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Quick comparison
| Plan | vCPU | RAM | Storage | Transfer | Price | Renews at |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hostinger KVM 1 | 1 | 4 GB | 50 GB NVMe | 4 TB | $6.49/mo24-mo term | $11.99/mo |
| Hostinger KVM 2 | 2 | 8 GB | 100 GB NVMe | 8 TB | $8.79/mo24-mo term | $14.99/mo |
| Hostinger KVM 4 We use this | 4 | 16 GB | 200 GB NVMe | 16 TB | $12.99/mo24-mo term | $28.99/mo |
| DigitalOcean Basic 2 GB | 1 | 2 GB | 50 GB SSD | 2,000 GiB | $12.00/mono contract | Same |
| DigitalOcean Basic 4 GB | 2 | 4 GB | 80 GB SSD | 4,000 GiB | $24.00/mono contract | Same |
| DigitalOcean Basic 8 GB | 4 | 8 GB | 160 GB SSD | 5,000 GiB | $48.00/mono contract | Same |
| Vultr Regular 1 GB | 1 | 1 GB | 25 GB SSD | 1 TB | $5.00/mono contract | Same |
| Vultr Regular 2 GB | 1 | 2 GB | 55 GB SSD | 2 TB | $10.00/mono contract | Same |
| Vultr Regular 4 GB | 2 | 4 GB | 80 GB SSD | 3 TB | $20.00/mono contract | Same |
| Vultr Regular 8 GB | 4 | 8 GB | 160 GB SSD | 4 TB | $40.00/mono contract | Same |
Official list prices checked Oct 30, 2026, before tax. Sources: www.hostinger.com, www.digitalocean.com, www.vultr.com.
We run a Hostinger KVM 4. DigitalOcean, Vultr and Hetzner are compared on their published plans and prices; we have not benchmarked them.
How we chose
- Resources per dollar at the price you pay after any intro term.
- Billing flexibility: monthly or hourly billing versus long prepaid terms.
- Performance where we measured it.
- Ease of getting a site online: OS images, control panels and documentation.
1. Hostinger VPS: best value
What we like
- 2 to 4 times the RAM of similarly priced clouds
- NVMe storage and large bandwidth allowances
- Fast AMD EPYC CPU and about 60k random IOPS in our tests
- OS templates with control panels
What could be better
- Best price needs a 24-month prepay
- Renewal roughly doubles the price
- Fewer add-on cloud services than DigitalOcean
We run FindNChoose and several other sites on a Hostinger KVM 4. In our benchmarks it delivered 1.8 GB/s of single-core SHA-256, 7.07 GB/s across four cores, about 60,300 random 4K IOPS and a full WordPress render in about 65 ms. KVM 2 (2 vCPU, 8 GB) at $8.79 a month on a 24-month term, renewing at $14.99, is the plan most people moving up from shared hosting should start with.
Read the full Hostinger VPS review.
2. DigitalOcean: best for developers
What we like
- Simple monthly billing, no long contract
- Price is the same at renewal
- Large documentation library and tutorials
- Managed databases, Kubernetes and app hosting on the same account
What could be better
- Less RAM per dollar
- Entry plans have 1 vCPU
- Storage is smaller than Hostinger at each price
DigitalOcean’s Basic Droplets start at $6 a month for 1 vCPU and 1 GB. The 4 GB plan with 2 vCPU is $24, and 8 GB with 4 vCPU is $48. You pay a premium for flexibility: create and destroy servers whenever you like, and add managed services as your project grows. That makes it a good fit for development teams and apps that scale.
3. Vultr: best cheap monthly VPS
What we like
- $5 a month entry plan
- Monthly billing at one price
- Slightly cheaper than DigitalOcean at each size
What could be better
- Less RAM per dollar than Hostinger
- Entry plans have 1 vCPU and 1 to 2 GB RAM
Vultr’s Regular Cloud Compute plans start at $5 a month for 1 vCPU and 1 GB of RAM, and the 4 GB plan with 2 vCPU is $20. It is a little cheaper than DigitalOcean at every size we compared. Choose Vultr for small projects, test servers and anything you do not want to commit to for two years.
4. Hetzner Cloud: worth a look in Europe
Hetzner prices its cloud servers in euros, and its entry plans started at a few euros a month when we checked. It is known for strong value, especially for servers in Europe. We did not capture plan specs at the same level of detail as the others, so it is not in the tables above; check Hetzner’s site for current plans.
Location matters more than you think
Pick a data center close to most of your visitors. Distance adds a delay to every connection that no amount of CPU can remove. When we measured websites from our Boston VPS, connecting and finishing the TLS handshake took about 0.25 seconds on its own, because the server was roughly 120 ms away. A visitor near the server would have saved most of that.
All four providers offer several regions. If your audience is spread out, a CDN in front of the server shortens the distance for static files and cached pages.
What to do after you buy a VPS
- Choose a current long-term-support Linux image, such as Ubuntu 24.04, or one with a control panel preinstalled.
- Log in with an SSH key, create a non-root user and disable password logins.
- Enable the firewall and automatic security updates.
- Install a panel such as CloudPanel, or your own stack.
- Set up off-server backups and uptime monitoring before you move a live site.
Our managed vs unmanaged VPS guide has the full checklist.
Which VPS is right for you?
| If you want | Choose |
|---|---|
| The most resources for a long-term site | Hostinger VPS |
| Monthly billing and a developer ecosystem | DigitalOcean |
| The cheapest no-contract server | Vultr |
| A low-cost server in Europe | Hetzner |
Size your server first with the VPS sizing calculator. If you have not managed a server before, read managed vs unmanaged VPS and consider a free panel such as CloudPanel.
For value, Hostinger’s KVM 1 or KVM 2 with a control panel such as CloudPanel. In our measurements a full WordPress render took about 65 ms on a Hostinger VPS, and a cached page about 7 ms. Of the plans we track, Vultr’s 1 GB plan at $5 a month with monthly billing. Hostinger’s KVM 1 is $6.49 a month on a 24-month term but includes 4 GB of RAM. If you might change or cancel the server within two years, yes. For a long-term site, a prepaid term usually costs less overall even after renewal. Only if you do not want to handle updates, security and backups yourself. See our guide to managed vs unmanaged VPS.Frequently asked questions
What is the best VPS for WordPress?
What is the cheapest VPS?
Is monthly billing worth paying more for?
Do I need a managed VPS?
Sources
We run our own WordPress sites on shared hosting and on a VPS, and use AI coding tools every day. We publish what we measured, list every price with the date we checked it and label anything we have not tested ourselves. About us · Editorial policy