Contabo VPS
Hacker ApprovedRanked 11 of 21 VPS hosts by recommenders
Cheap VPS plans with generous RAM and CPU for hobby sites and side projects, though critics note CPU steal and slow support.
Cheap VPS plans with generous RAM and CPU for hobby sites and side projects, though critics note CPU steal and slow support.
20 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 18
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 90%
Recommended in 9 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 18 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 9 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 9 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Low prices, more RAM and CPU
“it was ~20% cheaper than it was two years ago, and I also get more CPU and more RAM”
Comment from 15 Jun 2026 in “Hetzner increased dedicated server prices 3-4x” “5 bucks gets you 8gb ram 4 vcpu 75gb nvme at contabo actually”
Comment from 16 Nov 2025 in “$5 PlanetScale is live” “You can get decent ones for $6 from Contabo VPS”
Comment from 17 Aug 2026 in “Tell HN: GitHub Is Experiencing Degraded Performance” - Comment from 19 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: Hacker News archive (47M+ items, 11.6GB) as Parquet, updated every 5m”
Competitive pricing against Hetzner
“Contabo price hasn't changed. I'm thinking of locking in some more VPS before it goes up.”
Comment from 16 Jun 2026 in “Hetzner Price Adjustment (June 15th, 2026)” “still very good pricing compared to the enormous increases we now see at Hetzner”
Comment from 15 Jun 2026 in “Hetzner increased dedicated server prices 3-4x” “reputable providers with competitive pricing”
Comment from 26 Aug 2026 in “Run OpenBSD on DigitalOcean for $4/month” Good for hobby and small sites
“I use a Contabo VPS for around 5 USD month to host my Wagtail (django-based) site.”
Comment from 3 Jan 2026 in “Publish (On Your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere” “Has been good for my mess around and hobby stuff”
Comment from 24 Jun 2026 in “We're making Bunny DNS free: because a faster internet won't build itself” Stable service and good IPs
“the service has been quite stable and professional”
Comment from 27 Oct 2026 in “Active incident at Dreamhost forcing password reset” “I've had good luck with Contabo IPs”
Comment from 8 Nov 2025 in “Gmail AI gets more intrusive”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
CPU steal and overprovisioning
“Contabo does have some steal factor involved, unfortunately and their support times aren't great”
Comment from 24 Jun 2026 in “We're making Bunny DNS free: because a faster internet won't build itself” “A server too cheap and too overprovisioned with steal factor (Like Contabo) is universally hated by people.”
Comment from 3 Mar 2026 in “I'm losing the SEO battle for my own open source project” Poor reputation and instability
“how unstable they are or how much consistent I have seen people struggle about contabo”
Comment from 29 Jan 2026 in “Is the RAM shortage killing small VPS hosts?” “unless they have a crazy factor like from what I hear contabo has from forums”
Comment from 30 Jan 2026 in “Is the RAM shortage killing small VPS hosts?” “they don't have the best reputation, but it worked out okay for me”
Comment from 16 Feb 2026 in “Show HN: Knock-Knock.net – Visualizing the bots knocking on my server's door”
Other VPS hosts people recommend
The four most recommended other VPS hosts, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hetzner | 415 | 212 | 66% | 13 | 5 yrs40 owners | — |
| DigitalOcean | 133 | 117 | 53% | 12 | 10 yrs15 owners | — |
| exe.dev | 115 | 56 | 67% | 11 | — | Approved |
| Hetzner Cloud | 99 | 28 | 78% | 12 | 3 yrs8 owners | Approved |
| Contabo VPSThis page | 18 | 2 | 90% | 9 | — | Approved |
What people said
20 of the 24 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“the service has been quite stable and professional”
“reputable providers with competitive pricing”
“You can get decent ones for $6 from Contabo VPS”
“Contabo does have some steal factor involved, unfortunately and their support times aren't great”
“Has been good for my mess around and hobby stuff”
“Contabo price hasn't changed. I'm thinking of locking in some more VPS before it goes up.”
“it was ~20% cheaper than it was two years ago, and I also get more CPU and more RAM”
“still very good pricing compared to the enormous increases we now see at Hetzner”
“you could get a cheap s3 storage or VPS from contabo hosted in Singapore”
“$8/month, 6 vCPU, 12 GB RAM, 200 GB SSD”
“A server too cheap and too overprovisioned with steal factor (Like Contabo) is universally hated by people.”
“they don't have the best reputation, but it worked out okay for me”
“Im running like upwards of 30 difference services(mixed types) on a single 6$/m contabo instance”
“Not to mention their network is over used/congested as well.”
“unless they have a crazy factor like from what I hear contabo has from forums”
“how unstable they are or how much consistent I have seen people struggle about contabo”
“I use a Contabo VPS for around 5 USD month to host my Wagtail (django-based) site.”
“it only works for customers who have logged in and they can only login entirely if they give their credit/debit card info.”
“5 bucks gets you 8gb ram 4 vcpu 75gb nvme at contabo actually”
“I've had good luck with Contabo IPs”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.