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Big LET VPS/VDS shootout - 18 providers, 25 VPS/VDS - who's the bestest?
Here's my easter present to the LET community, slightly delayed but I wanted the new netcup VDS in it, too.
I guess it will look a bit unwieldy and I admit right away that I'm clueless wrt Vanilla forum software, especially re formatting. Trust me I really try hard. In case I fail miserably I'll make the (formatted) text file available during the weekend.
Here you go (also have a look at the notes after the "table"!)
AlphaVPS ------- Contabo ------- HostBrr --- Mgrid --- - netcup VDS - R'nerd Chunksrv --- H'roid --- Hybula Litesrv Virmach 0-cloud -- Hosthatch -- Giga Host-c - Virtono - Ihor xHosts
location BG DE SG US DE DE UK DE DE new IR NL NL RO NL NL NL NL NO SE NO RO RO UK RU UK
Price €/$/yr 20 58 58 58 40 8.75 8.75 82 115 28 20 21.50 21.50 110 80 9 25.41 30 40 72 75 18 10 42 18
(runs) 12 15 21 15 147 10 11 19 15 13 214 22 24 443 305 52 273 43 53 59 12 10 11 12 12
cores 2 4 4 4 2 1 1 2 4 1 4 2 2 4 1 1 3 2 2 4 2 1 1 1 1
type E5 v2 Epyc G2 Epyc Epyc Epyc G4 E5 v4 E5 v4 X Gold Epyc G4 E5 v4 C Gold X E5 v4 X E5 v4 Ryz 9 Epyc G1 Qemu X Gold E5 v2 Epyc G3 Ryz9 Ryz9 X Gold X Gold X E5v2 Epyc G2
mem GB 2 8 8 8 8 2 2 8 8 2.5 4 4 4 6 2 0,5 3 8 6 8 4 1 0.5 1 1
PM-SC 94.3 418.1 182.0 180.7 181.6 51.7 168.8 181.1 309.0 215.2 166.9 106.4 109.5 314.0 152.7 279.8 178.5 179.2 283,9 379,7 394,9 199 97,3 153,3 267,3
PM-MA 278.7 1906.0 797.1 776.1 521.7 82.2 261.8 534.0 1460.0 542.0 724.6 409.2 354.6 1413.5 248.0 465.7 731.5 540.9 809,6 994,3 835,3 309,1 154 243,1 407,1
PM-MB 281.5 2075.3 846.7 838.4 529.9 83.6 263.2 542.2 1564.7 582.2 759.8 441.8 363.5 1590.1 248.2 465.4 742.3 553.2 841 1012,6 818,2 309,5 157,9 245,7 408,5
AES 362.2 1549.8 1067.8 1067.2 1033.7 201.8 926.3 1030.7 1346.5 646.1 927.4 355.6 491.5 1376.4 858.6 349.6 973.7 604.5 1259.9 1609,1 1667.0 972,3 528,1 510,7 1326,5
RSA kp/s 35.0 156.6 78.6 79.6 78.7 20.3 71.2 75.7 124.6 92.3 71.5 48.9 51.1 126.4 55.6 91.2 72.8 58.7 110,7 144,3 154,7 85 41,2 50 119,9
PM-MA/core 139.4 476.5 199.3 194.0 260.9 82.2 261.8 267.0 365.0 542.0 181.2 204.6 177.3 353.4 248.0 465.7 243.8 270.5 404.8 248.6 417.7 309.1 154.0 243.1 407.1
Bang with mem. 378.7 2306.0 1197.1 1176.1 921.7 182.2 361.8 934.0 1860.0 667.0 924.6 609.2 554.6 1713.5 348.0 490.7 881.5 940.9 1109.6 1394.3 1035.3 359.1 179.0 293.1 457.1
BpB 227.2 477.1 247.7 243.3 276.5 249.9 496.2 136.7 194.1 285.9 554.8 340.0 309.5 186.9 52.2 654.3 416.3 376.4 332.9 232.4 165.6 239.4 214.8 83.7 304.7
disk size GB 128 200 200 200 80 32 32 300 512 40 50 50 50 75 1000 10 35 40 70 200 20 25 15 20 20
disk type S N S S N S S H N N S S S N H N N N N S S S H S N
4k4t MB/s 31.0 9.6 1.9 1.9 10.6 4.0 0.4 4.8 23.0 42.8 6.9 6.4 7.1 51.1 15.3 21.0 24.6 20.8 49.0 35.1 69.6 17.6 12.5 37.1 21.2
Iops 7922.5 2460.3 478.9 478.9 2722.8 1015.5 112.3 1215.4 5878.5 10947.7 1777.6 1630.4 1815.0 13070.9 3912.8 5372.7 6296.8 5333.3 12540.6 8982.0 17805.1 4516.4 3193.4 9493.6 5437.8
Bang 245,2 23,6 0,9 0,9 29,0 4,0 0,0 5,8 135,0 468,1 12,3 10,4 12,9 667,4 59,8 112,8 154,9 111,1 614,4 315,2 1238,3 79,7 39,8 352,1 115,5
BpB 147.1 4.9 0.2 0.2 8.7 5.5 0.1 0.8 14.1 200.6 7.4 5.8 7.2 72.8 9.0 150.4 73.2 44.4 184.3 52.5 198.1 53.1 47. 100.6 77.0
BW lim. Mb/s 1000 200 200 200 10000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 2500 2000 2000 1000 1000 1000 1000 1000 10000 720 1000 1000 200 2500
Traffic GB 1000 32000 32000 32000 25000 20000 20000 60000 60000 7000 20000 3000 7000 10000 15000 2000 4000 20000 20000 10000 1000 2000 2000 65000 30000
NO 152.7 1652.0 50.7 90.6 359.1 44.6 5.8 325.6 326.6 124.5 264.5 485.4 223.5 541.0 245.6 429.8 287.7 1709.9 707.2 1102.0 194.6 225.6 255.3 122.9 384.4
UK 234.6 183.8 67.1 112.5 603.5 241.6 33.4 421.3 464.3 369.3 838.7 1211.6 254.9 1322.1 603.7 836.5 460.6 318.1 379.4 406.2 305.9 249.7 828.5 95.1 3031.4
NL 345.8 186.9 59.7 106.9 995.1 376.6 430.0 710.4 795.4 583.1 1595.3 2907.0 353.0 1758.4 860.4 932.5 690.9 418.4 388.6 503.8 355.4 279.4 546.4 165.1 1278.2
DE 320.9 189.4 69.7 103.8 1908.8 396.0 117.0 825.5 1728.4 194.1 799.1 1191.9 406.3 1321.9 669.7 850.1 713.6 418.8 553.4 429.4 481.9 398.5 591.9 116.8 884.7
FR 197.0 156.6 73.9 92.0 733.6 57.9 29.0 536.4 602.8 147.9 265.4 402.9 252.6 439.6 237.1 437.7 328.6 247.0 283.5 310.7 283.0 221.8 376.1 64.7 513.4
CH 218.4 162.6 57.0 100.6 917.9 197.4 2.8 738.6 782.9 161.2 316.0 514.2 164.1 562.2 287.6 481.0 611.8 219.9 310.7 248.8 311.2 258.7 351.0 90.4 620.3
IT 181.8 167.1 55.9 93.6 723.0 275.7 36.3 554.3 617.7 45.8 394.7 642.8 378.9 513.2 275.8 498.0 477.5 266.6 334.1 362.1 366.8 361.6 332.5 92.1 479.0
ES 154.1 122.9 66.1 92.6 303.7 0.0 43.4 235.0 220.4 120.9 152.4 248.4 182.2 335.8 160.5 351.8 228.3 216.9 216.4 210.5 165.9 157.4 233.0 66.5 404.1
RO 680.5 140.7 59.5 83.7 341.4 168.1 0.0 346.8 346.1 96.7 203.6 280.0 2613.4 335.6 159.7 327.9 313.6 185.0 200.2 217.7 639.4 804.0 239.0 74.9 312.8
RU MOS 184.8 125.3 50.4 68.9 240.5 37.3 0.0 281.7 276.5 100.2 188.3 245.0 158.4 249.0 156.2 257.5 238.9 411.7 248.7 234.6 190.7 158.2 186.6 178.4 245.1
Avg 267.1 308.7 61.0 94.5 712.7 179.5 76.9 497.6 616.1 194.4 501.8 812.9 498.7 737.9 365.6 540.3 435.2 441.2 362.2 402.6 329.5 311.5 394.0 106.7 815.3
Avg x Traffic 267.1 9479.4 1552.0 2624.6 17816.5 3490.4 1337.6 29853.6 36966.6 1360.6 10036.0 2438.8 3491.1 7378.8 5484.5 1080.6 1740.6 8824.6 7244.4 4025.8 189.5 623.0 788.1 6534.9 24460.2
BpB 160.2 1961.2 321.1 543.0 5345.0 4786.8 1834.4 4368.8 3857.4 583.1 6021.6 1361.2 1948.5 805.0 822.7 1440.7 822.0 3529.8 2173.3 671.0 30.3 415.3 945.7 1867.1 16306.8
AlphaVPS ------- Contabo ------- HostBrr --- Mgrid --- ---- netcup --- R'nerd Chunksrv --- H'roid --- Hybula Litesrv Virmach 0-cloud -- Hosthatch -- Giga Host-c - Virtono - Ihor xHosts
RU SIB 101.2 119.7 45.2 57.0 125.8 105.4 24.5 118.0 124.4 119.3 128.1 126.8 100.6 131.2 123.1 131.7 142.2 181.3 134.3 138.9 92.9 70.2 98.2 164.0 110.4
Iran 110.0 82.5 45.9 58.1 147.3 100.4 0.0 143.5 132.4 58.8 0.0 105.4 126.8 131.0 85.6 134.6 133.0 82.5 112.5 85.0 107.7 129.6 108.3 30.1 128.4
India 80.2 80.6 164.4 45.7 95.7 49.6 2.6 92.5 93.2 83.0 88.5 88.8 79.7 84.9 94.0 93.6 91.6 76.0 71.7 73.5 73.8 81.0 74.8 52.8 45.4
SGP 60.3 61.8 190.5 45.7 70.8 54.3 2.8 66.1 64.3 43.6 67.5 68.1 61.2 69.6 66.8 69.2 56.7 59.8 61.0 63.9 61.8 47.5 67.2 56.7 70.3
CN HKG 57.6 51.7 123.8 56.0 61.0 59.1 0.0 60.1 61.1 44.1 54.1 58.5 34.3 34.2 44.6 41.8 41.1 51.0 33.0 53.9 47.2 0.0 37.8 38.1 32.4
CN ML 55.0 40.5 33.0 31.8 47.0 55.2 0.0 76.5 73.1 58.7 44.0 44.3 67.0 49.1 33.8 46.0 39.3 41.6 25.1 57.8 72.8 48.1 68.5 46.8 28.1
JP 40.9 44.0 144.1 72.3 43.4 42.5 23.0 41.6 41.9 44.4 45.0 45.6 41.8 44.3 45.3 44.5 40.4 40.0 42.5 46.8 40.9 0.0 47.0 54.1 37.8
AU SYD 40.5 41.7 117.3 60.4 46.4 40.6 0.0 44.5 44.9 44.0 45.8 45.6 39.8 45.9 45.1 46.0 44.5 40.3 43.2 43.0 42.0 0.0 43.6 38.6 46.7
Avg 68.2 65.3 108.0 53.4 79.7 63.4 -193.4 80.4 79.4 62.0 9.1 72.9 68.9 73.8 67.3 75.9 73.6 71.6 65.4 70.4 67.4 47.1 68.2 60.2 62.4
Avg x Traffic 68.2 1890.0 3256.8 1508.0 1991.9 1267.8 N/A 4821.0 4764.8 433.9 182.5 218.7 482.3 737.8 1009.3 151.9 294.4 1431.3 1308.1 703.5 32.4 94.1 136.4 3509.8 1873.0
BpB 40.9 391.0 673.8 312.0 597.6 1738.6 N/A 705.5 497.2 186.0 109.5 122.0 269.2 80.5 151.4 202.5 139.0 572.5 392.4 117.3 5.2 62.7 163.6 1002.8 1248.7
ZA JOB 56.9 59.9 54.6 43.8 62.9 30.9 0.0 60.5 59.8 67.8 65.0 66.1 49.0 67.7 62.9 65.6 60.0 58.5 60.0 59.2 59.5 0.0 69.1 24.8 70.2
KE NAI 73.3 81.0 35.1 41.5 80.9 80.3 26.0 67.5 68.6 55.0 71.9 73.3 62.8 59.8 59.9 72.6 53.6 64.1 65.2 64.0 64.0 62.0 77.2 56.3 80.7
Avg 65.1 70.5 44.9 42.7 71.9 55.6 3.0 64.0 64.2 61.4 68.5 69.7 55.9 63.8 61.4 69.1 56.8 61.3 62.6 61.6 61.8 21.0 73.2 40.6 75.5
Avg x Traffic 65.1 1854.4 1035.2 964.8 1797.5 1112.0 60.0 3840.0 3852.0 429.8 1369.0 209.1 391.3 637.5 921.0 138.2 227.2 1226.0 1252.0 616.0 26.8 42.0 146.3 2235.8 2263.5
BpB 39.1 383.7 214.2 199.6 539.3 1525.0 82.3 562.0 401.9 184.2 821.4 116.7 218.4 69.5 138.2 184.3 107.3 490.4 375.6 102.7 4.3 28.0 175.6 638.8 1509.0
US NYC 84,4 64,5 43.0 186,5 127,8 69,6 0.0 126,5 128,4 53,8 95,5 135.0 102,7 145.0 78,3 152,4 127,7 105,5 118,1 120,8 110,2 97,5 131,7 40,2 153,8
US CHI 89,9 107.0 53,1 187,3 108,4 95,9 10.0 108,7 109,8 117,5 120,2 117,5 93,8 120,6 116,1 122,4 110,9 97,1 108,2 108,7 96,5 82,1 118,4 82,1 119,6
US Cal. 65,9 66,9 62,5 161,2 77,6 56.0 0.0 70,2 70,4 71 85,2 74,5 65,1 79,3 76,5 75,3 62,7 72,8 76,4 73,9 65,5 66,4 84,3 49,7 65,1
Avg 80.1 79.5 52.9 178.3 104.6 73.8 N/A 101.8 102.9 80.8 100.3 109.0 87.2 115.0 90.3 116.7 100.4 91.8 100.9 101.1 90.7 82.0 111.5 57.3 112.8
Avg x Traffic 80.1 2142.9 1291.7 5306.7 2615.0 1476.7 N/A 6108.0 6172.0 565.4 2006.0 327.0 610.4 1149.7 1354.5 233.4 401.7 1836.0 2018.0 1011.3 50.7 164.0 222.9 3326.7 3385.0
BpB 48.0 443.4 267.3 1097.9 784.5 2025.1 N/A 893.9 644.0 242.3 1203.6 182.5 340.7 125.4 203.2 311.2 189.7 734.4 605.4 168.6 8.1 109.3 267.5 950.5 2256.7
AlphaVPS ------- Contabo ------- HostBrr --- Mgrid --- ---- netcup --- R'nerd Chunksrv --- H'roid --- Hybula Litesrv Virmach 0-cloud -- Hosthatch -- Giga Host-c - Virtono - Ihor xHosts
Total Avg 480.4 524.0 266.7 368.9 968.8 372.3 N/A 743.7 862.6 398.5 679.7 1064.5 710.7 990.4 584.6 802.0 666.0 665.9 591.1 635.7 549.4 461.5 646.8 264.7 1066.1
Avg x Traffic 480.4 15366.7 7135.7 10404.1 24220.9 7346.8 N/A 44622.6 51755.4 2789.7 13593.5 3193.5 4975.1 9903.7 8769.3 1604.0 2663.9 13317.9 11822.5 6356.6 299.4 923.1 1293.6 15607.0 31981.7
BpB 288.3 3179.3 1476.4 2152.6 7266.3 10075.6 N/A 6530.1 5400.6 1195.6 8156.1 1782.4 776.8 1080.4 1315.4 2138.7 1258.1 5327.1 3546.8 1059.4 47.9 615.4 1552.4 4459.1 21321.1
Now the Top-3 list in diverse categories, the number 1 in bold (explanation below):
Bang w/memory: Contabo DE (2306.0), netcup new DE VDS (1860.9) and @Hybula NL (1713.5)
Bang/buck proc/mem.: @Virmach NL (654.3), @Chunkserve NL (554.8), Contabo DE (477.1)
Bang disk: Host-c RO (1238.3), Hybula NL (667.4), @Hosthatch SE (614.4)
Bang/buck disk: Racknerd IR (200.6)/@dustinc, Host-c RO (198.1), Hosthatch SE (184.3)
Connectivity Europe
Avg x traffic: netcup new DE VDS (36966.6), xHosts UK(24460.2), @HostBrr DE (17816.5)/ @labze
Bang/buck: xHosts UK (16306.8), Chunkserve NL(6021.6), HostBrr (5345.0)
Connectivity Asia / Oceania
Avg x traffic: netcup DE VDS (4821.0), Contabo SGP (3256.8) (duh!), xHosts UK (1873.0)
Bang/buck: xHosts UK (1248.7), netcup DE (705.5), Contabo SGP(673.8) (duh!)
Connectivity Africa
Avg x traffic: netcup DE VDS (3852.0), xHosts UK (2263.5), Contabo DE (1853.4)
Bang/buck: xHosts UK (1509.0), Chunkserve NL (821.4), (539.3) HostBrr DE
Connectivity America
Avg x traffic: netcup DE VDS (6172.0), Contabo US (5306.7) (duh!), xHosts UK (3385.0)
Bang/buck: xHosts UK (2256.7), Chunkserve NL (1203.6), Contabo US (1097.9) (duh!)
Connectivity overall:
Avg x traffic: netcup DE VDS (51755.4), xHosts UK (31981.7), HostBrr (24220.9)
Bang/buck: xHosts UK (21321.1), Chunkserve NL (8156.1), HostBrr (7266.3)
First, some explanations:
Whats 'Bang w/memory'? That expresses the combined power of processor (all vCores) and memory, so usually this tends to make multi-vCore servers look better; but still, lots of memory can somewhat compensate for fewer vCores. It also expresses my POV "don't offer me the latest Ryzen with small memory, I'd rather take e.g. an older Epyc or even an E5v4 with lots of memory!". That's not just some opinion but based on plenty experience with performance critical software.
What's 'Bang/buck proc/mem.'? That's basically the above but divided by monthly cost. Which is why the cheap Xhosts VPS "killed" the much stronger, but expensive netcup VDS (in that criterion). In other words: if you are after the best performance look at the 'Bang w/memory' numbers, but if you are after best bang for the buck, look at the 'Bang/buck proc/mem.' numbers.
Btw. this basic pattern repeats in the other categories.
What's 'Bang disk'? Those numbers show you the performance (only), whereas ...
What's 'Bang/buck disk'? Those numbers show you bang per buck value.
Same with connectivity, but sectioned into Europe, Asia/Oceania, Africa, America, plus all together. If you're after the best connectivity (cost no matter) look at the 'Avg x traffic' numbers, if you are after good connectivity and good prices, look at the 'Bang/buck' numbers.
Note that both those numbers are based on performance AND traffic volume; note also that high traffic volume can lead to "empty ballon, just hot air" numbers like e.g. and particularly with MGrid.
Now some remarks re. certain providers: There are two, @host_c and @gigahost for whom I put a price I guessculated myself, in both cases because those exact products are, to the best of my knowledge, not publicly available and very special deals I got, for example when (back then) terahost (now gigahost) took over HS/provided refuge to his stranded customers - and they still honour that deal, kudos! But I found both quite good indicators of what you can expect with those providers. And I also like both providers and their products a lot.
@MassiveGRID: at the beginning I somewhat "defended" them because my UK VPS was usable, by no means even close to decent but usable; plus it was dirt-cheap. Then I got my DE VPS from them, which was crappy from day one. And meanwhile their UK VPS managed to get even crappier than their crappy DE VPS. "High availability", my ass, it's more "when available still next to useless".
WARNING: stay away from MGrid!, at least until they reach the original level of crappy but usable again, which might happen or not but seems highly unlikely. For the sake of fairness: their support was quick (ca. 30 min), constructive and effective.
Do you maybe see a trend in the above "top-3" list? In other words: congrats xHost! It's really amazing what you get from them for under €20 per year. How about 2 cores and 4 GB memory for say €35 per year? Maybe with a sweet (somewhat rebated) 3 year deal?
Contabo: What a weird story! Their DE VPS is quite attractive, good pro/mem performance, good disk performance, decent connectivity and plenty of traffic, albeit capped at 200 Mb/s - on the other side disappointing servers in both USA and SGP. Old and not exactly fast Epyc, quite crappy drives, and connectivity that is surpassed (to the USA and Asia) by multiple european providers.
So, I'm not exactly happy with them. On the other hand though I'm exalted about how they upgraded the DE location/product and its performance now.
netcup: A good example for "not expensive (nor dirt cheap) but really good quality and performance"
Finally: While my top-3 list might suggest otherwise (and again, congrats xHosts!) do not go for 'best performance' only! but rather go for what you really need and try to find the best offer. And I do not just "preach" that but act differently. Example: Contabo. Their DE VPS IMO now is a really good deal. You get plenty performance, a decent and large disk, decent connectivity, plus a copious amount of traffic - if you can live with with a 200 Mb/s limit. I myself mostly can and for the few use cases that demand more I pay more (e.g. Hybula or netcup). THAT IMO is the approach that works best.
Fell free to ask if you have questions.
Update: Hurray, I've somehow managed to format my list! 
Comments
Thank you for sharing!
What about us? 😭😭
Congrats @host_c and @Chunkserve , both hosts I use and like a lot (although they are in very different markets)
I havent tried @xHosts but I like the owner and will probably try it soon
Sorry, I don't have a VDS or VPS from you. Feel free to give me acess for a week and I'll do a benchmark and review.
I would seriously recommend @DeluxHost , their price/performance ratio is insane (very similar to @Chunkserve )
Thanks for the feedback and mention, it is really appreciated. I am hoping to bring some deals maybe along these lines soon on a mix of hardware.
Thanks again
Sure! Please PM me your email and I'll add it!
"Pick me" Hosting
You had some good prices for the US VPSes tho. They all seem to be sold out now...
Btw, I forgot to put that up there:
Wrt connectivity, I ran my benchmark against two network targets for almost all critical targets. And then I picked the better results. For DE for instance the benchmarks ran both against backbone-core and plusline.de, etc. and the numbers you see always (for each VDS/VPS) show the better result for each target.
The target set was exactly the same for all VDS/VPS and carefully tested; all network targets work fine and are reachable and fast (except for MGrid ...).
Please explain
Thanks for the reviews; that's tremendous time and effort.
Could you maybe ELI5 what are the terminologies such as PM-SC/MA/MB and BpB (or point me to a thread if you explained them before)?
"ELI5"? I presume you mean something like "explain", so here you go:
'PM-SC' is single core (no matter how many cores a VDS/VPS has)
'PM-MA' is multi-core (multi-threaded) but the same tests/algorithms
'PM-MB' also is multi-core but "going for the throat" and typically uses more (or all) memory (whereas the others use a fixed amount of mem. typically (when available) 2 GB)
'BpB' simply means "bang per buck".
And, Yes it was an awful lot of work ...
Awesome, thanks!
Hang on jsg...
Contabo is meant to be an oversold garbage service... they look really good here! and congrats to @host_c (and why I love my free 2TB storage VPS which is being used in my little infra!)
Yes and no (re Contabo). Here's my take (which might be wrong). DE was first. US and SGP locations started only later AFAIK. So, Germany (a) being somewhat old by now and (b) being their original and home market made it reasonable to upgrade there, especially when AFAIK they got a new german location. That's why I assume my DE VPS is significantly better than before and now "up to par" (give or take).
The other, non-german, locations have younger (but by now actually old-ish) equipment and, so I guess, even a very large provider has to work within a certain budget which probably doesn't allow them to upgrade every location.
But again, I might be totally wrong, it's just my explanation.
But be that as it may, everything I said here is based on cold hard data. If Contabo DE now "surprisingly" (surprising me too) looks good then because that's what the numbers show.
Same with the St. Louis and the SGP location, just that they look the way many see Contabo (mediocre).
I for one am really pleased with my significantly upgraded Contabo DE VPS and they did that even without asking me. All I remember is an email about some upgrades/changes I didn't even look at to be honest. I found out the good news only during my benchmark (and I'm not in contact with them since years).
Btw, only Contabo DE looks good here IMO ...
As for @host-c it's easy to like him, his products, and his prices. Similar with a few others like e.g. @xHosts.
I've been a Contabo customer twice and both of them were on DE.
Performance for me wasn't "bad" but it wasn't amazing, it certainly felt oversold.
Good to see they've upped their game in DE which is their main location but they clearly still have a issue in other regions.
Maybe because contabo recent upgrade to Turin.
Woah that was sexy text formatted, but sadly there no indonesia traffic test which something I look up, I know mostly their have looking glass but somehow it does looks same as their deliver like speed upload which crucial to me for send data back to my homelab.
I'm sorry but I have to limit the number of targets and it was difficult enough to find good, reliable, and fast targets in Asia (which for me is far away, almost like another world). Maybe I'll find some adequate targets in Indonesia with help from people there.
I need 16GB RAM edition
A few points I forgot when I wrote the OP plus a few remarks and tips.
I "punished" providers with less than 1 Gb/s bandwidth by deducting points in proportion. That mainly concerns Contabo and Ihor and to a lesser degree Host-c. While I personally am perfectly fine with 200 Mb/s for most of my servers, hey, I created that shootout for YOU, not for me and most of you seem to want at least 1 Gb/s. Also: what good are five gazillion hundred TB per month for when the bandwidth isn't high enough anyway? Very ugly example: Mgrid; 500 GB/mo or 500 TB/mo, makes no difference when connectivity is that crappy ...
Similarly providers are rewarded or "punished" - by themselves btw - for high or low monthly traffic volume. To get a good 'Avg x Traffic' and Bang per buck result both speed and traffic volume play a role.
Exception: @MassiveGRID is so utterly crappy but wouldn't look that crappy due to the high traffic volume you get that I simply "N/A'd" one of their locations and excluded them completely when compiling the top-3 lists.
In what (weird) order are the VDS/VPS?
Mainly country of location in alphabetical order. The "but": multiple VDS/VPS from a provider are "kept together", so when e.g. Contabo comes up with the DE VPS I put the other VPS from them together (again in alphabetical order). and within a location country in alphabetical order of provider.
Why 4 groups with connectivity?
Because different people have different needs. I for example care about Europe only (and only have 1 single VPS in America and Asia each), others however may desire global coverage. The way I did it both can find what they want/need.
Small detail: When I benchmarked multiple servers from one provider in one location (i.e. netcup) and both would end up in a top-3 list I only put in one.
Remarks and tips
Disk types and performance
Tip: don't care too much about HDD, SSD, or NVMe. Granted, spinning rust tends to be slow and NVMe tends to be fast - but that isn't alway the case. Example: my netcup spinning rust actually performs better than my Contabo US and SGP SSDs. Also I've seen quite a few NVMes outperformed by SSDs. Many reasons, starting with the drive quality and not ending with a providers know-how, experience, setup config. Example: @host_c managed to do his storage drives setup/config so extremely well that my Host-c storage spinning rust blew quite a few NVMe drives out of the water.
So, don't care too much about terms like NVMe and about buzzwords but simply look at 2 factors: performance and whether there's a Raid behind your drives.
"Bandwidth" vs "traffic volume"
For a start could at least providers that is presumably professional use the correct terminology, please? Bandwidth describes how fast bits can be pumped through a pipe, while 'monthly traffic volume' - that's the correct term! - describes how many bytes or in other words how much traffic you can pump through a given pipe in a given amount if time, usually a month. And both are relevant.
"Overlooked providers" aka what do you actually need?
I'll start with an example, AlphaVPS / @AlexBarakov and the first VPS in my list. That VPS was given (at a very decent price at least back then) in the context of a dedi change (to my colleague and friend with whom I share most of our servers). That is he was in a pinch and wanted to store important data of the old dedi somewhere during the dedi change. That VPS looks like a lamb but actually is one of the VPS I (and he too) value highly and like a lot. Why?
Because it's damn fast enough and is totally reliable. Also with AlphaVPS I'm really confident that, should there ever be a problem, they'd fix it and fix it quickly. (Besides, to be honest, I wanted to definitely mention AlphaVPS here because IMO they are among the best (as in reliability, quality, and a decent price) providers I know.
That "boring lamb" VPS does its job since years and does it very reliably and damn well enough. It pretty much never comes up in my monitoring and its status is always green, period. How big is its drive, how fast is it, what traffic volume does it have? Frankly, I didn't even know, I had forgotten. It's big enough and fast enough for what it was and is used for. And it was cheap. Nowadays I highly likely could get something like it significantly cheaper or we could ask AlphaVPS for a lower price or a more modern and/or beefier VPS. But why? Nope, won't happen. It does the job and does it well and reliably since years, so rather than utterly needlessly updating/replacing it or asking for a price decrease I - very positively - mention AlphaVPS here and recommend them.
That also is a good "intro" to my final point: Don't look for what you want or for what's considered cool currently, but look for what you actually need!.
Virmach, and to some degree I get their point. is disliked by many. It's not funny, for instance, to see your IP changed, willy-nilly it seems. BUT: that thingy also does its job (as a slave NS server) since quite a few years, it's dirt-cheap, and Virmach even upgraded it. I really, really like my Virmach mini VPS and don't mind to go through the update the config to a new IP once every few years.
So what's what I call "the art of selecting a good VPS"? Mainly 3 elements:
Plus, see what you actually need! I guess most VPS found via LET simply idle (yes, I'm guilty to some degree, too) so why would you care whether you get say, 250 Mb/s or 2.5 or even 10 Gb/s? Btw, just a quick reminder: if used 24/7 a "meager" 200 Mb/s pipe enables you to pump about 65 TB per month that is, more than the traffic volume on most LET VPS!
Hard to keep stock when people love it...
@jsg
❤️ for putting us to the test — it’s always good to see how we compare to others from a user/benchmark point of view.
I did have to put the table into Excel to make sense of it, but that’s just me, old school. 😄
I personally really appreciate those who take the time to run such tests, and I want to thank you (and everyone else involved) for doing so. I know it’s not easy and can be very time-consuming.
Regarding APAC — we’re aware we don't excel in IP Transit there, and many folks feel this. We’ll work to get this improved.
Port speeds are mostly 1 Gbps with us for now, but I have something exciting coming soon on that subject. I don't want to spoil it before we test it properly — we still need to complete infrastructure upgrades first (it’s being rebuilt from scratch).
Storage-wise, those on Xeon Gen 1 will be happy: we’re transitioning everyone to Xeon Scalable Gen 2, at no extra cost (just a downtime window, since CPUs aren’t hot-swappable). - ETA ~ 2 weeks give or take a few days.
Customers on V4 will also be migrated to newer hardware by mid-to-end 2025. I really want to completely phase out the V4 family from our infrastructure.
I’m delighted to see so many providers achieving such good results — keep up the great work, everyone, regardless of product type or configuration options!
Sincerely, I’ve seen far worse results in much simpler tests from some of the three gigantic cloud companies than what I saw here — and those aren't your usual "cheap LET stuff," either.
Cheers!
You are welcome, sincerely
Yes, I also find that the situation has much improved, although, honestly, I think that Xeon Scale and even E5 v4 still are useful, usable, and needed. After all, for really serious business one gets a solid VDS or even a dedi. VPSs IMO are more for "small" stuff, private sites, and such.
What really needed improvement was mostly disks (replace HDDs with good SSDs, have more offers with NVMes) and connectivity and I'm glad to see significant improvements in that regard.
Btw, I didn't expect to see you relatively high up, not because you are somehow crappy - you definitely are not! - but because storage servers simply don't need to be super fast, it's all about big volume, drive performance and to some degree connectivity. So, it was a positive surprise to see that you can hold up quite well with (non or low volume storage) "standard VPS" as well.
What did sadden me though is to see how few views this - quite large - review and comparison got, confirming my impression that LET increasingly is less about hosting tech bot more and more about memes, gossip, and even marauding. Very sad indeed
@jbiloh I get it, it's about clicks, but was and is it really worth in order to get clicks from largely content-free crap and thread marauding gangs to see quality and actual content creators melt away?
@jsg
If it makes you feel better, i can confirm that LET got us a lot of customers that aimed for 10+tb storage servers, most of them custom setups, and not at the 7USD/year mark, but asked for heavy resources. Also most of them are with is sine year 1.
They are not active on the forum I suppose, but are here to hunt for good deals and I am confident other providers share the same experience as we.
In my opinion, your comparison is useful for a lot of members. ( not just yours alone but others also )
So my 2 cents on this guys is keep it running/doing it.
If you post useful info for 1 out of 100 mission accomplished.
Cheers!
No $7/yr offer?
I would take such deal (better would be for free) from you to run a globalping container since you are sponsoring projects
Maybe when we switch to our own ASN number
No, but almost. Look at the tiny Virmach VPS which costs (IIRC) €8/yr.
But frankly, while I do like good deals incl. very cheap ones, I've learned to be cautious and rather pay say, €15 or €20 per year and getting reasonable performance and quality. @xHosts is one of the very few exceptions and definitely worth paying a bit over 2 times of $7. Somewhat similar with @host_c and my storage VPS from him, incredible value for the money and easily beats another (not cheap) provider asking far more than double the $$.
My winner is bero-host. Absolutely winner deal for 8,9€/month