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

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Same showdown, different day. Today I've spun up some brand new instance from UpCloud and Vultr and ran my world famous suite of benchmarking scripts. Each instance was spun up with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS x64 and were created in or around the New York / New Jersey area. Without further ado, here's the results.

Overview

Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Last Benchmarked Tue, 12 May 2026 18:00:51 GMT Sun, 10 May 2026 01:00:52 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 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 9575F 64-Core Processor
Clock Speed (MHz) 2,394.45 3,295.48
CPU Cache Size (KB) 16,384.00 512.00
BogoMips 4,788.90 6,590.95
Events per Second 795.66 5,808.89
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.14 0.16
Average Latency (ms) 1.26 0.17
Maximum Latency (ms) 3.9 0.91
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.47 0.19

Memory

Memory Read

Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Operations per second 3,786,617.05 8,147,464.61
Mebibytes per second 3,697.87 7,956.51
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 0.43 0.25
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

Memory Write

Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Operations per second 3,766,621.58 8,246,922.71
Mebibytes per second 3,678.34 8,053.64
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 0.78 0.24
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

File I/O

Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Reads per Second 1,908.38 5,159.90
Writes per Second 1,272.25 3,439.93
Fsyncs per Second 4,078.88 11,013.54
Read Mebibytes per Second 29.82 80.62
Written Mebibytes per Second 19.88 53.75
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.14 0.05
Maximum Latency (ms) 16.36 52.17
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.39 0.18

Mutex

Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms) 2,335.65 1,201.12
Average Latency (ms) 2,349.86 1,206.08
Maximum Latency (ms) 2,365.31 1,210.41
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2,362.72 1,213.57

MySQL

MySQL Read-only

Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second 4,483.00 28,978.00
Queries per second 44,830.00 289,780.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.78 0.27
Average Latency (ms) 2.23 0.34
Maximum Latency (ms) 49.32 6.69
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.71 0.48

MySQL Write-only

Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second 3,919.00 10,035.00
Queries per second 39,190.00 100,350.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 1.68 0.47
Average Latency (ms) 2.55 1
Maximum Latency (ms) 27.43 30.82
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.62 1.44

MySQL Read/Write

Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second 1,790.00 6,060.00
Queries per second 17,900.00 60,600.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 4.06 0.99
Average Latency (ms) 5.58 1.65
Maximum Latency (ms) 44.16 39.94
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 7.98 2.48

MySQL INSERT

Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second 6,614.00 13,060.00
Queries per second 66,140.00 130,600.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.91 0.34
Average Latency (ms) 1.51 0.76
Maximum Latency (ms) 14.16 25.82
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.07 1.04

MySQL Bulk INSERT

Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second 865,805.00 3,521,146.00
Queries per second 8,658,050.00 35,211,460.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0 0
Average Latency (ms) 0.01 0
Maximum Latency (ms) 627.7 160.29
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0 0

MySQL SELECT

Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second 102,465.00 976,863.00
Queries per second 1,024,650.00 9,768,630.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.07 0.01
Average Latency (ms) 0.1 0.01
Maximum Latency (ms) 9.98 4.28
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 0.14 0.01

MySQL SELECT (Random Points)

Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second 4,521.00 19,152.00
Queries per second 45,210.00 191,520.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.73 0.15
Average Latency (ms) 2.21 0.52
Maximum Latency (ms) 6.91 6.07
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 3.07 0.75

MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)

Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second 5,358.00 19,009.00
Queries per second 53,580.00 190,090.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.66 0.14
Average Latency (ms) 1.86 0.53
Maximum Latency (ms) 8.79 5.22
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.57 0.87

MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)

Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second 6,182.00 12,488.00
Queries per second 61,820.00 124,880.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.94 0.35
Average Latency (ms) 1.62 0.8
Maximum Latency (ms) 35.17 21.25
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 2.35 1.25

MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)

Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second 6,753.00 13,276.00
Queries per second 67,530.00 132,760.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.93 0.36
Average Latency (ms) 1.48 0.75
Maximum Latency (ms) 10.15 19.77
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.93 1.04

MySQL DELETE

Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second 35,322.00 506,633.00
Queries per second 353,220.00 5,066,330.00
Minimum Latency (ms) 0.07 0.01
Average Latency (ms) 0.28 0.02
Maximum Latency (ms) 21.31 18.52
95th Percentile Latency (ms) 1.55 0.02

Redis

Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second 27,925.16 180,831.83
PING_MBULK per Second 30,590.39 192,307.70
SET per Second 24,740.23 181,818.17
GET per Second 29,095.14 189,035.92
INCR per Second 31,645.57 182,815.36
LPUSH per Second 31,685.68 185,185.17
RPUSH per Second 31,505.99 175,131.36
LPOP per Second 30,609.12 188,323.91
RPOP per Second 29,394.47 180,505.41
SADD per Second 31,357.79 187,617.27
HSET per Second 29,489.83 184,162.06
SPOP per Second 29,027.58 184,842.88
ZADD per Second 29,010.73 176,056.33
ZPOPMIN per Second 28,968.71 176,991.16
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second 19,040.37 98,135.42
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second 10,432.97 47,641.73
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second 7,370.83 31,938.68
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second 6,899.41 24,875.62
MSET (10 keys) per Second 31,705.77 163,934.42

Redis Average Latency (ms)

Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB) UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
PING_INLINE1.140.18
PING_MBULK1.040.17
SET1.310.18
GET1.140.17
INCR1.030.18
LPUSH1.020.18
RPUSH1.020.19
LPOP1.060.18
RPOP1.090.19
SADD1.030.18
HSET1.090.18
SPOP1.090.18
ZADD1.110.19
ZPOPMIN1.100.19
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)1.760.37
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)3.270.76
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)4.541.13
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)4.861.39
MSET (10 keys)1.090.22

Conclusion

From the friendly robots:

In comparing the benchmarks for the UpCloud and Vultr instances, UpCloud's Balanced (1 GB) instance shows slightly higher performance in Redis operations, CPU events per second, file I/O throughput, and MySQL bulk insert operations, likely due to its higher CPU clock speed and larger L3 cache. Vultr's Cloud Compute (1 GB) instance, while slightly cheaper, lags behind in most benchmarks, particularly in Redis operations where it performs more slowly despite having similar CPU architecture. UpCloud excels in CPU-intensive and I/O-heavy workloads, making it a better choice for demanding applications, whereas Vultr is more suited to applications that do not require peak performance and can handle slightly higher latency.

From the friendly human:

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