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

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New day, new benchmarks. Today I've spun up brand new instance from UpCloud and Vultr and ran my world famous suite of benchmarking scripts. Each instance was spun up with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and were created in the New York area (or close to it). Time to see who showed up today.

Overview

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Last Benchmarked Wed, 13 May 2026 07:00:52 GMT Tue, 12 May 2026 01:00:52 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 $6.00
RAM (GB) 2 1
CPU Cores 1 1
Storage (TB) 50 32
Storage Type SSD NVMe
Transfer (TB) 2 1

CPU

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Vendor AuthenticAMD GenuineIntel
Model Name AMD EPYC 9575F 64-Core Processor Intel Core Processor (Skylake, IBRS, no TSX)
Clock Speed (MHz) 3,295.48 3,792.00
CPU Cache Size (KB) 512.00 16,384.00
BogoMips 6,590.95 7,583.99
Events per Second 5,025.21 1,616.36
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.18 0.59
Average Latency (ms) 0.2 0.62
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.35 3.14
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.22 0.65

Memory

Memory Read

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Operations per second 5,932,400.60 8,026,985.33
Mebibytes per second 5,793.36 7,838.85
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 2.22 0.47
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Operations per second 6,706,599.41 8,033,949.18
Mebibytes per second 6,549.41 7,845.65
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 1.56 0.12
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Reads per Second 3,214.64 4,461.17
Writes per Second 2,143.03 2,974.11
Fsyncs per Second 6,864.71 9,517.47
Read Mebibytes per Second 50.23 69.71
Written Mebibytes per Second 33.48 46.47
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.08 0.06
Maximum Latency (ms) 20.14 1.54
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.31 0.18

Mutex

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms) 1,349.13 1,110.31
Average Latency (ms) 1,353.60 1,120.71
Maximum Latency (ms) 1,361.99 1,126.03
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1,352.03 1,129.24

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 19,090.00 10,658.00
Queries per second 190,900.00 106,580.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.31 0.88
Average Latency (ms) 0.52 0.94
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.34 6.61
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.64 0.99

MySQL Write-only

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 3,974.00 9,937.00
Queries per second 39,740.00 99,370.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.87 0.66
Average Latency (ms) 2.51 1.01
Maximum Latency (ms) 38.67 4.42
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 5 1.3

MySQL Read/Write

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 2,830.00 4,639.00
Queries per second 28,300.00 46,390.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.29 1.78
Average Latency (ms) 3.53 2.15
Maximum Latency (ms) 56.72 4.96
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 6.32 2.43

MySQL INSERT

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 4,647.00 17,259.00
Queries per second 46,470.00 172,590.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.61 0.37
Average Latency (ms) 2.15 0.58
Maximum Latency (ms) 28.58 2.37
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 4.41 0.73

MySQL Bulk INSERT

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 2,249,592.00 2,103,967.00
Queries per second 22,495,920.00 21,039,670.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 207.34 263.1
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 645,161.00 241,647.00
Queries per second 6,451,610.00 2,416,470.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.01 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.02 0.04
Maximum Latency (ms) 2.26 5.32
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.02 0.05

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 8,546.00 11,030.00
Queries per second 85,460.00 110,300.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.13 0.3
Average Latency (ms) 1.17 0.91
Maximum Latency (ms) 172.57 3.55
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.58 1.16

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 11,562.00 11,228.00
Queries per second 115,620.00 112,280.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.22 0.33
Average Latency (ms) 0.86 0.89
Maximum Latency (ms) 4.07 3.36
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.27 1.16

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 4,711.00 16,444.00
Queries per second 47,110.00 164,440.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.73 0.37
Average Latency (ms) 2.12 0.61
Maximum Latency (ms) 30.41 2.17
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.96 0.83

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 5,393.00 16,975.00
Queries per second 53,930.00 169,750.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.48 0.37
Average Latency (ms) 1.85 0.59
Maximum Latency (ms) 39 5.14
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.43 0.77

MySQL DELETE

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
Transactions per second 101,195.00 153,274.00
Queries per second 1,011,950.00 1,532,740.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.01 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.1 0.06
Maximum Latency (ms) 39.3 2.78
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.17 0.09

Redis

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second 130,208.34 56,116.72
PING_MBULK per Second 130,208.34 56,689.34
SET per Second 130,890.05 56,338.03
GET per Second 129,198.97 56,369.79
INCR per Second 128,534.70 55,991.04
LPUSH per Second 128,040.97 55,096.42
RPUSH per Second 126,582.27 55,679.29
LPOP per Second 124,688.28 55,524.71
RPOP per Second 127,226.46 55,865.92
SADD per Second 129,198.97 56,211.35
HSET per Second 133,511.34 56,148.23
SPOP per Second 139,275.77 56,274.62
ZADD per Second 130,039.02 55,493.89
ZPOPMIN per Second 129,701.68 56,980.06
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 55,524.71 38,328.86
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 28,785.26 21,385.80
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 18,942.98 14,682.13
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 17,038.68 12,550.20
MSET (10 keys) per Second 108,225.10 52,631.58

Redis Average Latency (ms)

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Frequency Intel (1 GB)
PING_INLINE0.250.57
PING_MBULK0.250.56
SET0.260.57
GET0.260.56
INCR0.260.57
LPUSH0.260.58
RPUSH0.270.57
LPOP0.270.58
RPOP0.270.58
SADD0.260.57
HSET0.260.57
SPOP0.240.57
ZADD0.260.58
ZPOPMIN0.260.56
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)0.660.90
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)1.271.63
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)1.952.45
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)2.162.89
MSET (10 keys)0.340.65

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

When comparing the two instances, the UpCloud Balanced (2 GB) configuration outperforms the Vultr High Frequency Intel (1 GB) configuration in most benchmarks, showcasing higher throughput rates and lower latencies in Redis operations like PING_INLINE, SET, and GET, and more efficient CPU and memory operations. The UpCloud instance, though more expensive, provides more RAM and higher storage/transfer rates, indicating it's better suited for CPU-intensive and I/O-heavy workloads. Conversely, the Vultr instance, being more affordable, still performs adequately but lags behind in benchmarks and would be better suited for less demanding tasks where lower cost is a primary concern.

From the friendly human:

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