Best of
Best Cloud VPS for a Side Project
Side projects need low monthly burn, simple billing, and enough headroom for a database plus app process. These are the strongest entry options under roughly $20/mo.
Prices checked 2026-08-22
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By entry list price
Cheapest plan we track per provider. Confirm live pricing before you buy — promos move.
| # | Provider | Plan | vCPU | RAM | Disk | From | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | OVHcloud | VPS Starter | 1 | 2 GB | 40 GB | $3.50/mo | Check pricing |
| 2 | Hetzner Cloud | CX22 | 2 | 4 GB | 40 GB | $4.49/mo | Check pricing |
| 3 | Linode (Akamai) | Nanode 1GB | 1 | 1 GB | 25 GB | $5.00/mo | Check pricing |
| 4 | Vultr | Cloud Compute 1GB | 1 | 1 GB | 25 GB | $5.00/mo | Check pricing |
| 5 | DigitalOcean Our pick | Basic Droplet 1GB | 1 | 1 GB | 25 GB | $6.00/mo | Check pricing |
| 6 | Contabo | Cloud VPS 4 | 4 | 8 GB | 100 GB | $6.00/mo | Check pricing |
| 7 | Hostinger | KVM 1 | 1 | 4 GB | 50 GB | $6.49/mo | Check pricing |
What we'd do
For a weekend SaaS in the US, DigitalOcean or Vultr 2 GB is a sweet spot. For EU side projects, Hetzner CX/CPX often gives more CPU and RAM for less money. Avoid oversizing — ship on a small plan, then resize.
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