UpCloud Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores) vs. Vultr High Performance AMD (2 GB, 2 Cores)
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. All instances were running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and were created in the New York area (or close to it). Without further ado, here's the results.
Overview
| UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Fri, 29 May 2026 16:00:52 GMT | Sun, 31 May 2026 07:00:52 GMT |
| Linux Distro | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 |
| Kernel Version | 6.8.0-111-generic | 6.8.0-117-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 | $18.00 |
| RAM (GB) | 4 | 2 |
| CPU Cores | 2 | 2 |
| Storage (TB) | 80 | 60 |
| Storage Type | SSD | NVMe |
| Transfer (TB) | 4 | 4 |
CPU
| UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | AuthenticAMD | AuthenticAMD |
| Model Name | AMD EPYC 9575F 64-Core Processor | AMD EPYC-Genoa Processor |
| Clock Speed (MHz) | 3,295.46 | 2,899.99 |
| CPU Cache Size (KB) | 512.00 | 1,024.00 |
| BogoMips | 6,590.91 | 5,799.98 |
| Events per Second | 5,582.43 | 4,648.14 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.16 | 0.2 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.18 | 0.21 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 1.95 | 1.26 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.19 | 0.23 |
Memory
Memory Read
| UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 7,746,441.01 | 7,548,502.85 |
| Mebibytes per second | 7,564.88 | 7,371.58 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.1 | 0.08 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 7,742,895.80 | 7,544,807.09 |
| Mebibytes per second | 7,561.42 | 7,367.98 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.11 | 0.12 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
File I/O
| UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 4,718.71 | 5,114.79 |
| Writes per Second | 3,145.81 | 3,409.86 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 10,070.88 | 10,914.44 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 73.73 | 79.92 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 49.15 | 53.28 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.06 | 0.05 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 37.33 | 3.7 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.2 | 0.12 |
Mutex
| UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 562.90 | 574.03 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 581.26 | 637.47 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 589.26 | 663.74 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 590.56 | 657.93 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 20,181.00 | 9,622.00 |
| Queries per second | 201,810.00 | 96,220.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.3 | 0.73 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.49 | 1.04 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 2.53 | 2.22 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.62 | 1.12 |
MySQL Write-only
| UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 6,603.00 | 9,585.00 |
| Queries per second | 66,030.00 | 95,850.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.68 | 0.8 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.51 | 1.04 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 62.49 | 2.18 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.18 | 1.32 |
MySQL Read/Write
| UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 4,468.00 | 4,686.00 |
| Queries per second | 44,680.00 | 46,860.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.09 | 1.57 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.24 | 2.13 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 51.5 | 4.26 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.3 | 2.52 |
MySQL INSERT
| UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 8,261.00 | 15,965.00 |
| Queries per second | 82,610.00 | 159,650.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.45 | 0.45 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.21 | 0.62 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 55.23 | 2.23 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.76 | 0.74 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,385,467.00 | 3,065,092.00 |
| Queries per second | 33,854,670.00 | 30,650,920.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 194.62 | 208.51 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 551,542.00 | 217,035.00 |
| Queries per second | 5,515,420.00 | 2,170,350.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0.02 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.02 | 0.05 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 16.17 | 0.61 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.02 | 0.06 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 11,591.00 | 14,818.00 |
| Queries per second | 115,910.00 | 148,180.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.22 | 0.24 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.86 | 0.67 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 11.7 | 1.94 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.3 | 0.86 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 16,138.00 | 14,341.00 |
| Queries per second | 161,380.00 | 143,410.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.15 | 0.27 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.62 | 0.7 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 1.76 | 1.67 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.95 | 0.89 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 7,911.00 | 14,864.00 |
| Queries per second | 79,110.00 | 148,640.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.49 | 0.47 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.26 | 0.67 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 81.28 | 2.36 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.86 | 0.87 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 8,236.00 | 15,284.00 |
| Queries per second | 82,360.00 | 152,840.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.44 | 0.46 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.21 | 0.65 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 74.78 | 1.65 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.86 | 0.83 |
MySQL DELETE
| UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 232,164.00 | 151,536.00 |
| Queries per second | 2,321,640.00 | 1,515,360.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0.02 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.07 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 61.37 | 4.83 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.08 |
Redis
| UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 124,223.60 | 55,991.04 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 123,001.23 | 57,903.88 |
| SET per Second | 126,903.55 | 57,703.40 |
| GET per Second | 111,731.84 | 57,703.40 |
| INCR per Second | 120,336.95 | 57,372.34 |
| LPUSH per Second | 121,802.68 | 57,836.90 |
| RPUSH per Second | 130,039.02 | 58,173.36 |
| LPOP per Second | 133,155.80 | 58,343.06 |
| RPOP per Second | 129,701.68 | 58,343.06 |
| SADD per Second | 122,100.12 | 58,241.12 |
| HSET per Second | 132,100.39 | 58,858.15 |
| SPOP per Second | 128,040.97 | 58,892.82 |
| ZADD per Second | 129,198.97 | 57,504.31 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 122,850.12 | 57,870.37 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 100,908.17 | 49,236.83 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 54,024.85 | 34,818.94 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 38,804.81 | 26,766.60 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 25,106.70 | 24,207.21 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 198,019.80 | 58,548.01 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| UpCloud – Balanced (4 GB, 2 Cores) | Vultr – High Performance AMD (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 0.23 | 0.48 |
| PING_MBULK | 0.22 | 0.44 |
| SET | 0.21 | 0.45 |
| GET | 0.23 | 0.45 |
| INCR | 0.22 | 0.45 |
| LPUSH | 0.22 | 0.44 |
| RPUSH | 0.22 | 0.44 |
| LPOP | 0.22 | 0.44 |
| RPOP | 0.21 | 0.44 |
| SADD | 0.22 | 0.44 |
| HSET | 0.21 | 0.44 |
| SPOP | 0.21 | 0.44 |
| ZADD | 0.21 | 0.45 |
| ZPOPMIN | 0.21 | 0.44 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 0.30 | 0.53 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 0.55 | 0.74 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 0.75 | 0.95 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 1.15 | 1.05 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 0.19 | 0.44 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
In comparing the benchmark results from UpCloud's Balanced instance and Vultr's High Performance AMD instance, it's clear that UpCloud's offering provides significantly higher performance across various metrics, driven by its more powerful CPU (despite fewer cores), more RAM, and larger storage, translating to superior Redis, CPU, I/O, and memory performance. UpCloud excels in handling more complex tasks, such as larger data set processing and high concurrency requests, making it ideal for CPU-intensive workloads and scenarios requiring high I/O operations. In contrast, Vultr's instance, while still capable, is more suited for moderate workloads where cost-efficiency is critical and where lower RAM and CPU power are acceptable trade-offs for a lower price point. Vultr shines for smaller, less resource-demanding applications and use cases that do not require the peak performance levels demonstrated by UpCloud's Balanced instance.
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 directly by buying me a coffee.