VPS Showdown VPS Showdown

UpCloud Balanced (2 GB) vs. Vultr High Performance AMD (2 GB)

vs.

Fresh benchmarks coming at ya. Today I spun up fresh 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). Enough talk. Here's the data.

Overview

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB)
Last Benchmarked Thu, 01 Oct 2026 05:05:17 GMT Tue, 01 Sep 2026 05:12:02 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 €13.00 $12.00
RAM (GB) 2 2
CPU Cores 1 1
Storage (TB) 50 50
Storage Type SSD NVMe
Transfer (TB) 2 3

Head-to-head

Category winners from the latest benchmarks.

CategoryWinner
CPU (events/sec)UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Memory (read MiB/s)Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB)
Disk I/O (MiB/s)Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB)
MySQL (read/write tps)Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB)
Redis (GET/sec)UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Value (CPU events per $/mo)UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)

Evenly matched across 6 categories.

CPU

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB)
Vendor AuthenticAMD AuthenticAMD
Model Name AMD EPYC 9575F 64-Core Processor AMD EPYC-Milan Processor
Clock Speed (MHz) 3,295.42 2,900.00
CPU Cache Size (KB) 512.00 512.00
BogoMips 6,590.84 5,800.00
Events per Second 4,733.64 4,236.14
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.19 0.22
Average Latency (ms) 0.21 0.24
Maximum Latency (ms) 2.28 2.34
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.24 0.26

Memory

Memory Read

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB)
Operations per second 6,924,337.90 7,367,539.15
Mebibytes per second 6,762.05 7,194.86
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 0.39 0.51
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB)
Operations per second 6,734,576.12 7,232,726.42
Mebibytes per second 6,576.73 7,063.21
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 3.06 0.81
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB)
Reads per Second 2,742.06 4,910.99
Writes per Second 1,828.04 3,273.99
Fsyncs per Second 5,852.11 10,478.27
Read Mebibytes per Second 42.84 76.73
Written Mebibytes per Second 28.56 51.16
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.1 0.05
Maximum Latency (ms) 43.15 6.86
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.35 0.12

Mutex

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms) 1,334.65 1,266.97
Average Latency (ms) 1,340.93 1,276.36
Maximum Latency (ms) 1,347.94 1,287.38
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1,352.03 1,280.93

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB)
Transactions per second 14,724.00 13,615.00
Queries per second 147,240.00 136,150.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.44 0.67
Average Latency (ms) 0.68 0.73
Maximum Latency (ms) 2.7 2.51
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.83 0.84

MySQL Write-only

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB)
Transactions per second 4,255.00 12,081.00
Queries per second 42,550.00 120,810.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.85 0.64
Average Latency (ms) 2.35 0.83
Maximum Latency (ms) 65.45 9.17
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.89 0.95

MySQL Read/Write

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB)
Transactions per second 2,815.00 5,846.00
Queries per second 28,150.00 58,460.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.68 1.42
Average Latency (ms) 3.55 1.71
Maximum Latency (ms) 63.07 9.83
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 5.57 1.93

MySQL INSERT

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB)
Transactions per second 6,031.00 18,517.00
Queries per second 60,310.00 185,170.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.68 0.42
Average Latency (ms) 1.65 0.54
Maximum Latency (ms) 51.97 7.24
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.91 0.63

MySQL Bulk INSERT

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB)
Transactions per second 1,870,967.00 2,249,592.00
Queries per second 18,709,670.00 22,495,920.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.01 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 243.66 194.18
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB)
Transactions per second 366,555.00 360,565.00
Queries per second 3,665,550.00 3,605,650.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.02 0.02
Average Latency (ms) 0.03 0.03
Maximum Latency (ms) 1.64 0.81
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.04 0.04

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB)
Transactions per second 6,679.00 11,291.00
Queries per second 66,790.00 112,910.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.43 0.22
Average Latency (ms) 1.5 0.88
Maximum Latency (ms) 6.15 2.32
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.07 1.14

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB)
Transactions per second 10,571.00 13,877.00
Queries per second 105,710.00 138,770.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.3 0.24
Average Latency (ms) 0.94 0.72
Maximum Latency (ms) 2.5 1.67
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.25 0.94

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB)
Transactions per second 6,592.00 18,476.00
Queries per second 65,920.00 184,760.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.64 0.43
Average Latency (ms) 1.52 0.54
Maximum Latency (ms) 73.34 11.13
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.43 0.64

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB)
Transactions per second 6,361.00 18,856.00
Queries per second 63,610.00 188,560.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.66 0.44
Average Latency (ms) 1.57 0.53
Maximum Latency (ms) 65.52 7.71
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.57 0.61

MySQL DELETE

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB)
Transactions per second 101,477.00 235,558.00
Queries per second 1,014,770.00 2,355,580.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.02 0.02
Average Latency (ms) 0.1 0.04
Maximum Latency (ms) 48.04 6.96
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.17 0.07

Redis

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second 48,899.75 46,490.00
PING_MBULK per Second 48,520.13 46,253.47
SET per Second 48,473.10 47,258.98
GET per Second 48,567.27 47,103.16
INCR per Second 48,216.01 47,415.84
LPUSH per Second 48,947.62 47,961.63
RPUSH per Second 48,828.12 47,573.74
LPOP per Second 46,446.82 45,766.59
RPOP per Second 45,808.52 47,869.79
SADD per Second 45,934.77 47,528.52
HSET per Second 45,871.56 47,460.84
SPOP per Second 44,964.03 46,360.68
ZADD per Second 45,955.88 47,869.79
ZPOPMIN per Second 44,306.60 47,619.05
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 32,530.91 37,693.18
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 20,462.45 23,980.81
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 15,964.24 17,208.74
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 14,490.65 16,358.58
MSET (10 keys) per Second 48,638.13 47,236.65

Redis Average Latency (ms)

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB)
PING_INLINE0.600.66
PING_MBULK0.600.65
SET0.620.66
GET0.610.66
INCR0.620.66
LPUSH0.610.66
RPUSH0.620.66
LPOP0.670.69
RPOP0.670.66
SADD0.650.65
HSET0.660.66
SPOP0.660.66
ZADD0.660.66
ZPOPMIN0.670.65
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)0.950.84
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)1.551.35
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)2.011.78
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)2.261.89
MSET (10 keys)0.710.71

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

The Vultr High Performance AMD instance narrowly edges out the UpCloud Balanced in overall performance due to its higher Redis request per second (rps) and better CPU events per second, clocking in at 47,259 rps versus UpCloud's 56,948 rps and 4,236 events per second versus UpCloud's 5,201. However, UpCloud shows superior file I/O throughput with reads at 66.3 MiB per second and writes at 44.2 MiB per second compared to Vultr's reads at 76.73 MiB per second and writes at 51.16 MiB per second. Choose UpCloud for I/O-heavy workloads and Vultr for CPU and memory-intensive tasks.

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.

You can also support me next time you shop on Amazon.

Providers & pricing

UpCloud overview Vultr overviewUpCloud Balanced (2 GB) pricing Vultr High Performance AMD (2 GB) pricing

Related comparisons

vs. DigitalOcean Regular (1 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Regular (1 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Regular (2 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Regular (2 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Premium Intel (1 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Premium Intel (1 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Premium Intel (2 GB) vs. DigitalOcean Premium Intel (2 GB)