UpCloud Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores) vs. Vultr Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Fresh benchmarks coming at ya. Today I've spun up some brand new instance from UpCloud and Vultr and ran my world famous suite of benchmarking scripts. All instances were spun up with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and were created in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Time to see who showed up today.
Overview
| UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Mon, 11 May 2026 04:00:52 GMT | Mon, 11 May 2026 04:00:52 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 | €26.00 | $15.00 |
| RAM (GB) | 4 | 2 |
| CPU Cores | 2 | 2 |
| Storage (TB) | 80 | 65 |
| Storage Type | SSD | SSD |
| Transfer (TB) | 4 | 3 |
CPU
| UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| 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 | 5,480.14 | 1,481.60 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.17 | 0.63 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.18 | 0.67 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.89 | 1.95 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.19 | 0.77 |
Memory
Memory Read
| UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 7,629,833.62 | 6,401,389.08 |
| Mebibytes per second | 7,451.01 | 6,251.36 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.19 | 0.23 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 7,354,528.83 | 6,411,085.35 |
| Mebibytes per second | 7,182.16 | 6,260.83 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.61 | 0.18 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
File I/O
| UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 328.06 | 4,345.71 |
| Writes per Second | 218.70 | 2,897.07 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 710.09 | 9,273.19 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 5.13 | 67.90 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 3.42 | 45.27 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.8 | 0.06 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 180.23 | 2.92 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.75 | 0.17 |
Mutex
| UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 664.04 | 214.63 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 676.90 | 569.72 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 694.32 | 636.55 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 694.45 | 634.66 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 19,233.00 | 8,015.00 |
| Queries per second | 192,330.00 | 80,150.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.34 | 0.92 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.52 | 1.25 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 41.17 | 5.5 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.64 | 1.86 |
MySQL Write-only
| UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 686.00 | 8,497.00 |
| Queries per second | 6,860.00 | 84,970.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.98 | 0.76 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 14.57 | 1.17 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 76.51 | 3.04 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 23.52 | 1.55 |
MySQL Read/Write
| UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 605.00 | 3,726.00 |
| Queries per second | 6,050.00 | 37,260.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.5 | 1.78 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 16.53 | 2.68 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 73.72 | 5.82 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 26.68 | 3.43 |
MySQL INSERT
| UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 902.00 | 15,028.00 |
| Queries per second | 9,020.00 | 150,280.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.7 | 0.41 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 11.09 | 0.66 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 145.44 | 2.42 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 16.71 | 0.86 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,637,967.00 | 1,696,217.00 |
| Queries per second | 16,379,670.00 | 16,962,170.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0.01 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 1200.07 | 283.37 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 554,660.00 | 201,989.00 |
| Queries per second | 5,546,600.00 | 2,019,890.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0.03 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.02 | 0.05 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 9.98 | 0.51 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.03 | 0.07 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 15,653.00 | 8,025.00 |
| Queries per second | 156,530.00 | 80,250.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.15 | 0.35 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.64 | 1.24 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 61.82 | 3.55 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.95 | 2.07 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 16,879.00 | 8,336.00 |
| Queries per second | 168,790.00 | 83,360.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.16 | 0.4 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.59 | 1.2 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 1.46 | 4.25 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.9 | 2.22 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,408.00 | 13,858.00 |
| Queries per second | 14,080.00 | 138,580.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.58 | 0.42 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 7.1 | 0.72 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 86.41 | 6.33 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 21.89 | 0.95 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,217.00 | 14,587.00 |
| Queries per second | 12,170.00 | 145,870.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.61 | 0.4 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 8.22 | 0.68 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 74.51 | 11.69 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 16.41 | 0.9 |
MySQL DELETE
| UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 2,891.00 | 129,013.00 |
| Queries per second | 28,910.00 | 1,290,130.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0.03 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.46 | 0.08 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 168.08 | 2.61 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 16.12 | 0.09 |
Redis
| UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 204,081.62 | 78,247.26 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 257,069.41 | 74,738.41 |
| SET per Second | 252,525.25 | 77,041.60 |
| GET per Second | 249,376.56 | 83,333.33 |
| INCR per Second | 248,756.22 | 80,971.66 |
| LPUSH per Second | 257,069.41 | 79,113.92 |
| RPUSH per Second | 243,902.44 | 77,160.49 |
| LPOP per Second | 251,889.16 | 81,499.59 |
| RPOP per Second | 256,410.27 | 82,440.23 |
| SADD per Second | 255,102.05 | 80,192.46 |
| HSET per Second | 245,700.25 | 83,612.04 |
| SPOP per Second | 252,525.25 | 85,034.02 |
| ZADD per Second | 252,525.25 | 83,263.95 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 253,807.11 | 82,987.55 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 160,000.00 | 55,555.56 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 73,421.44 | 28,851.70 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 39,572.62 | 19,391.12 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 29,299.74 | 17,211.71 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 193,798.45 | 80,256.82 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 0.15 | 0.34 |
| PING_MBULK | 0.11 | 0.35 |
| SET | 0.12 | 0.34 |
| GET | 0.11 | 0.32 |
| INCR | 0.11 | 0.32 |
| LPUSH | 0.12 | 0.34 |
| RPUSH | 0.13 | 0.34 |
| LPOP | 0.11 | 0.32 |
| RPOP | 0.10 | 0.32 |
| SADD | 0.10 | 0.32 |
| HSET | 0.11 | 0.31 |
| SPOP | 0.10 | 0.30 |
| ZADD | 0.11 | 0.31 |
| ZPOPMIN | 0.10 | 0.31 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 0.19 | 0.54 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 0.40 | 1.11 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 0.68 | 1.62 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 1.06 | 1.84 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 0.18 | 0.38 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
When comparing the UpCloud and Vultr instances, UpCloud's "Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores)" consistently shows higher performance across most metrics, likely due to its usage of higher-end AMD EPYC processors compared to Vultr's Intel Core processors. UpCloud benchmarks display significantly better results in Redis operations, CPU tasks, file I/O, and MySQL operations, suggesting it handles CPU-intensive and I/O-heavy workloads more effectively. Vultr's "Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores)" offers competitive Redis performance and MySQL benchmarks but falls short in CPU tasks and file I/O operations compared to UpCloud. For developers and sysadmins seeking a balance of cost and performance, UpCloud may be more suitable for demanding applications, whereas Vultr could be a more budget-friendly option for less resource-intensive tasks.
From the friendly human:
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