You want a VPS for a few euros a month, and the cheapest offers look alike: one to three vCores, a few GB of RAM, some NVMe storage. They are not alike. When we compared four hosts on 31 October 2026, one entry plan had eight times the memory of another, one included a daily backup, and one could not be ordered that day. Here is what a low price buys, what it leaves out, how to compare cheap VPS offers, and when paying more costs you less.
Quick answer: At the four hosts compared below, the cheapest plans cost €4.20 to €5.99 a month on monthly billing, or $4.00 at DigitalOcean, some with VAT and some without, for 1 to 3 vCores, 512 MiB to 4 GB of RAM and 10 to 60 GB of disk. What the low price leaves out differs per host: guaranteed CPU time, reserved RAM, backups, fast human support, a term you can leave, and sometimes stock. Compare offers on the RAM and disk you need, one VAT basis and the term you would really pick, plus the extras you need. Pay more when the CPU is busy for hours, when you cannot rebuild the data, or when downtime costs you money.
What the Cheapest Plans Include
Each host's entry plan, taken from its own pages on 31 October 2026 (for OVHcloud also its public order catalog, which lists the month-to-month price). Our two prices are as of 30 October 2026, with the split before VAT that our checkout shows.
| Host and plan | vCores | RAM | Disk | Transfer | Price a month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DigitalOcean Basic, Regular | 1 | 512 MiB | 10 GiB SSD | 500 GiB | $4.00 |
| OVHcloud VPS-1 | 2 | 4 GB | 40 GB NVMe | No monthly limit outside Asia-Pacific, 500 Mbps | €4.49 before VAT (€3.81 with 12 months upfront) |
| Hetzner CX23 | 2 | 4 GB | 40 GB NVMe | 20 TB | €5.99 before VAT |
| Space-Node Premium VPS-XS | 2 | 2 GB | 20 GB NVMe | 5 TB | €4.20 with VAT (€3.47 before) |
| Space-Node Standard VPS-S | 3 | 4 GB | 60 GB NVMe | 10 TB | €4.99 with VAT (€4.12 before) |
Four things stand out:
- Close prices buy very different machines. DigitalOcean's $4.00 plan has 512 MiB of RAM; OVHcloud's VPS-1 has eight times that for €4.49 before VAT on monthly billing.
- The prices sit on different bases. OVHcloud and Hetzner list prices before VAT, DigitalOcean lists US dollars and applies taxes where the law requires them, and the last two rows include 21% VAT.
- A "from" price has conditions. OVHcloud's "From €3.81" is the monthly rate when you pay 12 months upfront (€4.26 with 6 months upfront, €4.49 month to month), Hetzner's CX23 price is for its Nuremberg and Helsinki locations, and on 31 October 2026 netcup showed its VPS 500 G12.5 (2 vCores, 4 GB, 64 GB SSD) from €8.26 a month including 19% VAT, on a "12 months contract period".
- The cheapest line can sell out. On 31 October 2026 Hetzner marked every Cost-Optimized plan "not available", and its page says "the number of available servers is limited". Keep a second choice.
What a Low Price Leaves Out
Our 12-point checklist prices every line of a VPS bill. At the bottom of the range, these lines change most.
Guaranteed CPU time. Two hosts above say outright that their entry plans share CPU: DigitalOcean calls Basic Droplets "ideal for bursty applications that can handle variable levels of CPU", and Hetzner files its Cost-Optimized line under "Shared Resources". When the neighbours are busy, your vCPU waits; that wait is steal time, and our shared vCPU guide shows how to measure it. Where a page says nothing, ask whether the vCores are shared and whether sustained use is limited.
Reserved RAM. A RAM figure does not say whether the memory is yours alone: netcup's FAQ says its vServers "share all resources such as CPU, RAM and storage space with all other users". Ask, and size the plan from what your software needs (how much RAM a VPS needs).
A kernel of your own. Under KVM, "Each virtual machine has private virtualized hardware: a network card, disk, graphics adapter, etc." LXC containers aim for a Linux system "without the need for a separate kernel", so a container VPS runs on the host's kernel and cannot boot its own. After ordering, this command prints kvm on a KVM VPS and openvz or lxc in those containers:
systemd-detect-virt
Disk type and room to grow. DigitalOcean's Droplets use SSDs; the other plans above list NVMe. Check what more space costs before you need it: an add-on, a volume, or only a bigger plan. netcup's FAQ says its VPS pico and VPS nano plans "cannot be expanded with Local Block Storage".
Transfer, and what happens past it. Allowances run from 500 GiB at DigitalOcean to 20 TB at Hetzner, while OVHcloud lists "Unlimited traffic" for VPS-1 at 500 Mbps of public bandwidth. Past an allowance, Hetzner charges €1.00 before VAT for each additional TB at its EU-Central locations, and OVHcloud's Asia-Pacific VPS, which have a monthly quota, are then "capped at 10 Mbps". DigitalOcean counts outgoing traffic: "Inbound bandwidth is always free." Read the overage line, not just the allowance.
An IPv4 address. DigitalOcean includes a public IPv4 address with bundled Droplets "at no extra cost", and OVHcloud lists one as included. On DigitalOcean's v5 Droplets it is a separate line on the bill, and netcup lets you pick IPv6-only connectivity instead of IPv4 and IPv6. The checklist shows what an address costs where it is extra.
DDoS protection. OVHcloud says "Anti-DDoS protection included", and netcup lists DDoS protection for its vServers. Ask what happens during a large attack: no filter stops every attack, and DigitalOcean temporarily reroutes your traffic once an attack passes its mitigation limit, so nothing reaches your server.
Backups. OVHcloud's VPS-1 includes a "Daily backup of the previous 24 hours", kept in the same data center; DigitalOcean and Hetzner charge a percentage of the server price. Keep a copy elsewhere too, for example with restic over SSH.
Support hours and setup time. Check when people answer and through which channels; faster answers can be a paid tier, as with DigitalOcean's paid support plans. Cloud hosts create servers in moments (Hetzner: "start using it in seconds"), while hosts that set servers up by hand take longer.
A term you can leave. Hetzner bills by the hour up to a monthly cap ("If you delete your cloud server before the end of the billing month, we will only bill you for the hourly rate"), and DigitalOcean bills per second with a 60-second minimum, so a test costs little. netcup ties its prices to minimum terms of 1, 12 or 24 months: "The longer you commit, the cheaper it gets." Our guide to monthly and annual billing shows when prepaying pays off.
On a Space-Node VPS, a KVM virtual machine, the RAM is dedicated and the vCores are shared. IPv4, IPv6 and DDoS protection are in the price; backups are not, and you can arrange them through a support ticket. Standard plans are set up by hand within 24 hours after payment, human support answers from 08:00 to 20:00 UTC, and under our fair-use terms we contact you and may limit a VPS that structurally uses far more CPU, storage or traffic than its plan is meant for.
How to Compare Cheap VPS Offers
- Start from your software. Note the RAM and disk it needs, with room for the operating system and for growth, and whether it uses the CPU in short bursts or for hours.
- Drop every plan below that line. Too small is not cheap: you pay again for the upgrade, or with your time for a move.
- Put the prices on one basis. Use one VAT basis (with VAT as a consumer, without it if your business reclaims VAT), one currency and the term you would really choose. OVHcloud's €4.49 before VAT, for example, is €5.43 with 21% VAT, and its €3.81 rate only applies when you pay 12 months upfront.
- Add the extras you need. Backups, an IPv4 address, more disk or a panel licence go on top of the list price before you compare totals.
- Read three lines in the terms. What happens past the transfer allowance, whether CPU, disk or traffic use has a fair-use limit, and how cancellation and refunds work.
- Test before you commit. On hourly billing, run your real workload for a day and delete the server if it disappoints. In the first week, run
systemd-detect-virt, then check memory, disk and CPU at your busy hour as our upgrade guide shows.
When to Pay More
- Your CPU is busy for hours. Game servers with players online, builds and video encoding keep vCores busy, and shared vCores wait whenever the neighbours are busy too. Hetzner lists "gaming servers" among the workloads for its dedicated vCPUs.
- The server runs out at your busy hour after you fixed leaks and logs. The upgrade guide shows which resource runs out and how to size the next plan.
- You cannot rebuild the data. Budget for backups or an off-site copy from the first month.
- Downtime costs you money. Pay for support hours that cover yours, and for headroom on a busy evening.
- The admin costs you more than the server. If you would rather not handle updates, a firewall and backups yourself, a managed product such as web hosting or a game panel can cost less in total.
If a free tier tempts you instead, read the catches of free VPS hosting first.
FAQ
What is the cheapest VPS worth buying? The cheapest one that fits your software with room to spare. On 31 October 2026, DigitalOcean's cheapest Droplet cost $4.00 a month for 512 MiB of RAM, while OVHcloud's VPS-1 had 4 GB for €4.49 before VAT on monthly billing (€3.81 a month with 12 months paid upfront), so compare the RAM per euro, the term and the extras, not the headline price.
Is a cheap VPS good enough for a website? For a small site, usually yes. Hetzner names the typical uses of its shared plans as "personal websites and blogs, small databases, or web servers with low to moderate traffic". Watch memory and steal time as your traffic grows.
Why is my cheap VPS slow at busy times? Check steal time first: when other customers on the host are busy, your vCPUs wait, and the shared vCPU guide shows how to log it. If steal stays low, your own memory, disk or CPU is the limit, and the upgrade guide shows which one.
Do cheap VPS plans include backups? Some do: OVHcloud's VPS-1 includes a daily backup of the previous 24 hours, while DigitalOcean and Hetzner charge a percentage of the server price. Either way, keep a copy away from the server.
Should I prepay a year to get a lower price? Only if you will keep the same plan for most of the year. At 10% off, a prepaid year costs what 10.8 monthly payments cost, so stopping after 10 months makes prepaying the dearer choice. The billing guide covers renewals and refunds.
Sources
All opened on 31 October 2026:
- Space-Node: VPS plans and FAQ, Standard VPS-S checkout, Premium VPS-XS checkout, terms and conditions of 29 October 2026 (articles 2.2, 9.4, 10.1 and 12.3)
- Hetzner: Cloud, Cost-Optimized plans, Cloud billing FAQ
- DigitalOcean: Droplet pricing, Backups pricing, Blackholed traffic, Support plans
- OVHcloud: VPS, public order catalog for VPS (VPS-1 2027: €4.49 a month, €4.26 with 6 months upfront, €3.81 with 12 months upfront, before VAT)
- netcup: VPS
- KVM, LXC introduction
- systemd-detect-virt(1) for Ubuntu 24.04 and Debian 12