VPS price comparison January 2026

Other posts in this series:

• https://physicsderivationgraph.blogspot.com/2026/01/vps-price-comparison-september-2024.html

See hhttps://github.com/allofphysicsgraph/task-tracker/issues/56

DigitalOcean

Currently (as of 2026-01-24) paying $6/month for 2 CPUs, 1GB of RAM, 

Was paying $12/month for 2 CPUs, 2GB of RAM (to support Neo4j)

Hetzner

https://www.hetzner.com/cloud/

"CPX11" in US host is 2 vCPUs, 2GB of RAM, 40GB SSD for 5 euros. Doesn't include VAT

Update 2026-01-31: See https://physicsderivationgraph.blogspot.com/2026/01/hetzner-vps-initial-configuration-notes.html

Oracle

https://www.oracle.com/cloud/compute/arm/pricing/

https://www.oracle.com/cloud/free/

"AMD Compute Instance" has 1/8 OCPU and 1 GB memory

"Arm Compute Instance" has 4 Arm-based Ampere A1 cores and 24 GB of memory usable as 1 VM or up to 4 VMs Always Free 3,000 OCPU hours and 18,000 GB hours per month

I attempted to use Oracle (see https://physicsderivationgraph.blogspot.com/2026/01/oracle-cloud-configuration-for-free-tier.html) but their free tier didn't have any available instances.

Google Compute Engine

https://cloud.google.com/pricing

https://cloud.google.com/products/calculator

"E2" with 2vCPUs and 2GB of RAM is $37.11/month

https://docs.cloud.google.com/free/docs/free-cloud-features says "1 non-preemptible e2-micro VM instance per month in one of the following US regions: Oregon: us-west1. Iowa: us-central1. South Carolina: us-east1. 30 GB-months standard persistent disk. 1 GB of outbound data transfer from North America to all region destinations (excluding China and Australia) per month."

The e2-micro is 0.25 CPUs and 1GB of RAM.

Microsoft Azure

B2pts v2 = 1GB of RAM, 2 vCPUs for $6.13/month

next step up is 

B2pls v2 = 4GB of RAM, 2 vCPUs for $24.5280/month

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/container-instances/

$3.8909 per GB/month

AWS Lightsail

"Bundles resources like memory, vCPU, and solid-state drive (SSD) storage into one plan, so budgeting is easy." 

aka AWS simplified using pre-set configurations.

$12/month for 2 GB Memory 2 vCPUs 60 GB SSD Disk 3 TB Transfer

AWS

https://aws.amazon.com/free/
https://aws.amazon.com/free/free-tier-faqs/

2026-01-28: "Free plan eligible instances include: T3.micro, T3.small, T4g.micro, T4g.small, C7i-flex.large, M7i-flex.large" (source: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/ec2-free-tier-usage.html)

"The free plan allows you to experiment with AWS services and build proof-of-concepts at no cost for up to 6 months until you upgrade to a paid plan."

EC2 has "t4g.small" for $0.0168/hour with 2 CPUs 2 GiB RAM. 

Based on a rate of $0.0168 per hour, the cost for one month (assuming a 30-day month with 720 hours) is approximately $12.10 ($0.0168 × 24 hours × 30 days).

Linode

https://www.linode.com/pricing/

"Nanode 1 GB" is $5/month, 1 GB of RAM, 25 GB storage, 

"Linode 2 GB" is $12/month

Hostinger

https://www.hostinger.com/vps-hosting

"KVM 1" = 1 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 50 GB NVMe disk space, 4 TB bandwidth

"KVM 1" is $5/month, and then "Renews at $ 9.99/mo for 2 years. Cancel anytime."
Explanation (from their chat AI): After the initial billing period you select (such as 1 month, 12 months), the renewal price will be $10 per month. You can lock in the $5/month rate for a longer period by choosing a longer billing cycle when you purchase
Maximum buy-in of 24 months.