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

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Fresh benchmarks coming at ya. Today I spun up fresh instances from UpCloud and Vultr and ran some benchmarks. All instances were spun up with Ubuntu 26.04 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)
Last Benchmarked Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:32:51 GMT Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:41:06 GMT
Linux Distro Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64 Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64
Kernel Version 7.0.0-14-generic 7.0.0-27-generic
MySQL Version 8.4.10-0ubuntu0.26.04.1 8.4.10-0ubuntu0.26.04.1
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)UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Disk I/O (MiB/s)Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
MySQL (read/write tps)UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Redis (GET/sec)UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)
Value (CPU events per $/mo)UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB)

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) takes 5 of 6 categories.

CPU

UpCloud – Balanced (2 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) 3,295.48 2,893.17
CPU Cache Size (KB) 512.00 16,384.00
BogoMips 6,590.95 5,786.33
Events per Second 4,956.10 1,021.39
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.18 0.89
Average Latency (ms) 0.2 0.98
Maximum Latency (ms) 2.23 2.88
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.21 1.12

Memory

Memory Read

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Operations per second 7,348,809.99 4,986,398.08
Mebibytes per second 7,176.57 4,869.53
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 0.4 0.86
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Operations per second 7,078,785.07 5,001,584.28
Mebibytes per second 6,912.88 4,884.36
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 1.2 0.71
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Reads per Second 3,766.66 5,577.48
Writes per Second 2,511.11 3,718.32
Fsyncs per Second 8,036.14 11,911.32
Read Mebibytes per Second 58.85 87.15
Written Mebibytes per Second 39.24 58.10
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.07 0.05
Maximum Latency (ms) 19.19 5.29
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.24 0.15

Mutex

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms) 1,248.77 1,709.06
Average Latency (ms) 1,256.62 1,721.94
Maximum Latency (ms) 1,260.30 1,728.31
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1,258.08 1,739.68

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 16,759.00 7,873.00
Queries per second 167,590.00 78,730.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.41 1.05
Average Latency (ms) 0.6 1.27
Maximum Latency (ms) 2.26 3.75
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.75 1.55

MySQL Write-only

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 6,115.00 9,331.00
Queries per second 61,150.00 93,310.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.73 0.77
Average Latency (ms) 1.63 1.07
Maximum Latency (ms) 30.18 6.46
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.76 1.47

MySQL Read/Write

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 4,692.00 3,770.00
Queries per second 46,920.00 37,700.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.24 2.02
Average Latency (ms) 2.13 2.65
Maximum Latency (ms) 23.43 13.8
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.86 3.3

MySQL INSERT

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 8,886.00 16,828.00
Queries per second 88,860.00 168,280.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.5 0.43
Average Latency (ms) 1.12 0.59
Maximum Latency (ms) 26.84 3.44
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.93 0.78

MySQL Bulk INSERT

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 2,278,717.00 1,201,092.00
Queries per second 22,787,170.00 12,010,920.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0.01
Maximum Latency (ms) 236.89 343.87
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 425,431.00 197,771.00
Queries per second 4,254,310.00 1,977,710.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.02 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.02 0.05
Maximum Latency (ms) 1.3 2.68
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.03 0.08

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 9,684.00 5,632.00
Queries per second 96,840.00 56,320.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.29 0.64
Average Latency (ms) 1.03 1.77
Maximum Latency (ms) 5.24 5.59
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.37 2.35

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 15,489.00 7,779.00
Queries per second 154,890.00 77,790.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.15 0.41
Average Latency (ms) 0.64 1.28
Maximum Latency (ms) 2.79 3.5
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.99 1.73

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 10,759.00 17,005.00
Queries per second 107,590.00 170,050.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.46 0.43
Average Latency (ms) 0.93 0.59
Maximum Latency (ms) 34.7 4.03
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.39 0.81

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 11,023.00 17,369.00
Queries per second 110,230.00 173,690.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.45 0.42
Average Latency (ms) 0.91 0.57
Maximum Latency (ms) 33.4 3.59
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.32 0.75

MySQL DELETE

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
Transactions per second 212,798.00 137,403.00
Queries per second 2,127,980.00 1,374,030.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.02 0.04
Average Latency (ms) 0.05 0.07
Maximum Latency (ms) 19.8 1.75
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.05 0.14

Redis

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second 55,126.79 44,563.28
PING_MBULK per Second 54,794.52 44,014.08
SET per Second 55,710.31 44,782.80
GET per Second 55,340.34 43,440.48
INCR per Second 54,734.54 42,553.19
LPUSH per Second 52,994.17 44,702.73
RPUSH per Second 56,689.34 44,014.08
LPOP per Second 57,240.98 42,863.27
RPOP per Second 57,110.22 43,047.79
SADD per Second 55,401.66 44,345.89
HSET per Second 55,218.11 43,917.44
SPOP per Second 55,524.71 43,554.01
ZADD per Second 56,561.09 44,052.86
ZPOPMIN per Second 53,191.49 44,523.60
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 45,998.16 29,239.77
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 24,987.51 16,025.64
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 18,031.01 11,116.05
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 16,369.29 9,961.15
MSET (10 keys) per Second 54,884.74 40,783.04

Redis Average Latency (ms)

UpCloud – Balanced (2 GB) Vultr – High Performance Intel (2 GB)
PING_INLINE0.540.68
PING_MBULK0.530.67
SET0.550.68
GET0.550.69
INCR0.560.71
LPUSH0.580.68
RPUSH0.540.70
LPOP0.540.72
RPOP0.540.72
SADD0.550.69
HSET0.560.70
SPOP0.540.70
ZADD0.550.70
ZPOPMIN0.560.68
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)0.711.08
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)1.291.96
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)1.772.86
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)2.063.15
MSET (10 keys)0.650.80

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

Based on the benchmark results, the UpCloud Balanced (2 GB) instance outshines the Vultr High Performance Intel (2 GB) in most critical metrics. The UpCloud instance delivered higher Redis performance, notably with a significantly higher LPUSH rate per second (56,689 vs 44,014) and lower latency, which is crucial for low-latency applications. Additionally, UpCloud excels in MySQL bulk insert transactions per second (226,686 vs 119,732), suggesting superior performance for database-intensive tasks. For users prioritizing high CPU and memory throughput with minimal latency, the UpCloud instance is the better choice.

From the friendly human:

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