UpCloud Review: $25 Sign-Up Bonus, 8 Data Centers, and Hourly Billing

UpCloudVPS hosting25 dollar signup bonusFinnish VPS providerautomated backup

Published·Dec 21, 2019Modified·Nov 9, 2020

UpCloud is a VPS provider from Finland (Note: not the domestic UCLOUD). While not many people have used it, UpCloud requires physical credit card verification for registration, which sets a higher threshold and filters out many spam users.

I have been using UpCloud stably for over half a year. Both the machine performance and stability, as well as customer service response speed, are excellent (7*24 hour online customer service, with a general response time of under 5 minutes). I recommend it for those looking to build a website.

Register for UpCloud

As mentioned above, the registration threshold for UpCloud is relatively high, so you need to prepare a physical credit card in advance. Note that it must be a physical card; I initially tried using a virtual credit card but was rejected, and only after sending a physical card was I approved, much like Linode used to be.

You can receive a $25 bonus by registering through my invitation link: Registration Address: https://upcloud.com/signup/?promo=D7BCPG

Important Notes:

Do not fill in false information or use a proxy.
Some users may require review after registration.
The bonus is valid for 72 hours; you can make a deposit of more than $10 to make the bonus valid long-term.

Data Center Selection

UpCloud currently offers 8 data centers. I have tested each one. US-SJO1 is located on the US West Coast and is relatively friendly to users in China. Like Linode, Vultr, and DigitalOcean, UpCloud uses hourly billing. Once your account is approved, you can start testing on your own and delete the instance anytime if you no longer need it.

Pricing

UpCloud's lowest configuration is 1 Core, 1GB RAM, at $5/month. The pricing is basically consistent with Linode, Vultr, and DigitalOcean, as shown in the screenshot below.

I/O and Download Speed Tests

Below are the test results using the bench.sh script. The average I/O speed reached 420.7 MB/s, and the maximum download speed reached 114 MB/s, confirming it is a Gigabit bandwidth connection.

CPU model            : Intel(R) Xeon(R) Gold 6136 CPU @ 3.00GHz
Number of cores      : 1
CPU frequency        : 2992.968 MHz
Total size of Disk   : 50.0 GB (21.0 GB Used)
Total amount of Mem  : 1993 MB (916 MB Used)
Total amount of Swap : 2047 MB (230 MB Used)
System uptime        : 112 days, 13 hour 18 min
Load average         : 0.02, 0.04, 0.00
OS                   : CentOS 7.6.1810
Arch                 : x86_64 (64 Bit)
Kernel               : 5.2.1-1.el7.elrepo.x86_64
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I/O speed(1st run)   : 417 MB/s
I/O speed(2nd run)   : 425 MB/s
I/O speed(3rd run)   : 420 MB/s
Average I/O speed    : 420.7 MB/s
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Node Name                       IPv4 address            Download Speed
CacheFly                        205.234.175.175         114MB/s
Linode, Tokyo2, JP              139.162.65.37           16.7MB/s
Linode, Singapore, SG           139.162.23.4            10.0MB/s
Linode, London, UK              176.58.107.39           13.0MB/s
Linode, Frankfurt, DE           139.162.130.8           11.4MB/s
Linode, Fremont, CA             50.116.14.9             109MB/s
Softlayer, Dallas, TX           173.192.68.18           33.6MB/s
Softlayer, Seattle, WA          67.228.112.250          76.6MB/s
Softlayer, Frankfurt, DE        159.122.69.4            10.1MB/s
Softlayer, Singapore, SG        119.81.28.170           9.03MB/s
Softlayer, HongKong, CN         119.81.130.170          10.5MB/s
----------------------------------------------------------------------

How to Determine if it is Suitable for Website Building?

Although I have purchased many VPS instances, I don't use many for website building. For website purposes, my requirements are as follows:

Automatic backup support: Currently, Linode, Vultr, DigitalOcean, and UpCloud all support automatic snapshot backups.
High stability: Small providers often oversell heavily, using simple KVM virtualization or SoluVM to sell services, making stability unreliable.
Timely after-sales support: If a machine or network fails, would you use a provider where you can't find anyone for days?

Summary

UpCloud's backend is fully self-developed and offers paid automatic backup services, ensuring data security. It provides 7*24 hour technical support; contacting online customer service usually results in a response within 5 minutes, which is very fast. UpCloud's package pricing and billing strategies are very similar to competitors like Linode, Vultr, and DigitalOcean. However, UpCloud has a higher threshold, resulting in less abuse. I recommend it for those who need to build a website.

UpCloud Registration Address: https://upcloud.com/signup/?promo=D7BCPG [Get $25 Bonus]