Vultr Cloud Compute (1 GB) vs. UpCloud Balanced (1 GB)
Welcome to another round of the VPS Showdown. Today I spun up fresh instances from UpCloud and Vultr and ran my world famous suite of benchmarking scripts. Each instance was running Ubuntu 26.04 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
Sat, 01 Aug 2026 05:03:02 GMT
Thu, 09 Jul 2026 00:42:22 GMT
Linux Distro
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS x64
Kernel Version
7.0.0-28-generic
7.0.0-14-generic
MySQL Version
8.4.10-0ubuntu0.26.04.1
8.4.10-0ubuntu0.26.04.1
Redis Version
8.0.5
8.0.5
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
Head-to-head
Category winners from the latest benchmarks.
Category
Winner
CPU (events/sec)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Memory (read MiB/s)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Disk I/O (MiB/s)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Redis (GET/sec)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Value (CPU events per $/mo)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB) takes 5 of 5 categories.
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)
2,400.00
3,295.46
CPU Cache Size (KB)
16,384.00
512.00
BogoMips
4,799.99
6,590.91
Events per Second
763.23
5,281.40
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.11
0.17
Average Latency (ms)
1.31
0.19
Maximum Latency (ms)
2.63
5.63
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.44
0.21
Memory
Memory Read
Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Operations per second
3,905,870.09
7,916,721.84
Mebibytes per second
3,814.33
7,731.17
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
0.72
0.56
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
Memory Write
Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Operations per second
3,886,921.83
7,831,276.08
Mebibytes per second
3,795.82
7,647.73
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
0.73
0.33
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
File I/O
Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Reads per Second
1,890.03
3,918.58
Writes per Second
1,259.95
2,612.35
Fsyncs per Second
4,040.16
8,362.41
Read Mebibytes per Second
29.53
61.23
Written Mebibytes per Second
19.69
40.82
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.14
0.07
Maximum Latency (ms)
4.59
56.19
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.35
0.2
Mutex
Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Minimum Latency (ms)
2,141.87
1,149.76
Average Latency (ms)
2,158.92
1,155.73
Maximum Latency (ms)
2,165.16
1,166.28
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2,159.29
1,170.65
MySQL
MySQL Read-only
Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
5,168.00
0.00
Queries per second
51,680.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.65
0
Average Latency (ms)
1.93
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
12.8
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.22
0
MySQL Write-only
Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
3,072.00
0.00
Queries per second
30,720.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.58
0
Average Latency (ms)
3.71
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
3416.63
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
3.07
0
MySQL Read/Write
Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
2,195.00
0.00
Queries per second
21,950.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
3.59
0
Average Latency (ms)
4.55
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
11.62
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
5.28
0
MySQL INSERT
Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
6,793.00
0.00
Queries per second
67,930.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.03
0
Average Latency (ms)
1.47
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
42.94
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.89
0
MySQL Bulk INSERT
Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
931,337.00
0.00
Queries per second
9,313,370.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.01
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
595.92
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0
0
MySQL SELECT
Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
112,159.00
0.00
Queries per second
1,121,590.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.07
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.09
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
3.1
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
0.13
0
MySQL SELECT (Random Points)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
4,115.00
0.00
Queries per second
41,150.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.76
0
Average Latency (ms)
2.43
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
6.44
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
3.25
0
MySQL SELECT (Random Ranges)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
5,698.00
0.00
Queries per second
56,980.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.65
0
Average Latency (ms)
1.75
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
5.36
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.35
0
MySQL UPDATE (Indexed)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
6,594.00
0.00
Queries per second
65,940.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1
0
Average Latency (ms)
1.51
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
26.54
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.07
0
MySQL UPDATE (Non-Indexed)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
6,477.00
0.00
Queries per second
64,770.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
1.02
0
Average Latency (ms)
1.54
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
33.4
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
2.18
0
MySQL DELETE
Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
Transactions per second
48,339.00
0.00
Queries per second
483,390.00
0.00
Minimum Latency (ms)
0.06
0
Average Latency (ms)
0.21
0
Maximum Latency (ms)
22.17
0
95th Percentile Latency (ms)
1.34
0
Redis
Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
PING_INLINE per Second
33,288.95
45,871.56
PING_MBULK per Second
33,704.08
57,870.37
SET per Second
33,456.00
60,096.15
GET per Second
32,010.24
59,347.18
INCR per Second
30,147.72
58,997.05
LPUSH per Second
28,232.64
60,024.01
RPUSH per Second
32,552.08
59,206.63
LPOP per Second
32,414.91
59,952.04
RPOP per Second
32,195.75
59,206.63
SADD per Second
32,278.89
58,754.41
HSET per Second
32,776.14
58,275.06
SPOP per Second
30,147.72
59,559.26
ZADD per Second
25,412.96
61,312.08
ZPOPMIN per Second
25,920.17
61,050.06
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements) per Second
19,098.55
45,392.64
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements) per Second
11,506.16
25,859.84
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) per Second
7,970.67
16,854.88
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements) per Second
7,017.05
17,455.05
MSET (10 keys) per Second
30,165.91
49,578.58
Redis Average Latency (ms)
Vultr – Cloud Compute (1 GB)
UpCloud – Balanced (1 GB)
PING_INLINE
0.92
0.73
PING_MBULK
0.90
0.51
SET
0.92
0.51
GET
0.94
0.51
INCR
1.01
0.52
LPUSH
1.08
0.52
RPUSH
0.94
0.52
LPOP
0.95
0.52
RPOP
0.96
0.53
SADD
0.94
0.52
HSET
0.93
0.53
SPOP
1.01
0.50
ZADD
1.21
0.51
ZPOPMIN
1.16
0.50
LRANGE_100 (first 100 elements)
1.65
0.72
LRANGE_300 (first 300 elements)
2.64
1.24
LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements)
3.64
1.89
LRANGE_600 (first 600 elements)
4.12
1.79
MSET (10 keys)
1.10
0.71
Conclusion
From the friendly robots:
The UpCloud Balanced instance outperforms the Vultr Cloud Compute (1 GB) in both CPU benchmark results and Redis performance metrics, with higher requests per second (rps) and lower latency in key operations. Specifically, UpCloud's instance shows significantly better results in LRANGE_500 (first 500 elements) with an rps of 16854.88 compared to Vultr's 7970.67, and in file I/O throughput, achieving 61.23 MiB/s read and 40.82 MiB/s written versus Vultr's 29.53 MiB/s read and 19.69 MiB/s written. This makes UpCloud a better choice for CPU-heavy and I/O-intensive workloads, despite Vultr offering a slightly lower monthly cost.
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.
