 | 0.78 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
File I/O
| UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 3,214.64 | 1,908.38 |
| Writes per Second | 2,143.03 | 1,272.25 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 6,864.71 | 4,078.88 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 50.23 | 29.82 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 33.48 | 19.88 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.08 | 0.14 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 20.14 | 16.36 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.31 | 0.39 |
Mutex
| UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1,349.13 | 2,335.65 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1,353.60 | 2,349.86 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 1,361.99 | 2,365.31 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1,352.03 | 2,362.72 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 19,090.00 | 4,483.00 |
| Queries per second | 190,900.00 | 44,830.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.31 | 1.78 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.52 | 2.23 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 5.34 | 49.32 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.64 | 2.71 |
MySQL Write-only
| UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,974.00 | 3,919.00 |
| Queries per second | 39,740.00 | 39,190.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.87 | 1.68 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.51 | 2.55 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 38.67 | 27.43 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 5 | 3.62 |
MySQL Read/Write
| UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 2,830.00 | 1,790.00 |
| Queries per second | 28,300.00 | 17,900.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.29 | 4.06 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.53 | 5.58 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 56.72 | 44.16 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 6.32 | 7.98 |
MySQL INSERT
| UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 4,647.00 | 6,614.00 |
| Queries per second | 46,470.00 | 66,140.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.61 | 0.91 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.15 | 1.51 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 28.58 | 14.16 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4.41 | 2.07 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 2,249,592.00 | 865,805.00 |
| Queries per second | 22,495,920.00 | 8,658,050.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0.01 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 207.34 | 627.7 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 645,161.00 | 102,465.00 |
| Queries per second | 6,451,610.00 | 1,024,650.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0.07 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.02 | 0.1 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 2.26 | 9.98 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.02 | 0.14 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 8,546.00 | 4,521.00 |
| Queries per second | 85,460.00 | 45,210.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.13 | 0.73 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.17 | 2.21 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 172.57 | 6.91 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.58 | 3.07 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 11,562.00 | 5,358.00 |
| Queries per second | 115,620.00 | 53,580.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.22 | 0.66 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.86 | 1.86 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 4.07 | 8.79 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.27 | 2.57 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 4,711.00 | 6,182.00 |
| Queries per second | 47,110.00 | 61,820.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.73 | 0.94 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.12 | 1.62 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 30.41 | 35.17 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.96 | 2.35 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 5,393.00 | 6,753.00 |
| Queries per second | 53,930.00 | 67,530.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.48 | 0.93 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.85 | 1.48 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 39 | 10.15 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.43 | 1.93 |
MySQL DELETE
| UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 101,195.00 | 35,322.00 |
| Queries per second | 1,011,950.00 | 353,220.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0.07 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.1 | 0.28 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 39.3 | 21.31 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.17 | 1.55 |
Redis
| UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 130,208.34 | 27,925.16 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 130,208.34 | 30,590.39 |
| SET per Second | 130,890.05 | 24,740.23 |
| GET per Second | 129,198.97 | 29,095.14 |
| INCR per Second | 128,534.70 | 31,645.57 |
| LPUSH per Second | 128,040.97 | 31,685.68 |
| RPUSH per Second | 126,582.27 | 31,505.99 |
| LPOP per Second | 124,688.28 | 30,609.12 |
| RPOP per Second | 127,226.46 | 29,394.47 |
| SADD per Second | 129,198.97 | 31,357.79 |
| HSET per Second | 133,511.34 | 29,489.83 |
| SPOP per Second | 139,275.77 | 29,027.58 |
| ZADD per Second | 130,039.02 | 29,010.73 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 129,701.68 | 28,968.71 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 55,524.71 | 19,040.37 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 28,785.26 | 10,432.97 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 18,942.98 | 7,370.83 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 17,038.68 | 6,899.41 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 108,225.10 | 31,705.77 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 0.25 | 1.14 |
| PING_MBULK | 0.25 | 1.04 |
| SET | 0.26 | 1.31 |
| GET | 0.26 | 1.14 |
| INCR | 0.26 | 1.03 |
| LPUSH | 0.26 | 1.02 |
| RPUSH | 0.27 | 1.02 |
| LPOP | 0.27 | 1.06 |
| RPOP | 0.27 | 1.09 |
| SADD | 0.26 | 1.03 |
| HSET | 0.26 | 1.09 |
| SPOP | 0.24 | 1.09 |
| ZADD | 0.26 | 1.11 |
| ZPOPMIN | 0.26 | 1.10 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 0.66 | 1.76 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 1.27 | 3.27 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 1.95 | 4.54 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 2.16 | 4.86 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 0.34 | 1.09 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
The UpCloud Balanced instance excels in Redis performance benchmarks with higher requests per second and lower latencies across various operations compared to Vultr's Cloud Compute instance, indicating better suitability for CPU-intensive tasks and high I/O workloads. UpCloud also outperforms in CPU, file I/O, and memory benchmarks with notably lower latencies and higher throughput, suggesting it is better for tasks requiring substantial computational and storage capabilities. Conversely, the Vultr instance shows reasonable performance in Redis and MySQL operations, but it lags behind in CPU, file I/O, and memory benchmarks, making it more appropriate for applications with lower resource requirements and simpler database interactions. Thus, UpCloud is ideal for demanding workloads, while Vultr serves well for cost-sensitive, less intensive tasks.
From the friendly human:
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