UpCloud Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores) vs. Vultr Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores)
Fresh benchmarks coming at ya. Today I've spun up brand new instance from UpCloud and Vultr and did some benchmarking. Each instance was spun up with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and were created in the New York area (or close to it). Enough talk. Here's the data.
Overview
| UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Wed, 13 May 2026 12:00:52 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 | €52.00 | $15.00 |
| RAM (GB) | 8 | 2 |
| CPU Cores | 4 | 2 |
| Storage (TB) | 160 | 65 |
| Storage Type | SSD | SSD |
| Transfer (TB) | 5 | 3 |
CPU
| UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 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 | 5,045.89 | 1,481.60 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.18 | 0.63 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.2 | 0.67 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 5.65 | 1.95 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.21 | 0.77 |
Memory
Memory Read
| UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 6,705,847.76 | 6,401,389.08 |
| Mebibytes per second | 6,548.68 | 6,251.36 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 5.68 | 0.23 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 6,701,571.28 | 6,411,085.35 |
| Mebibytes per second | 6,544.50 | 6,260.83 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.65 | 0.18 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
File I/O
| UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 3,294.66 | 4,345.71 |
| Writes per Second | 2,196.44 | 2,897.07 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 7,029.60 | 9,273.19 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 51.48 | 67.90 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 34.32 | 45.27 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.08 | 0.06 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 24.7 | 2.92 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.37 | 0.17 |
Mutex
| UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 324.85 | 214.63 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 356.96 | 569.72 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 386.91 | 636.55 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 390.30 | 634.66 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 8,948.00 | 8,015.00 |
| Queries per second | 89,480.00 | 80,150.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.42 | 0.92 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.12 | 1.25 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 35.89 | 5.5 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.36 | 1.86 |
MySQL Write-only
| UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,794.00 | 8,497.00 |
| Queries per second | 17,940.00 | 84,970.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.37 | 0.76 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 5.57 | 1.17 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 34.12 | 3.04 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 12.52 | 1.55 |
MySQL Read/Write
| UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 1,176.00 | 3,726.00 |
| Queries per second | 11,760.00 | 37,260.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 2.2 | 1.78 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 8.49 | 2.68 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 28.9 | 5.82 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 17.32 | 3.43 |
MySQL INSERT
| UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 2,578.00 | 15,028.00 |
| Queries per second | 25,780.00 | 150,280.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.02 | 0.41 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.87 | 0.66 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 22.83 | 2.42 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 8.43 | 0.86 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 2,016,592.00 | 1,696,217.00 |
| Queries per second | 20,165,920.00 | 16,962,170.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0.01 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 341.39 | 283.37 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 239,483.00 | 201,989.00 |
| Queries per second | 2,394,830.00 | 2,019,890.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0.03 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.05 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 28.58 | 0.51 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.06 | 0.07 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 6,315.00 | 8,025.00 |
| Queries per second | 63,150.00 | 80,250.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.4 | 0.35 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.58 | 1.24 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 19.67 | 3.55 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 3.36 | 2.07 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 7,625.00 | 8,336.00 |
| Queries per second | 76,250.00 | 83,360.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.3 | 0.4 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.31 | 1.2 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 42.62 | 4.25 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 2.86 | 2.22 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 2,783.00 | 13,858.00 |
| Queries per second | 27,830.00 | 138,580.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.98 | 0.42 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.59 | 0.72 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 32.55 | 6.33 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 8.13 | 0.95 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 2,693.00 | 14,587.00 |
| Queries per second | 26,930.00 | 145,870.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.86 | 0.4 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 3.71 | 0.68 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 21.41 | 11.69 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 7.7 | 0.9 |
MySQL DELETE
| UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 11,344.00 | 129,013.00 |
| Queries per second | 113,440.00 | 1,290,130.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0.03 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.88 | 0.08 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 44.94 | 2.61 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4.74 | 0.09 |
Redis
| UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 142,450.14 | 78,247.26 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 151,975.69 | 74,738.41 |
| SET per Second | 152,439.02 | 77,041.60 |
| GET per Second | 140,845.08 | 83,333.33 |
| INCR per Second | 134,952.77 | 80,971.66 |
| LPUSH per Second | 198,807.16 | 79,113.92 |
| RPUSH per Second | 144,092.22 | 77,160.49 |
| LPOP per Second | 147,058.83 | 81,499.59 |
| RPOP per Second | 174,520.06 | 82,440.23 |
| SADD per Second | 145,348.83 | 80,192.46 |
| HSET per Second | 160,000.00 | 83,612.04 |
| SPOP per Second | 146,198.83 | 85,034.02 |
| ZADD per Second | 133,155.80 | 83,263.95 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 144,717.80 | 82,987.55 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 93,808.63 | 55,555.56 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 40,322.58 | 28,851.70 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 23,713.54 | 19,391.12 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 23,490.72 | 17,211.71 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 135,501.36 | 80,256.82 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (2 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 0.22 | 0.34 |
| PING_MBULK | 0.19 | 0.35 |
| SET | 0.20 | 0.34 |
| GET | 0.21 | 0.32 |
| INCR | 0.21 | 0.32 |
| LPUSH | 0.14 | 0.34 |
| RPUSH | 0.22 | 0.34 |
| LPOP | 0.21 | 0.32 |
| RPOP | 0.17 | 0.32 |
| SADD | 0.21 | 0.32 |
| HSET | 0.18 | 0.31 |
| SPOP | 0.20 | 0.30 |
| ZADD | 0.22 | 0.31 |
| ZPOPMIN | 0.20 | 0.31 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 0.37 | 0.54 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 0.86 | 1.11 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 1.41 | 1.62 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 1.41 | 1.84 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 0.28 | 0.38 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
When comparing the performance benchmarks of the UpCloud Balanced instance and the Vultr Cloud Compute instance, it's evident that the UpCloud instance, with 4 cores and 8GB of RAM, outperforms the Vultr instance in almost all metrics, especially in CPU-intensive tasks, Redis operations, and memory handling, showcasing higher RPS (requests per second) and lower latencies. This indicates superior processing capabilities and efficiency, making it ideal for workloads that require higher computational power and faster data access, such as high-traffic web applications, large-scale databases, or data-intensive tasks. On the other hand, the Vultr instance, with its lower core count and RAM, is more suited for less demanding applications like small to medium-sized websites, simple backend services, or development environments where cost-effectiveness is a priority.
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.
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