VPS and cloud servers
A VPS is a virtual server you control and maintain.
Use for: Always-running bots, game servers and self-hosted apps.
Linode's virtual machines, now run by Akamai, with $5 shared-CPU instances, pooled transfer, $0.005/GB overage and 24/7 phone support for every customer.
AWS's core virtual machine service: hundreds of instance types billed per second, with Spot, Savings Plans and the rest of AWS a network hop away.
AWS's bundled VPS: fixed monthly plans that include vCPU, RAM, SSD, a static IP, DNS and a data transfer allowance, with a path to EC2 and other AWS services.
Microsoft's cloud VMs for Linux and Windows, billed per hour with reserved and spot discounts, strongest for Windows Server, SQL Server and Microsoft-centric companies.
Australian cloud servers in five Australian cities plus Singapore, all NVMe, billed hourly in Australian dollars from A$4.90/mo.
Long-running budget host selling KVM 'slices' with unmetered bandwidth, 3.5 GHz+ Intel cores, cheap block storage and free DirectAdmin, from $2/mo.
Lithuanian bare-metal and cloud provider's VPS line, from $3.51/mo, with hourly billing, an API, crypto payments and data centers in Europe, the US and Asia.
German budget host selling large VPS plans, 4 vCPU and 8 GB RAM from about $5 a month, with unlimited traffic and DDoS protection.
Developer-friendly virtual machines from $4/mo with per-second billing, pooled bandwidth and managed databases, load balancers and Kubernetes on the same account.
Swiss cloud with compute instances in Switzerland, Austria, Germany and Bulgaria, billed per second at the same flat rate in every zone.
Google Cloud's virtual machines, billed per second after the first minute, with an always-free e2-micro in three US regions and custom machine shapes.
German cloud servers with hourly billing capped at a monthly price, 20 TB of traffic in the EU and data centers in Germany, Finland, the US and Singapore.
KVM VPS plans from a large web host, with AMD EPYC, NVMe, weekly backups and one-click apps, priced low on long prepaid terms.
Swiss VPS hosted in Infomaniak's own data centers, from CHF 2.70/mo for VPS Lite, with a VPS Cloud line offering a 99.99% SLA and unlimited traffic.
German host's VPS+ plans with unlimited traffic, NVMe storage and 24/7 support, starting at 4 vCores and 4 GB RAM for a low introductory price.
Configurable cloud servers where you pick CPU type, RAM, disk and location separately, from $4/mo with 5 TB traffic and a 30-day free trial.
German host with low-cost KVM vServers in Europe, the US and Singapore, discounts for 12- and 24-month terms, and cheap block storage up to 8 TB.
Oracle's cloud VMs with the most generous permanent free tier among major clouds: two AMD micro VMs plus 2 Arm OCPUs and 12 GB RAM at no cost.
French provider's VPS range with unlimited traffic, daily backups and anti-DDoS included, starting at 2 vCores and 4 GB RAM for a few dollars a month.
US budget host with KVM VPS in 12 North American and European locations, RAID-10 SSD storage and 1 Gbps ports, known for annual-billed deals.
French cloud VMs in Paris, Amsterdam and Warsaw with no egress fees, hourly billing and a full European cloud platform around them.
Lithuanian budget VPS host with KVM servers in a central European data center, large bandwidth allowances and deep discounts on 1- and 2-year terms.
Finnish cloud with fast MaxIOPS storage, a 99.999% SLA on Premium plans and zero-cost data transfer, billed hourly from €3/mo.
Hourly-billed cloud VMs in 33 regions on six continents, from a $2.50 IPv6-only instance up to dedicated-CPU VX1 plans and bare metal.
Danish VPS host with a free web-server control panel, daily and weekly snapshots and DDoS protection included, from €2.15/mo under EU jurisdiction.
| Tool | Pricing | Cheapest plan | Regions | Transfer | Billing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Akamai Cloud (Linode) akamai.com · EU | Paid | 1 vCPU, 1 GB, 25 GB SSD: $5/mo (Nanode) | 25+ core regions (26 listed on pricing page) | 1 TB to 20 TB pooled; $0.005/GB over in most regions | Hourly, capped monthly |
| Amazon EC2 aws.amazon.com · EU | Paid | t4g.small 2 vCPU, 2 GiB: ~$0.0168/hr + storage | All AWS regions | 100 GB/mo free egress across AWS, then per-GB tiers | Per second (60 s min); Savings Plans, Spot |
| Amazon Lightsail aws.amazon.com · EU | Paid | 2 vCPU (burstable), 0.5 GB, 20 GB SSD: $5/mo | Several AWS regions (plans vary by region) | 1 TB to 10 TB included, halved in some regions | Hourly, up to the monthly bundle price |
| Azure Virtual Machines azure.microsoft.com · EU | Paid | B1s Linux: $0.0104/hr (~$7.59/mo) + disk | Azure regions worldwide | Standard egress charges per GB | Per hour/minute; reservations and spot |
| BinaryLane Cloud Servers binarylane.com.au | Paid | 1 vCPU, 1 GB, 20 GB NVMe: A$4.90/mo | 6: Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Singapore | 1,000 GB+ included; A$0.01/GB extra | Hourly in arrears (720 h month) |
| BuyVM KVM Slices buyvm.net | Paid | 1 core, 1 GB, 20 GB SSD: $3.50/mo | Several locations (list not captured) | Unmetered bandwidth | Monthly (512 MB plan yearly) |
| Cherry Servers Cloud VPS cherryservers.com · EU | Paid | 1 vCore, 1 GB, 20 GB SSD: $3.51/mo | LT, NL, US, SG, SE, DE, JP | 1 TB/mo included; extra from $0.50/TB | Hourly, monthly, quarterly or yearly |
| Contabo Cloud VPS contabo.com · EU | Paid | 4 vCPU, 8 GB, 100 GB SSD: $5.28/mo excl. VAT | Data centers in Europe, US and Asia | Unlimited traffic, 200 Mbit/s to 1 Gbit/s port | Monthly; lower with longer terms |
| DigitalOcean Droplets digitalocean.com · EU | Paid | 1 vCPU, 512 MiB, 10 GiB SSD: $4/mo | 13 regions, 16 data centers | 500 GiB to 11,000 GiB pooled; $0.01/GiB over | Per second (60 s minimum), monthly cap |
| Exoscale Compute exoscale.com · EU | Paid | Standard Micro 1 core, 512 MB: €5.25/mo + disk | 7 zones in CH, AT, DE and BG | Egress pricing not captured | Per second, same rate in all zones |
| Google Compute Engine cloud.google.com · EU | Freemium | e2-micro (shared, 1 GB): ~$6.11/mo, one free | Google Cloud regions worldwide | Egress billed per GB; 1 GB/mo free on free tier | Per second after 1-minute minimum |
| Hetzner Cloud hetzner.com · EU | Paid | 2 vCPU, 4 GB, 40 GB: €5.49/mo (CX23, often sold out) | 6: Falkenstein, Nuremberg, Helsinki, Ashburn, Hillsboro, Singapore | 20 TB in EU, 1 TB+ in US/Singapore; overage per TB | Hourly, capped at the monthly price |
| Hostinger VPS hostinger.com · EU | Paid | 1 vCPU, 4 GB, 50 GB NVMe: $6.49/mo prepaid | North America, Europe, Asia, South America | 4 TB to 32 TB per month, 1 Gbps | Prepaid terms; monthly rate shown per month |
| Infomaniak VPS infomaniak.com | Paid | 1 vCPU, 2 GB, 20 GB: CHF 2.70/mo (VPS Lite) | Switzerland | Unlimited on VPS Cloud; Lite 500 Mbit/s | Monthly flat rate |
| IONOS VPS ionos.com · EU | Paid | 4 vCores, 4 GB, 120 GB NVMe: $4/mo intro (VPS M+) | 4 countries: US, UK, Germany, Spain | Unlimited traffic at up to 1 Gbps | Monthly with term; add-on VMs pay as you go |
| Kamatera Cloud Servers kamatera.com · EU | Paid | 1 vCPU, 1 GB, 20 GB NVMe: $4/mo (Type A) | Global data centers (list not captured) | 5 TB included; $0.01/GB extra | Monthly or hourly (billed per minute) |
| netcup VPS netcup.com · EU | Paid | 2 vCore, 4 GB, 64 GB SSD: €8.26/mo (12-mo term) | 5: Vienna, Nuremberg, Amsterdam, Manassas, Singapore | Traffic included | 1, 12 or 24-month terms; hourly option |
| Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Compute oracle.com · EU | Freemium | Always Free: 2 Arm OCPU, 12 GB RAM (A1 Flex) | All commercial OCI regions | Free-tier micro VMs capped at 50 Mbps | Per OCPU-hour and GB-hour, pay as you go |
| OVHcloud VPS ovhcloud.com · EU | Paid | 2 vCores, 4 GB, 40 GB NVMe: from $4.54/mo | Many locations in Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific | Unlimited traffic, 500 Mbps to 3 Gbps port | Monthly (discounts with commitment) |
| RackNerd KVM VPS racknerd.com · EU | Paid | 1 vCore, 512 MB, 30 GB SSD: $26.99/yr | 12: US, Canada, Netherlands, France, Ireland | 500 GB to 6 TB per month at 1 Gbps | Monthly or yearly |
| Scaleway Instances scaleway.com · EU | Paid | DEV1-S 2 vCPU, 2 GB: ~€6.55/mo + storage | 3: Paris, Amsterdam, Warsaw | No egress fees; bandwidth capped per type | Hourly; Savings Plans up to 25% off |
| Time4VPS Linux VPS time4vps.com · EU | Paid | 1 x 2.6 GHz, 1 GB, 10 GB: €2.99/mo | 1: Lithuania (central Europe data center) | 1 TB to 128 TB per month by plan | Prepaid 1, 12 or 24-month terms |
| UpCloud Cloud Servers upcloud.com · EU | Paid | 1 core, 1 GB, 10 GB SSD: €3/mo (Starter) | 15 data centers | Zero-cost egress, fair transfer policy | Hourly, max 28 days per month |
| Vultr Cloud Compute vultr.com · EU | Paid | 1 vCPU, 0.5 GB, 10 GB SSD: $2.50/mo (IPv6 only) | 33 regions on six continents | 0.5 TB to 15 TB included per plan | Hourly, capped monthly |
| Webdock VPS webdock.io · EU | Paid | 1 vCPU, 2 GB, 15 GB NVMe: €2.15/mo (Essential) | EU (Denmark), two locations | 1 TB to 7 TB outgoing per month; inbound unlimited | Monthly, no long-term commitment |
No tools match these filters.
How to choose a VPS
- Price the machine you need (vCPU, RAM, disk) on two or three providers; entry prices hide very different specs.
- Check included transfer and the overage price. The hyperscalers charge for almost all egress; Hetzner, OVHcloud and others include terabytes.
- Pick a region near your users and check it offers the plan you want: cheap plans are often limited to a few locations.
- Decide whether you want to run the server yourself. If not, a PaaS or a managed database may cost less than your time.
- Look at snapshots, backups, firewalls and IPv4 pricing: several providers now charge for IPv4 addresses and backups separately.
Questions
What is the cheapest reliable VPS?
For a small general-purpose server, European providers such as Hetzner and OVHcloud list 2 vCPU / 4 GB plans for around €4 to €6 a month with terabytes of included transfer. The table on this page lists the cheapest plan of every provider with its specs and the date we checked it.
Is a VPS or a PaaS better for a side project?
A PaaS is less work: you push code and it runs. A VPS is cheaper per unit of CPU and RAM and runs anything, but you patch, secure and back it up yourself.
Why is egress so expensive on AWS, Google Cloud and Azure?
The hyperscalers charge per GB leaving their network after a small free allowance. Smaller VPS providers usually bundle terabytes of transfer into the monthly price, which makes them far cheaper for bandwidth-heavy workloads.
Pricing changes
-
Second 2026 Hetzner increase hits CPX and CCX plans
Hetzner Cloud · source ↗
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Oracle halves Always Free Ampere A1 allowance
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Compute · source ↗
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Hetzner raises cloud prices for all servers
Hetzner Cloud · source ↗
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Droplets move to per-second billing
DigitalOcean Droplets · source ↗