UpCloud Balanced (2 GB) vs. Vultr High Performance Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores)
New day, new benchmarks. Today I've spun up brand new instance from UpCloud and Vultr and ran some benchmarks. All instances were running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and all resided in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Let's get into the numbers.
Overview
| UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Wed, 13 May 2026 07:00:52 GMT | Sun, 10 May 2026 11:00:52 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 | $18.00 |
| RAM (GB) | 2 | 2 |
| CPU Cores | 1 | 2 |
| Storage (TB) | 50 | 60 |
| Storage Type | SSD | NVMe |
| Transfer (TB) | 2 | 4 |
CPU
| UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | AuthenticAMD | GenuineIntel |
| Model Name | AMD EPYC 9575F 64-Core Processor | Intel Xeon Processor (Cascadelake) |
| Clock Speed (MHz) | 3,295.48 | 2,992.97 |
| CPU Cache Size (KB) | 512.00 | 16,384.00 |
| BogoMips | 6,590.95 | 5,985.94 |
| Events per Second | 5,025.21 | 1,206.35 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.18 | 0.81 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.2 | 0.83 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 5.35 | 3.72 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.22 | 0.87 |
Memory
Memory Read
| UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 5,932,400.60 | 5,547,051.31 |
| Mebibytes per second | 5,793.36 | 5,417.04 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 2.22 | 0.26 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 6,706,599.41 | 5,558,117.22 |
| Mebibytes per second | 6,549.41 | 5,427.85 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 1.56 | 0.27 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
File I/O
| UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 3,214.64 | 4,995.49 |
| Writes per Second | 2,143.03 | 3,330.33 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 6,864.71 | 10,663.75 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 50.23 | 78.05 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 33.48 | 52.04 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.08 | 0.05 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 20.14 | 2.44 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.31 | 0.16 |
Mutex
| UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1,349.13 | 683.77 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1,353.60 | 748.22 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 1,361.99 | 783.12 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1,352.03 | 787.74 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 19,090.00 | 8,426.00 |
| Queries per second | 190,900.00 | 84,260.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.31 | 1.06 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.52 | 1.19 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 5.34 | 2.7 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.64 | 1.42 |
MySQL Write-only
| UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,974.00 | 9,541.00 |
| Queries per second | 39,740.00 | 95,410.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.87 | 0.71 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.51 | 1.05 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 38.67 | 2.61 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 5 | 1.39 |
MySQL Read/Write
| UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 2,830.00 | 4,278.00 |
| Queries per second | 28,300.00 | 42,780.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.29 | 1.88 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.53 | 2.34 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 56.72 | 4.6 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 6.32 | 2.91 |
MySQL INSERT
| UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 4,647.00 | 17,143.00 |
| Queries per second | 46,470.00 | 171,430.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.61 | 0.41 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.15 | 0.58 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 28.58 | 4.51 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4.41 | 0.74 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 2,249,592.00 | 1,637,967.00 |
| Queries per second | 22,495,920.00 | 16,379,670.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0.01 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 207.34 | 276.34 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 645,161.00 | 214,349.00 |
| Queries per second | 6,451,610.00 | 2,143,490.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0.03 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.02 | 0.05 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 2.26 | 1.06 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.02 | 0.06 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 8,546.00 | 7,396.00 |
| Queries per second | 85,460.00 | 73,960.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.13 | 0.54 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.17 | 1.35 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 172.57 | 3.05 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.58 | 1.86 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 11,562.00 | 7,947.00 |
| Queries per second | 115,620.00 | 79,470.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.22 | 0.46 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.86 | 1.26 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 4.07 | 3.14 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.27 | 1.7 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 4,711.00 | 16,993.00 |
| Queries per second | 47,110.00 | 169,930.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.73 | 0.41 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.12 | 0.59 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 30.41 | 9.08 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.96 | 0.8 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 5,393.00 | 17,168.00 |
| Queries per second | 53,930.00 | 171,680.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.48 | 0.39 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.85 | 0.58 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 39 | 1.77 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.43 | 0.75 |
MySQL DELETE
| UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 101,195.00 | 139,126.00 |
| Queries per second | 1,011,950.00 | 1,391,260.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0.03 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.1 | 0.07 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 39.3 | 2.43 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.17 | 0.1 |
Redis
| UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 130,208.34 | 66,622.25 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 130,208.34 | 66,050.20 |
| SET per Second | 130,890.05 | 67,567.57 |
| GET per Second | 129,198.97 | 68,027.21 |
| INCR per Second | 128,534.70 | 67,934.78 |
| LPUSH per Second | 128,040.97 | 68,306.01 |
| RPUSH per Second | 126,582.27 | 69,444.45 |
| LPOP per Second | 124,688.28 | 70,028.02 |
| RPOP per Second | 127,226.46 | 67,613.25 |
| SADD per Second | 129,198.97 | 66,711.14 |
| HSET per Second | 133,511.34 | 69,060.77 |
| SPOP per Second | 139,275.77 | 68,352.70 |
| ZADD per Second | 130,039.02 | 68,917.99 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 129,701.68 | 67,613.25 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 55,524.71 | 52,576.24 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 28,785.26 | 29,841.84 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 18,942.98 | 20,157.23 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 17,038.68 | 17,624.25 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 108,225.10 | 71,684.59 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) | Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 0.25 | 0.40 |
| PING_MBULK | 0.25 | 0.39 |
| SET | 0.26 | 0.38 |
| GET | 0.26 | 0.38 |
| INCR | 0.26 | 0.38 |
| LPUSH | 0.26 | 0.38 |
| RPUSH | 0.27 | 0.37 |
| LPOP | 0.27 | 0.37 |
| RPOP | 0.27 | 0.38 |
| SADD | 0.26 | 0.39 |
| HSET | 0.26 | 0.38 |
| SPOP | 0.24 | 0.38 |
| ZADD | 0.26 | 0.37 |
| ZPOPMIN | 0.26 | 0.38 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 0.66 | 0.50 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 1.27 | 0.90 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 1.95 | 1.32 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 2.16 | 1.58 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 0.34 | 0.36 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
After analyzing the benchmark results, it is clear that UpCloud's Balanced (2 GB) instance, powered by an AMD EPYC 9575F processor, excels in memory and I/O operations, showing superior Redis throughput and latency, particularly in LRANGE operations. The Vultr High Performance Intel instance, with its Intel Xeon processor, outperforms in CPU benchmarks with higher Redis RPS and lower latency for most Redis operations, as well as higher MySQL throughput. The UpCloud instance provides better consistency in file I/O and memory performance, while Vultr shows better CPU utilization and fairness. Ideal use cases for UpCloud would be scenarios requiring high I/O performance and low latency for memory operations, whereas Vultr would be more suitable for CPU-intensive tasks that benefit from higher core counts and better Redis performance.
From the friendly human:
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