by VultrCloud servers (VPS)
Shared and dedicated vCPU servers billed hourly up to 672 hours a month, with a 2 vCPU, 4 GB, 80 GB plan at $20, backups at 20% of the server price and an own SOC 2 Type II report.
A 2 vCPU, 4 GB, 80 GB server for $20 a month with 3 TB of pooled transfer, backed by Vultr's own SOC 2 Type II report and ISO 27001.
Vultr has the lowest list price for the reference server among the five products we compare: $20 a month for 2 shared vCPUs, 4 GB, 80 GB SSD and 3 TB of transfer with an IPv4 address, plus 20% for automatic backups. Transfer is pooled across the account with 2 TB free per account, and overage is $0.01 per GB. The compliance file is broad: a SOC 2 Type II report with HIPAA, ISO 27001, 27017 and 27018, free OIDC single sign-on and an activity log. It suits cost-conscious teams that still face a security review.
Against 3 other products we reviewed in Cloud servers (VPS): what you pay for with each, the five access facts, the plan limits we recorded and each review's bottom line. The note under the table says how each one was checked.
| Metric | Vultr Cloud Compute | Akamai Cloud (Linode) | DigitalOcean Droplets | Amazon Lightsail |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What you're paying for | Worth the priceA 2 vCPU, 4 GB, 80 GB server for $20 a month with 3 TB of pooled transfer, backed by Vultr's own SOC 2 Type II report and ISO 27001. | Worth the priceA 2 vCPU, 4 GB Linode for $24 a month with 4 TB of pooled transfer, overage at $0.005 per GB and ISO 27001 coverage for compute. | Worth the priceA 2 vCPU, 4 GiB server with 4,000 GiB of pooled transfer and a public IPv4 address for $24 a month, billed per second and capped at 672 hours. | Easy to adoptA fixed-price AWS server: 2 vCPUs, 4 GB, 80 GB SSD, 4 TB of transfer and an IPv4 address for $24 a month, with a path to Amazon EC2. |
| Overall score | 6.6 | 6.7Best | 6.6 | 5.6 |
| Free option | Free trial | Free trial | Free trial | Free trial |
| Card to start | Card required | Card required | Card required | –Not measured |
| Getting access | Self-serve | Self-serve | Self-serve | Self-serve |
| Starter priceCheapest paid plan | $2.50/mo | $5/mo | $4/mo | $3.50/mo |
| Pricing model | Usage-based | Usage-based | Usage-based | Usage-based |
| Pricing page | Public prices | Public prices | Public prices | Public prices |
| Reference server | Regular Performance: 2 vCPU (shared), 4 GB, 80 GB SSD, 3 TB transfer, $20/mo | Linode 4 GB: 2 vCPU (shared), 4 GB, 80 GB SSD, 4 TB transfer, $24/mo | Basic Regular: 2 vCPU (shared), 4 GiB, 80 GiB SSD, 4,000 GiB transfer, $24/mo | Linux General Purpose: 2 vCPU (burstable), 4 GB, 80 GB SSD, 4 TB transfer, $24/mo with IPv4 |
| Reference scenario (US, monthly) | $24: $20 plan + $4 backups (20%), computed | $29: $24 plan + $5 Backups add-on, computed | $28.80: $24 plan + $4.80 weekly backups, computed | $28: $24 plan + $4 for one 80 GB snapshot, computed |
| Billing | Hourly, 1-hour minimum, capped at 672 hours; VX1 and GPU at 730 hours | Hourly, rounded up, capped at the monthly price; G8 plans and extra IPv4 uncapped | Per second, 60-second minimum, capped at 672 hours a month | Hourly up to the monthly bundle price |
| Transfer overage | $0.01/GB; pooled across the account with 2 TB free; inbound free | $0.005/GB (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific); pooled; inbound free | $0.01/GiB in every region; pooled across the team; inbound free | $0.09/GB in US regions; inbound counts toward the allowance; pooled per plan and region |
| Public IPv4 | One included; reserved IP $3/mo; extra addresses for an unlisted fee | One per Linode included; extra addresses need justification, price not listed | Included on bundled plans; reserved IPv4 $5/mo when unassigned | Included in IPv4 bundles; IPv6-only bundles $1.50 to $4 less |
| Backups | 20% of the server price; daily to monthly schedules; two most recent kept | Priced per plan ($2 to $5/mo at small sizes); daily, weekly and biweekly copies | Weekly 20% or daily 30% of the Droplet price; usage-based from $0.01/GiB | Automatic daily snapshots, latest 7 kept, billed as snapshot storage (Linux only) |
| Snapshots | $0.05/GB-month of compressed size | One manual snapshot in Backups; captured images $0.10/GB-month | $0.06/GB-month | $0.05/GB-month, incremental |
| Free credit | Coupon credit up to $300 (up to 30 days); free tier server by application | $100 for new customers via promo page or referral, payment method required | $5 for 90 days, payment method required | $100 in AWS credits, up to $100 more, Free plan up to 6 months |
| Dedicated vCPU from | $28/mo (CPU Optimized, 1 vCPU, 2 GB); 2 vCPU, 4 GB at $40 | $36/mo (G6 Dedicated 4 GB) or $43 (G7) | $42/mo (CPU-Optimized, 2 vCPU, 4 GiB, 25 GiB) | Not offered (burstable plans) |
| Image export | No snapshot download; ISO and raw image import from a URL | No backup download; raw .img image upload up to 6 GB | No snapshot download; custom image import (raw, qcow2, VHDX, VDI, VMDK) | Snapshot export to Amazon EC2 only; no download or import |
| SOC 2 / ISO 27001 | SOC 2 Type II (with HIPAA) in the console; ISO 27001:2022 | SOC 2 Type 1 for compute; ISO 27001:2022 covers compute | SOC 2 Type II; own ISO 27001 not stated | Lightsail not listed in AWS SOC or ISO scope |
| HIPAA BAA | By contract, after an architecture review | On request; compute listed in HIPAA scope | Through sales or support | Lightsail not on the HIPAA eligible services list |
| EU regions | Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Paris, Madrid, Stockholm, Warsaw, Milan | Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Paris, Milan, Madrid, Stockholm | Amsterdam, Frankfurt (London in the UK) | Frankfurt, Ireland, Paris, Stockholm, Spain (opt-in) |
| Spend cap | None self-serve; bandwidth usage emails | None; transfer emails at 80, 90 and 100% | Spend alerts only | AWS Budgets alerts; project spend limits that pause resources only in AWS's new sign-up experience, which is in limited release |
| Bottom line | From its public pages, Vultr has the lowest list price for the reference server and a broad compliance file with free SSO. Some regional prices are missing from the pricing page, and several pages disagree on details such as DDoS protection. | From its public pages, Akamai Cloud keeps Linode's clear plan list and adds low-cost pooled transfer ($0.005 per GB over the allowance), ISO 27001 for compute and free support. Compute has a SOC 2 Type 1 report, and G8 plans are billed without a cap. | From its public pages, DigitalOcean is a predictable choice for small servers: IPv4 included, a monthly cap, pooled transfer at $0.01 per GiB and backups at a flat share of the price. Images cannot be downloaded, and new accounts start with limits. | From its public pages, Lightsail is a simple way to a fixed-price AWS server, with snapshots billed by storage and an export path to EC2. It is not on AWS's compliance scope lists, and transfer beyond the allowance costs $0.09 per GB. |
Evidence: Vultr Cloud Compute: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; Akamai Cloud (Linode): facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; DigitalOcean Droplets: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run; Amazon Lightsail: facts checked 2026-10-16 from its public sign-up and pricing pages, no completed hands-on run. Prices in USD as listed, excluding tax. "–" means not recorded.
Review from public pages
Written from Vultr Cloud Compute's public pages (pricing, security or privacy, and docs) as read on Oct 16, 2026. We did not sign up, and no hands-on run is published yet.
Vultr's website refused our requests, so we read its pricing page, FAQ, product, coupon, free tier, compliance, region and terms pages from Internet Archive copies (the newest available: the pricing page from Sep 26, 2026 and the FAQ from Aug 1, 2026), and the docs at docs.vultr.com directly, on Oct 16, 2026. We did not sign up, create a server or call the API for this review. All prices are in US dollars.
The pricing page lists every plan with its hourly and monthly price, and the FAQ explains the billing rules: servers are billed hourly with a one-hour minimum and capped at 672 hours a month, except VX1 and GPU servers, which are billed at a 730-hour month. Stopped servers are billed until destroyed, and Cloud Compute plans cannot be downgraded. The cheapest plan, at $2.50, is IPv6-only, limited to two per account and not available through the API.
A few points need a question. The pricing page says some locations have different prices and points to the control panel for them; only Vultr's public plans API lists them, and for the reference plan just São Paulo differs ($30 instead of $20). The product page describes built-in DDoS protection, while the pricing FAQ charges $10 a month per instance for it. The snapshot price is marked subject to change, and extra IPv4 addresses are sold for a fee that is not listed.
$20 a month for 2 vCPUs, 4 GB, 80 GB SSD and 3 TB of transfer, or $24 with backups (computed).
Compared: DigitalOcean, Akamai Cloud and Amazon Lightsail list the same size at $24 before backups.
Allowances add up across the account, plus 2 TB free, and inbound traffic is not metered; overage is $0.01 per GB.
Compared: Amazon Lightsail pools only instances of the same plan in a region and charges $0.09 per GB in US regions.
SOC 2 Type II with HIPAA, ISO 27001:2022, 27017, 27018 and 20000-1, plus per-data-center reports in the console.
vs Hetzner Cloud: Hetzner Cloud lists ISO 27001 and BSI C5 but no SOC 2 report or HIPAA BAA.
OIDC single sign-on carries no charge, IAM organizations have roles, groups and policies, and account activity logs are kept 30 days.
The pricing page says certain locations have different hourly and monthly prices and points to the control panel; the web pages do not say which, and only the public plans API lists them (São Paulo is $30 for the reference plan).
Workaround: Check the price for your location in the control panel or the plans API before deploying.
The pricing FAQ lists DDoS protection with 10 Gbps of mitigation at $10 a month per instance, while the product page describes it as built in.
The DPA is requested for electronic signature through an account manager or a ticket, and HIPAA servers are contracted after an architecture review.
Notifications cover outages, invoices and bandwidth usage; there is no self-serve spending cap, and sub-account budget caps are set through support.
Servers are priced per plan and billed hourly up to 672 hours a month. For our scenario, Regular Performance with 2 shared vCPUs, 4 GB, 80 GB SSD and 3 TB of transfer is $20 a month, and automatic backups add 20% ($4), so $24 a month (computed); Vultr's public plans API lists the same $20 in every US location, with only São Paulo higher ($30). The 2 TB of transfer fits in the allowance; overage is $0.01 per GB. High Performance and High Frequency versions of the same size are $24 with more disk; dedicated vCPUs start at $28 (1 vCPU), and the 2 vCPU, 4 GB CPU Optimized plan is $40. Snapshots are $0.05 per GB-month, a reserved IP $3, DDoS protection $10 per instance, a load balancer $10 and NVMe block storage $0.10 per GB-month.
Snapshots and backups cannot be downloaded; the data portability guide suggests deploying a temporary server to reach the data. Snapshots work across all Vultr regions, and ISO files and raw disk images can be imported from a URL, but not exported. Block storage can move between servers in one location, and backups stay up to 7 days after a server is deleted. The terms reserve an early termination charge, and payments and credits are not refunded.
From its public pages, Vultr has the lowest list price for the reference server and a broad compliance file with free SSO. Some regional prices are missing from the pricing page, and several pages disagree on details such as DDoS protection.
| Limit | As recorded |
|---|---|
| Reference server | Regular Performance: 2 vCPU (shared), 4 GB, 80 GB SSD, 3 TB transfer, $20/mo |
| Reference scenario (US, monthly) | $24: $20 plan + $4 backups (20%), computed |
| Billing | Hourly, 1-hour minimum, capped at 672 hours; VX1 and GPU at 730 hours |
| Transfer overage | $0.01/GB; pooled across the account with 2 TB free; inbound free |
| Public IPv4 | One included; reserved IP $3/mo; extra addresses for an unlisted fee |
| Backups | 20% of the server price; daily to monthly schedules; two most recent kept |
| Snapshots | $0.05/GB-month of compressed size |
| Free credit | Coupon credit up to $300 (up to 30 days); free tier server by application |
| Dedicated vCPU from | $28/mo (CPU Optimized, 1 vCPU, 2 GB); 2 vCPU, 4 GB at $40 |
| Image export | No snapshot download; ISO and raw image import from a URL |
| SOC 2 / ISO 27001 | SOC 2 Type II (with HIPAA) in the console; ISO 27001:2022 |
| HIPAA BAA | By contract, after an architecture review |
| EU regions | Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Paris, Madrid, Stockholm, Warsaw, Milan |
| Spend cap | None self-serve; bandwidth usage emails |
Read from the vendor's public pages on Oct 16, 2026. No hands-on run is published yet. How we check
We have not published a sign-up run for Vultr Cloud Compute yet. The access facts above were read from its sign-up and pricing pages on Oct 16, 2026.
We have not published API calls for Vultr Cloud Compute yet.
Vultr Cloud Compute lists 4 plans. The cheapest paid plan, Regular Performance 0.5 GB (IPv6 only), costs $2.50/mo.
Prices as listed, USD, excluding tax; observed 2026-10-16.
Source: vultr.com pricing page. Prices change; the observed date above is when our agent read them.
We read the pricing, billing, transfer, backup, trust and legal pages of three developer clouds on the same day and scored them on the same six indicators. What a 2 vCPU, 4 GB server with backups costs, how transfer is billed, how you leave, and who should pick which.
