Best VPS Under €5 — Dev & Staging
🏆 Best overall: Hetzner Cloud · 🥈 Runner-up: Contabo
Side projects, bots, staging, and VPNs need 1vCPU/1GB and 1–5TB for <€5. Focus on cheapest sustainable price, not promos.
Cheapest for this Workload (Top 6)
Our Recommendations
🏆 Cheapest Stable Hetzner Cloud
CX22 at €3.49/mo (2 vCPU/4GB) with 20TB included — sustainability winner.
🥈 Most RAM per € Contabo
Cloud VPS S 4vCPU/8GB for €4.99 — massive over-provision for experiments.
🥉 US $3.50 Slice BuyVM
$3.50/mo KVM slice in Vegas/Miami with unmetered option.
Key Takeaways
- Sub-€4 VPS reliably handles Docker + Caddy + SQLite side stacks.
- Unmetered matters less at 1–2TB — pick best network/CPU.
Gotchas
- Cheapest OVZ/LXC is not KVM — verify virtualization for Docker.
- Contabo budget line shares CPU more aggressively.
Test your own workload
Adjust vCPU, RAM and bandwidth in the calculator.