VPS comparison for self-hosting
6 providers, cheapest tier with ≥ 1 GB RAM, side-by-side. Curated 2026-05-10.
Picking a VPS to self-host on is a $50–500/year decision; pricing pages are deliberately confusing. This is the comparison we wished existed when we sized the cost calculator and the stacks. Six providers, the entry tier each one realistically lets you self-host on, every spec that matters in one row.
Sort by any column. Filter by price ceiling, RAM floor, region availability. Outbound clicks go through /go/<provider> — a 302 redirect that's swappable to an affiliate URL by editing one JSON field.
| Provider | Plan | $/mo | RAM | vCPU | Disk | Bandwidth | Regions | Best for | Go |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OVHcloud see notes ↓ | VPS Starter | $4.20 | 2 GB | 1 | 40 GB | unmetered, 250 Mbps | 12 | unmetered bandwidth | → |
| Hetzner Cloud see notes ↓ | CPX11 | $4.59 | 2 GB | 2 | 40 GB | 20 TB | 6 | best $/GB-RAM | → |
| Hostinger see notes ↓ | KVM 1 24-month term; ~$9.99/mo on month-to-month / renewal | $4.99 | 4 GB | 1 | 50 GB | 4 TB | 8 | cheapest intro term price | → |
| Linode (Akamai) see notes ↓ | Nanode 1 GB | $5 | 1 GB | 1 | 25 GB | 1 TB | 26 | best docs & community guides | → |
| DigitalOcean see notes ↓ | Basic Droplet 1 GB | $6 | 1 GB | 1 | 25 GB | 1 TB | 14 | best ecosystem (1-click apps) | → |
| Vultr see notes ↓ | Cloud Compute Regular 1 GB | $6 | 1 GB | 1 | 25 GB | 1 TB | 32 | most regions | → |
Notes per provider
- OVHcloud — Monthly billing only (no hourly). Long-running VPS at OVH gets you unmetered traffic — a meaningful $$ difference if your workload is bandwidth-heavy (media, fediverse, mirrors).
- Hetzner Cloud — Price excl. VAT; €3.92 list. ARM tier (CAX11) is even cheaper at ~€3.79 / 4 GB if your stack supports arm64. Hourly billing, no contract.
- Hostinger — Promo price requires committing to a 24-month upfront term. List/renewal price ~$9.99/mo. KVM virtualization, hPanel control panel.
- Linode (Akamai) — Owned by Akamai since 2022; per-second hourly billing. Linode docs are a self-host reference even if you don't use them as host.
- DigitalOcean — Hourly billing; $200 credit common for first 60 days. Marketplace 1-clicks include many self-host apps (Ghost, Plausible, etc).
- Vultr — High-Frequency and Optimized Cloud Compute tiers cost more but use newer CPUs. Hourly billing.
Prices and specs as listed publicly on each provider's pricing page on 2026-05-10. We don't run a price-feed against these — providers change tiers and intro promos quietly. Confirm the current tier with the provider before paying. Outbound through /go/<provider> is a 302 with a UTM tag; some links may convert to affiliate URLs as we sign up. None today.
Prefer managed? See /managed/ — vendors that run open-source apps for you. Or going further: size your stack first to see what RAM you actually need · browse pre-built self-host stacks with monthly cost · check that the OSS you'd run on it is alive.