UpCloud Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores) vs. Vultr Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores)
Welcome to another round of the VPS Showdown. Today I've spun up some 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 or around the New York / New Jersey area. Let's get into the numbers.
Overview
| UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Last Benchmarked | Wed, 10 Jun 2026 02:00:52 GMT | Thu, 11 Jun 2026 09:00:52 GMT |
| Linux Distro | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 |
| Kernel Version | 6.8.0-111-generic | 6.8.0-124-generic |
| MySQL Version | 8.0.46-0ubuntu0.24.04.2 | 8.0.46-0ubuntu0.24.04.2 |
| Redis Version | 7.0.15 | 7.0.15 |
| Location | New York, NY | Newark, NJ |
| Monthly Price | €52.00 | $20.00 |
| RAM (GB) | 8 | 4 |
| CPU Cores | 4 | 2 |
| Storage (TB) | 160 | 80 |
| Storage Type | SSD | SSD |
| Transfer (TB) | 5 | 3 |
CPU
| UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | AuthenticAMD | GenuineIntel |
| Model Name | AMD EPYC 9575F 64-Core Processor | Intel Xeon Processor (Skylake, IBRS) |
| Clock Speed (MHz) | 3,295.46 | 2,593.91 |
| CPU Cache Size (KB) | 512.00 | 16,384.00 |
| BogoMips | 6,590.91 | 5,187.81 |
| Events per Second | 5,821.73 | 1,022.39 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.16 | 0.88 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.17 | 0.98 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.35 | 1.77 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.18 | 1.21 |
Memory
Memory Read
| UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 8,123,769.22 | 3,523,809.57 |
| Mebibytes per second | 7,933.37 | 3,441.22 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.09 | 0.22 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
Memory Write
| UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operations per second | 8,297,323.74 | 3,568,203.77 |
| Mebibytes per second | 8,102.86 | 3,484.57 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.1 | 1.02 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
File I/O
| UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Reads per Second | 7,202.67 | 2,972.63 |
| Writes per Second | 4,801.78 | 1,981.75 |
| Fsyncs per Second | 15,371.39 | 6,347.81 |
| Read Mebibytes per Second | 112.54 | 46.45 |
| Written Mebibytes per Second | 75.03 | 30.96 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.09 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 38.1 | 17.12 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.18 | 0.33 |
Mutex
| UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 231.48 | 899.28 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 312.56 | 935.93 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 355.66 | 969.92 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 356.70 | 977.74 |
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
| UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 22,849.00 | 3,779.00 |
| Queries per second | 228,490.00 | 37,790.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.32 | 1.84 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.44 | 2.64 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 1.31 | 24.55 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.58 | 3.82 |
MySQL Write-only
| UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 7,207.00 | 4,044.00 |
| Queries per second | 72,070.00 | 40,440.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.66 | 1.4 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.39 | 2.47 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 62.56 | 13.46 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.82 | 3.3 |
MySQL Read/Write
| UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 4,510.00 | 1,798.00 |
| Queries per second | 45,100.00 | 17,980.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 1.04 | 3.86 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 2.22 | 5.56 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 52.82 | 27.33 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 4.18 | 6.91 |
MySQL INSERT
| UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 10,114.00 | 6,405.00 |
| Queries per second | 101,140.00 | 64,050.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.44 | 0.99 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.99 | 1.56 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 58.73 | 15.15 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.34 | 2.03 |
MySQL Bulk INSERT
| UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 3,385,467.00 | 865,805.00 |
| Queries per second | 33,854,670.00 | 8,658,050.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0 | 0.01 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 144.36 | 538.25 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0 | 0 |
MySQL SELECT
| UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 679,671.00 | 126,618.00 |
| Queries per second | 6,796,710.00 | 1,266,180.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0.05 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0.08 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 0.32 | 2.46 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.02 | 0.11 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
| UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 19,283.00 | 3,674.00 |
| Queries per second | 192,830.00 | 36,740.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.15 | 1.07 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.52 | 2.72 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 3.3 | 6.45 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.75 | 3.55 |
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
| UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 18,467.00 | 2,728.00 |
| Queries per second | 184,670.00 | 27,280.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.13 | 1.3 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.54 | 3.66 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 1.37 | 11.85 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.84 | 5 |
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
| UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 8,634.00 | 5,438.00 |
| Queries per second | 86,340.00 | 54,380.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.5 | 0.99 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.16 | 1.84 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 60.5 | 13.86 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.58 | 2.71 |
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
| UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 8,798.00 | 6,370.00 |
| Queries per second | 87,980.00 | 63,700.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.44 | 1.01 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 1.14 | 1.57 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 67.2 | 8.99 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 1.55 | 2.07 |
MySQL DELETE
| UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions per second | 277,869.00 | 51,180.00 |
| Queries per second | 2,778,690.00 | 511,800.00 |
| Minimum Latency (ms) | 0.01 | 0.05 |
| Average Latency (ms) | 0.04 | 0.19 |
| Maximum Latency (ms) | 54.64 | 6.11 |
| 95th Percentile Latency (ms) | 0.03 | 1.39 |
Redis
| UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE per Second | 247,524.75 | 49,677.10 |
| PING_MBULK per Second | 271,739.12 | 45,372.05 |
| SET per Second | 180,505.41 | 45,392.64 |
| GET per Second | 123,001.23 | 53,163.21 |
| INCR per Second | 174,825.17 | 48,732.94 |
| LPUSH per Second | 125,313.29 | 50,327.12 |
| RPUSH per Second | 128,534.70 | 48,285.85 |
| LPOP per Second | 138,696.25 | 48,355.90 |
| RPOP per Second | 251,889.16 | 51,413.88 |
| SADD per Second | 264,550.28 | 48,332.53 |
| HSET per Second | 284,090.91 | 49,285.36 |
| SPOP per Second | 278,551.53 | 48,332.53 |
| ZADD per Second | 276,243.09 | 51,229.51 |
| ZPOPMIN per Second | 276,243.09 | 45,085.66 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second | 171,232.88 | 27,122.32 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second | 79,051.38 | 12,442.45 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second | 49,212.60 | 7,930.21 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second | 43,535.05 | 6,902.74 |
| MSET (10 keys) per Second | 285,714.28 | 45,146.73 |
Redis Average Latency (ms)
| UpCloud – Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores) | Vultr – Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) | |
|---|---|---|
| PING_INLINE | 0.13 | 0.53 |
| PING_MBULK | 0.10 | 0.57 |
| SET | 0.15 | 0.57 |
| GET | 0.24 | 0.49 |
| INCR | 0.16 | 0.53 |
| LPUSH | 0.22 | 0.51 |
| RPUSH | 0.20 | 0.54 |
| LPOP | 0.19 | 0.54 |
| RPOP | 0.11 | 0.52 |
| SADD | 0.10 | 0.55 |
| HSET | 0.09 | 0.54 |
| SPOP | 0.09 | 0.54 |
| ZADD | 0.10 | 0.52 |
| ZPOPMIN | 0.10 | 0.57 |
| LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) | 0.17 | 1.02 |
| LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) | 0.34 | 2.29 |
| LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) | 0.57 | 3.27 |
| LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) | 0.64 | 3.91 |
| MSET (10 keys) | 0.11 | 0.78 |
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
When comparing the two instances, the UpCloud Balanced (8 GB, 4 Cores) instance shows significantly higher performance in almost all benchmarks, particularly in Redis commands, CPU processing events per second, file I/O operations, and MySQL operations. It also boasts lower latencies and higher throughput across the board, suggesting it is better suited for CPU-intensive and I/O-heavy workloads, such as complex web applications, high-traffic databases, and intensive data processing tasks. The Vultr Cloud Compute (4 GB, 2 Cores) instance, although cheaper and having less RAM and CPU cores, is still capable but shows notable performance gaps, especially in throughput and complex operations. Therefore, for demanding applications requiring high performance and lower latency, the UpCloud instance is the better choice.
From the friendly human:
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