Contabo’s Cloud VPS 4 gives you 4 vCPUs and 8 GB of RAM for €4.40 a month on a 24-month term.
Vultr’s matching 8 GB plan costs $40 a month, billed by the hour.
Pick Contabo for long-running servers you’ll keep for months. Pick Vultr for short tests, public production apps, or one of its 33 regions.
The Contabo review and the Vultr review cover each provider in full. This page is about the trade-off between size and flexibility.
Contabo vs Vultr: the short verdict
Contabo wins on resources per euro and free extras, while Vultr wins on billing flexibility, regions, bandwidth, and uptime terms.
Contabo: for home labs, self-hosted apps, and side projects that run for months and need lots of RAM on a small budget.
Vultr: for developers who spin servers up and down, run production apps across regions, or need bandwidth and uptime terms in writing.
Both are unmanaged. You handle the operating system, security, and updates.
Contabo vs Vultr at a glance
| Contabo | Vultr | |
|---|---|---|
| 8 GB RAM plan | Cloud VPS 4: €4.40 a month on a 24-month term | Regular Performance 8 GB: $40 a month |
| Billing | Fixed terms that renew automatically | Hourly, no term |
| Regions | 7 | 33 |
| Traffic | Unlimited under fair use, 200 Mbit/s port on Cloud VPS 4 | 4 TB on the 8 GB plan, then $0.01 per GB |
| Uptime terms | 99.9% annual average, no stated credits | 100% network and host SLA with credits |
| Backups | 1 to 3 snapshots included; Auto Backup price not listed | 20% of the instance price |
| DDoS protection | Included free | $10 a month per instance |
| Current plans and prices | See Contabo plans | See Vultr plans |
Contabo bills in euros, and its prices here exclude VAT. Vultr’s prices are in US dollars. Prices confirmed on September 25, 2026.
Contabo and Vultr prices for 8 GB of RAM
At 8 GB of RAM, Vultr costs several times more than Contabo: $40 a month against €4.40 on Contabo’s 24-month term.
| Plan | vCPUs | RAM | Storage | Network | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Contabo Cloud VPS 4 | 4 | 8 GB | 100 GB SSD | 200 Mbit/s port, fair-use traffic | €4.40 a month |
| Vultr Regular Performance 8 GB | 4 | 8 GB | 160 GB SSD | 4 TB transfer | $40 a month |
| Vultr Regular Performance 1 GB | 1 | 1 GB | 25 GB SSD | 1 TB transfer | $5 a month |
Contabo’s price comes from its Cloud VPS page, which shows an effective monthly rate for a 24-month subscription.
Vultr’s come from its pricing page, which lists an hourly rate for each plan.
Prices confirmed on September 25, 2026.
Prices change often, so check Contabo’s current prices and Vultr’s current prices before you buy.
For about the price of Vultr’s $5, 1 GB plan, Contabo gives you 4 vCPUs and 8 GB of RAM, though on a two-year term.
The rest of this page explains why someone would still pay Vultr’s price.
Contabo contracts vs Vultr hourly billing
Vultr bills by the hour with no term or notice period, while Contabo ties each server to a fixed term of one to twelve months that renews automatically.
Contabo’s terms and conditions let you choose an initial term of one, three, six, or twelve months.
The term then extends by the same length unless you cancel with four weeks’ notice.
The Cloud VPS page shows prices for a 24-month term, so check which terms and prices you’re offered at checkout.
Contabo has no money-back guarantee. Its right of withdrawal lets consumers withdraw within 14 days, but you pay for the service already used.
On Vultr, you can create a server, use it for three hours, delete it, and pay for those hours.
On Contabo, the same short test would start a full contract term.
For your project, this means Contabo suits servers you’ll keep, as long as you track the notice window.
Vultr suits testing and temporary workloads, where a mistake costs hours, not months.
Winner: Vultr, for billing flexibility.
Contabo and Vultr regions and scaling
Vultr lists 33 data center regions against Contabo’s 7, and its hourly billing makes it easier to add servers in new locations.
Vultr’s homepage now lists 33 regions. It added Milan as its 33rd region on May 19, 2026, as its Milan announcement explains.
Contabo’s Cloud VPS page lists regions in the European Union, United Kingdom, United States, Singapore, Japan, India, and Australia.
Scaling out on Vultr means adding servers in more regions for as long as you need them. On Contabo, each new server starts its own contract term.
Winner: Vultr, for regions and fast scaling.
Contabo and Vultr bandwidth and network
Vultr gives its 8 GB plan a fixed 4 TB transfer allowance, while Contabo lists unlimited fair-use traffic capped by a 200 Mbit/s port on Cloud VPS 4.
Contabo says it may throttle servers with exceptionally high or disruptive usage. Its terms also say it can’t guarantee the bandwidth actually available to an individual server.
A 200 Mbit/s port moves at most about 25 megabytes per second. Larger Contabo plans get faster ports, such as 600 Mbit/s on Cloud VPS 8.
Vultr charges $0.01 per GB beyond the allowance, according to its overage page.
For your app, this means Contabo is fine for low-traffic tools and private services. Vultr is safer for public sites or APIs that send a lot of data.
Winner: Vultr, for predictable bandwidth.
Contabo and Vultr DDoS protection
Contabo includes DDoS protection on every server at no charge, while Vultr sells it as a $10 monthly add-on per instance.
Contabo’s DDoS protection page says the service is free and switched on automatically for all servers.
Vultr’s add-on adds 10 Gbps of mitigation capacity per instance, according to its DDoS pricing doc. Its product page lists 11 locations where it’s available.
Winner: Contabo, for protection included in the price.
Contabo vs Vultr uptime terms
Vultr promises 100% network and host availability with a published credit schedule, while Contabo guarantees a 99.9% annual average with no stated credits.
Contabo’s terms exclude announced maintenance and force majeure. A 99.9% yearly average allows about 8.8 hours of downtime a year.
Vultr’s SLA applies per instance. Credits range from 12 hours of service for short outages to a full month for 420 minutes or more.
Winner: Vultr, for a stricter promise and published credits.
Contabo and Vultr backups and snapshots
Contabo includes 1 to 3 free snapshots, while Vultr publishes its automatic backup price at 20% of the instance cost.
Contabo’s snapshot count depends on the plan. Its Auto Backup add-on costs extra, and the Cloud VPS page doesn’t list the price.
On Vultr’s 8 GB plan, automatic backups add $8 a month, going by its backup pricing.
Winner: Tie. Contabo includes free snapshots, and Vultr publishes its backup price.
Contabo vs Vultr winners by category
Vultr wins five of the nine categories below, Contabo wins three, and backups end in a tie.
| Category | Winner | Why |
|---|---|---|
| RAM and CPU per euro | Contabo | Several times more at 8 GB, on a 24-month term |
| Storage per euro | Contabo | 100 GB for €4.40 |
| Billing flexibility | Vultr | Hourly, delete anytime |
| Contract terms | Vultr | No term or notice period |
| Regions | Vultr | 33 vs 7 |
| Bandwidth predictability | Vultr | Fixed allowance, $0.01 per GB after |
| Uptime terms | Vultr | 100% network SLA with credits |
| DDoS protection | Contabo | Included free vs $10 a month |
| Backups | Tie | Free snapshots vs published 20% backup price |
Our pick: Contabo for long-running, memory-hungry projects on a small budget. Vultr for anything that changes often, faces the public, or needs a specific region.
Should you choose Contabo or Vultr?
Contabo fits servers you’ll run for months on a small budget, while Vultr fits short tests, public apps, and specific locations.
If you run a home lab or self-hosted apps for yourself, Contabo’s RAM per euro is hard to beat. Put the renewal and notice dates in your calendar.
A developer testing a new stack for a weekend should use Vultr and delete the server afterward.
Serving users in Asia, South America, or Africa? Vultr’s wider region list gives you more choices near them.
Running a public API with steady traffic? Vultr, for its bandwidth allowance and written SLA.
A new server needs some basic setup either way. The first 30 steps on an unmanaged VPS cover it.
Contabo also faces Hetzner in Contabo vs Hetzner, Vultr faces DigitalOcean in Vultr vs DigitalOcean, and wider questions sit in the VPS hosting section.
Ready to check prices? Visit Contabo or visit Vultr to see today’s plans before you buy.
Frequently asked questions
Is Contabo cheaper than Vultr?
Yes, by a wide margin. An 8 GB Contabo server costs €4.40 a month on a two-year term, and a comparable Vultr server costs $40, though Vultr needs no commitment.
Which has more flexible billing, Contabo or Vultr?
Vultr. It charges by the hour with no contract, while Contabo terms run one to twelve months, renew on their own, and need four weeks’ notice.
How many regions do Contabo and Vultr have?
Vultr lists 33 data center regions after adding Milan in May 2026. Contabo offers seven: the EU, UK, US, Singapore, Japan, India, and Australia.
Do Contabo and Vultr include DDoS protection?
Contabo does, free on every server. Vultr charges $10 a month per instance for its DDoS Protection add-on.
Can you get a refund from Contabo or Vultr?
Contabo has no money-back guarantee, only a 14-day withdrawal right for consumers, minus time used. With Vultr, deleting a server stops its hourly charges.
Which is better for a busy production website, Contabo or Vultr?
Vultr is the safer base, with a set transfer allowance and a 100% SLA. Contabo can handle small, steady sites, but port speed and fair use limit it.
How we compared Contabo and Vultr
This comparison is built from official sources. For Contabo, we used its Cloud VPS page, terms and conditions, right of withdrawal page, and DDoS protection page.
For Vultr, we used its homepage, pricing page, SLA, Milan announcement, overage, backup, and DDoS pricing docs, and DDoS product page. All details were checked on September 25, 2026.
Our Methodology and Editorial Guidelines explain how we research hosts and correct errors.
