Vultr Cloud Compute (1 GB) vs. UpCloud Balanced (1 GB)

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Same showdown, different day. 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). Let's get into the numbers.

Overview

Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Last Benchmarked Tue, 23 Dec 2025 19:00:51 GMT Fri, 26 Dec 2025 06:00:51 GMT
Linux Distro Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64
Kernel Version 6.8.0-90-generic 6.8.0-87-generic
MySQL Version 8.0.44-0ubuntu0.24.04.2 8.0.44-0ubuntu0.24.04.2
Redis Version 7.0.15 7.0.15
Location Newark, NJ New York, NY
Monthly Price $5.00 €7.00
RAM (GB) 1 1
CPU Cores 1 1
Storage (TB) 25 25
Storage Type SSD SSD
Transfer (TB) 1 1

CPU

Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Vendor GenuineIntel AuthenticAMD
Model Name Intel Core Processor (Broadwell, no TSX, IBRS) AMD EPYC 7542 32-Core Processor
Clock Speed (MHz) 2,400.00 2,894.56
CPU Cache Size (KB) 16,384.00 512.00
BogoMips 4,799.99 5,789.12
Events per Second 774.49 1,619.40
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.13 0.59
Average Latency (ms) 1.29 0.62
Maximum Latency (ms) 3.64 1.29
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.55 0.64

Memory

Memory Read

Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Operations per second 3,563,144.39 5,401,190.66
Mebibytes per second 3,479.63 5,274.60
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 2.33 0.95
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Operations per second 3,578,279.14 5,439,333.74
Mebibytes per second 3,494.41 5,311.85
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 1.36 0.26
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Reads per Second 1,893.29 2,677.57
Writes per Second 1,262.20 1,785.05
Fsyncs per Second 4,041.52 5,722.44
Read Mebibytes per Second 29.58 41.84
Written Mebibytes per Second 19.72 27.89
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.14 0.1
Maximum Latency (ms) 7.93 12.5
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.35 0.31

Mutex

Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms) 2,405.08 1,525.78
Average Latency (ms) 2,423.84 1,533.33
Maximum Latency (ms) 2,436.20 1,542.52
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2,449.36 1,533.66

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second 4,627.00 7,634.00
Queries per second 46,270.00 76,340.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.69 1.23
Average Latency (ms) 2.16 1.31
Maximum Latency (ms) 14.35 8.81
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.13 1.39

MySQL Write-only

Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second 3,192.00 4,518.00
Queries per second 31,920.00 45,180.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.88 1.37
Average Latency (ms) 3.13 2.21
Maximum Latency (ms) 32.5 40
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 4.57 3.02

MySQL Read/Write

Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second 1,733.00 2,426.00
Queries per second 17,330.00 24,260.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 3.98 2.84
Average Latency (ms) 5.77 4.12
Maximum Latency (ms) 15.77 37.03
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 8.28 5.18

MySQL INSERT

Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second 5,038.00 6,678.00
Queries per second 50,380.00 66,780.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.29 1.11
Average Latency (ms) 1.98 1.5
Maximum Latency (ms) 20.82 32.11
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.76 1.96

MySQL Bulk INSERT

Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second 800,273.00 1,317,592.00
Queries per second 8,002,730.00 13,175,920.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.01 0.01
Maximum Latency (ms) 783.86 409.13
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second 100,060.00 172,758.00
Queries per second 1,000,600.00 1,727,580.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.07 0.05
Average Latency (ms) 0.1 0.06
Maximum Latency (ms) 9.15 2.82
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.15 0.07

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second 4,470.00 8,213.00
Queries per second 44,700.00 82,130.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.68 0.43
Average Latency (ms) 2.23 1.22
Maximum Latency (ms) 9.2 6.44
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.55 1.55

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second 4,738.00 7,551.00
Queries per second 47,380.00 75,510.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.65 0.51
Average Latency (ms) 2.11 1.32
Maximum Latency (ms) 8.72 3.44
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.68 1.7

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second 4,344.00 5,926.00
Queries per second 43,440.00 59,260.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.12 0.92
Average Latency (ms) 2.3 1.69
Maximum Latency (ms) 37 32.97
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.96 2.39

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second 5,409.00 6,383.00
Queries per second 54,090.00 63,830.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.08 0.98
Average Latency (ms) 1.85 1.57
Maximum Latency (ms) 13.01 31.28
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.52 2

MySQL DELETE

Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second 34,310.00 56,148.00
Queries per second 343,100.00 561,480.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.07 0.05
Average Latency (ms) 0.29 0.18
Maximum Latency (ms) 6.95 91.95
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.82 1.39

Redis

Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second 33,670.04 44,033.47
PING_MBULK per Second 32,948.93 44,782.80
SET per Second 32,829.94 44,072.28
GET per Second 34,411.56 44,722.72
INCR per Second 36,258.16 44,583.15
LPUSH per Second 32,435.94 44,091.71
RPUSH per Second 34,891.84 44,326.24
LPOP per Second 31,938.68 38,431.98
RPOP per Second 31,605.56 43,994.72
SADD per Second 32,679.74 44,642.86
HSET per Second 33,840.95 44,150.11
SPOP per Second 34,411.56 45,392.64
ZADD per Second 34,542.32 44,365.57
ZPOPMIN per Second 34,176.35 45,433.89
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 22,084.81 29,248.32
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 10,593.22 16,000.00
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 7,519.93 11,101.24
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 5,956.28 9,616.31
MSET (10 keys) per Second 29,594.55 41,339.40

Redis Average Latency (ms)

Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
PING_INLINE0.970.77
PING_MBULK0.980.77
SET0.990.78
GET0.950.77
INCR0.910.77
LPUSH1.010.78
RPUSH0.950.78
LPOP1.040.88
RPOP1.040.79
SADD1.000.77
HSET0.980.78
SPOP0.950.76
ZADD0.960.78
ZPOPMIN0.960.76
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)1.531.21
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)3.202.31
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)4.533.30
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)5.633.82
MSET (10 keys)1.170.86

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

When comparing the benchmark results of the UpCloud Balanced (1 GB) and Vultr Cloud Compute (1 GB) instances, it is evident that UpCloud generally performs better in CPU-intensive and I/O-heavy workloads, showcasing higher Redis throughput, lower latency for most operations, and better file I/O performance. The Vultr instance, while competitive in specific areas like bulk MySQL inserts and having a slightly lower monthly cost, falls short in Redis operations, file I/O, and memory performance. Therefore, UpCloud is recommended for developers needing robust performance in memory- and I/O-intensive applications, whereas Vultr might be more suited for simpler tasks where cost is a primary concern.

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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