The budget-VPS title fight: Contabo, the German provider famous for the cheapest RAM per euro anywhere, versus Hetzner, the other German provider famous for pairing low prices with genuinely good network quality.
Both are European, both are cheap, and both are beloved by self-hosters — but they make opposite trade-offs. Contabo maximizes specs per euro; Hetzner maximizes quality per euro. Note that Hetzner raised cloud prices significantly in mid-2026, which changed the math. Prices below are approximate — check the official sites before buying.
| Contabo | Hetzner | |
|---|---|---|
| Entry price | From ~€4.50–5.50/mo (check official site) | CX23 ~€5.49/mo (2 vCPU / 4 GB / 40 GB NVMe) |
| 4 vCPU / 8 GB example | ~€5.50/mo (100 GB SSD, monthly billing) | ~€35.49/mo (160 GB NVMe, CPX32) |
| Traffic included | Unlimited (fair use; speed-limited ports) | 20 TB/mo included on EU plans |
| Storage | SSD standard (NVMe on higher tiers) | NVMe standard across cloud plans |
| Billing | Monthly, or discounted on longer terms | Hourly billing with a monthly cap |
| Datacenters | Germany, US, UK, France, Singapore, Japan, Australia, and more | Germany, Finland, US (Ashburn, Hillsboro), Singapore |
| Sign-up friction | Strict identity verification widely reported | Standard sign-up; occasional verification checks |
| Best for | Maximum RAM per euro: backups, staging, side projects | Better network quality and pay-by-the-hour flexibility |
The price-performance VPS: huge RAM and storage per euro.
Cloud VPS from ~€4.40/mo (4 vCPU / 8 GB); VPS S ~€4.50 — check officia
Try Contabo →Europe's price king: unbeatable price-per-spec.
From $7.99/mo (CPX22: 2 vCPU / 4 GB, 20 TB traffic in EU); EU CX plans
Try Hetzner →Contabo wins on raw price per GB of RAM by a wide margin — nothing else comes close. Hetzner wins on network quality, NVMe storage, and hourly billing, though its mid-2026 price increases narrowed the value gap. Cheap and plentiful? Contabo. Production-facing with better peering? Hetzner.
Uptime is generally fine for the price (99.9% target), and users run real services on Contabo. The trade-offs are slower ports, SSD rather than NVMe on cheap tiers, and support that is email-first — acceptable for staging, backups, and side projects.
Hetzner raised cloud prices substantially in mid-2026 (e.g., the popular CPX line roughly doubled). It remains good value for the network quality, but the old 'half the price of everyone' story no longer holds at every tier.
Traffic itself is unmetered, but ports are speed-limited (typically 200–600 Mbit/s depending on plan) and fair-use terms apply. Fine for most workloads; not a CDN replacement.