DigitalOcean vs Linode vs Vultr pricing for the same server
A 4 GB, 2 vCPU server costs $24/mo at DigitalOcean and Linode, $20 at Vultr and $6.49 at Hetzner in Europe. Transfer, backups and billing rules compared.
Quick comparison
| Provider | From | Starting plan | Free tier | Our rating | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 DigitalOceanChecked | $4/mo | Basic Droplet 512 MiB1 vCPU · 0.5 GB RAM · 10 GiB SSD | Occasional promo credit for new users | Not rated | Visit |
 VultrChecked | $2.50/mo | Cloud Compute Regular Performance, IPv6-only 0.5 GB1 vCPU · 0.5 GB RAM · 10 GB SSD | No free tier | Not rated | Visit |
 Hetzner CloudChecked | $6.49/mo | CX23 (Cost-Optimized, Intel/AMD)2 vCPU · 4 GB RAM · 40 GB NVMe | No | Not rated | Visit |
For the same 4 GB RAM, 2 vCPU shared server, DigitalOcean and Linode (now Akamai Cloud) both charge $24 a month, Vultr charges $20 on its Regular Performance plan, and Hetzner charges $6.49 in Germany and Finland, before its IPv4 fee and VAT. Those are list prices as of October 2026. The real gap between the three US-style clouds is small; what changes the bill is included transfer, the overage rate, backups and how each one caps hourly billing.
We haven’t run servers at any of these providers. The figures come from the site’s price data (DigitalOcean and Hetzner checked October 25, 2026, Vultr October 17, 2026) and from Akamai’s, DigitalOcean’s and Hetzner’s own pricing pages and docs, read on October 30, 2026. Linode isn’t in our main price data yet, so its prices are quoted straight from Akamai’s pricing page.
How much does the same server cost at each provider?
Here are the entry shared-CPU plans at three common sizes. “Transfer” is the outbound data included each month.
2 GB RAM
| Provider and plan | Price/month | vCPU | Storage | Transfer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DigitalOcean Basic 2 GiB | $12 | 1 | 50 GiB SSD | 2,000 GiB |
| Linode 2 GB (Akamai) | $12 | 1 | 50 GB | 2 TB |
| Vultr Regular Performance 2 GB | $10 | 1 | 55 GB SSD | 2 TB |
| Vultr High Frequency 2 GB | $12 | 1 | 64 GB NVMe | 2 TB |
Hetzner has no 2 GB plan in our data; its smallest Cost-Optimized server already has 4 GB.
4 GB RAM
| Provider and plan | Price/month | vCPU | Storage | Transfer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DigitalOcean Basic 4 GiB | $24 | 2 | 80 GiB SSD | 4,000 GiB |
| Linode 4 GB (Akamai) | $24 | 2 | 80 GB | 4 TB |
| Vultr Regular Performance 4 GB | $20 | 2 | 80 GB SSD | 3 TB |
| Vultr High Frequency 4 GB | $24 | 2 | 128 GB NVMe | 3 TB |
| Hetzner CX23 (Germany, Finland) | $6.49 + IPv4 | 2 | 40 GB NVMe | 20 TB |
| Hetzner CPX22 (AMD) | $22.99 + IPv4 | 2 | 80 GB NVMe | 20 TB |
8 GB RAM
| Provider and plan | Price/month | vCPU | Storage | Transfer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DigitalOcean Basic 8 GiB | $48 | 4 | 160 GiB SSD | 5,000 GiB |
| Linode 8 GB (Akamai) | $48 | 4 | 160 GB | 5 TB |
| Hetzner CX33 (Germany, Finland) | $9.99 + IPv4 | 4 | 80 GB NVMe | 20 TB |
| Hetzner CPX32 (AMD) | $41.99 + IPv4 | 4 | 160 GB NVMe | 20 TB |
Vultr’s 8 GB plans aren’t in our data. See current sizes on our Vultr page.
A few things stand out:
- DigitalOcean and Linode are priced identically at every size listed here, down to the vCPU count, storage and transfer. DigitalOcean’s 16 GiB plan is $96; so is Linode 16 GB, though Linode gives 6 vCPUs against DigitalOcean’s 8.
- Vultr is $2 to $4 cheaper on its Regular Performance plans, which our data notes use previous-generation Intel CPUs and regular SSD. Its High Frequency plans with NVMe cost the same as the other two.
- Hetzner is in a different price band for Europe. The US-dollar prices exclude VAT and the IPv4 address, which Hetzner’s docs price at €0.50 a month excluding VAT. Hetzner’s product page shows the CX23 at €5.99 a month including IPv4. On October 30, 2026, that page marked every Cost-Optimized plan as “currently unavailable,” so check stock before you plan around it.
- Hetzner’s prices rose for new orders on June 15, 2026. The CX23 went from $4.99 to $6.49 and the CPX22 from $9.49 to $22.99 in Germany and Finland. Our news post on the increase has the full list.
What’s included in transfer, and what does extra cost?
Included transfer is where the plans that look the same start to differ. Inbound traffic is free at all four.
| Provider | Included transfer (4 GB plan) | Overage rate | Pooled? |
|---|---|---|---|
| DigitalOcean | 4,000 GiB | $0.01 per GiB | Yes, across all Droplets on a team |
| Linode (Akamai) | 4 TB | $0.005 per GB | Yes, in a global pool for most core data centers |
| Vultr | 3 TB | Not in our data | Not in our data |
| Hetzner (EU) | 20 TB | €1.00 per extra TB, excl. VAT | Per server |
DigitalOcean’s docs say unused transfer doesn’t carry over to the next month. Akamai’s docs say a plan’s allowance is prorated by the hours it runs, and that some newer data centers (Jakarta and São Paulo are named) have their own region-specific pools that don’t add to the global one. Hetzner’s billing FAQ says overage is billed in blocks of 100 MB, rounded up. Hetzner’s product page states the 20 TB for EU locations only; it doesn’t state the allowance for its US or Singapore locations.
Worked example: a 4 GB server that sends 6 TB a month
Say a small media or download site sends 6,000 GB a month from one 4 GB server (counting GB and GiB as equal for a rough estimate).
- DigitalOcean: 6,000 − 4,000 included = 2,000 GiB over. 2,000 × $0.01 = $20. Total: $24 + $20 = $44 a month.
- Linode: 6,000 − 4,000 included = 2,000 GB over. 2,000 × $0.005 = $10. Total: $24 + $10 = $34 a month.
- Hetzner CX23 in Germany or Finland: 6 TB is inside the 20 TB allowance. Total: $6.49 plus IPv4 and VAT.
At normal web-app traffic, well under the allowance, DigitalOcean and Linode cost the same. Past the allowance, Linode’s overage is half DigitalOcean’s. If you push many terabytes from Europe, Hetzner’s allowance is the cheapest by a wide margin.
How much do backups add?
All four sell automatic backups as an add-on. Here is what it costs on the 4 GB plan.
| Provider | How backups are priced | 4 GB plan | Server + backups per month |
|---|---|---|---|
| DigitalOcean | 20% of Droplet cost (weekly) or 30% (daily) | $4.80 weekly / $7.20 daily | $28.80 / $31.20 |
| Linode (Akamai) | Flat price per plan | $5.00 | $29.00 |
| Hetzner | 20% of the server price | about $1.30 | about $7.79 + IPv4 |
| Vultr | Not in our data | — | — |
The arithmetic: DigitalOcean $24 × 0.20 = $4.80 and $24 × 0.30 = $7.20. Hetzner $6.49 × 0.20 = $1.298, about $1.30. Akamai’s backup pricing page lists $2 for the 1 GB plan, $2.50 for 2 GB, $5 for 4 GB, $10 for 8 GB and $20 for 16 GB a month. Akamai’s docs say the service keeps up to four backups (daily, weekly, biweekly and one manual snapshot), and automated backups aren’t kept beyond 14 days.
Over a year, a 4 GB server with weekly backups costs $28.80 × 12 = $345.60 at DigitalOcean and $29 × 12 = $348 at Linode. At Hetzner, $7.79 × 12 = $93.48, plus €6 for a year of IPv4 (12 × €0.50), before VAT.
How does hourly billing work, and is there a monthly cap?
All four bill by usage and cap most plans at the monthly price, but the details differ, and two of them have removed the cap on some products this year.
- DigitalOcean: bundled-plan Droplets are billed per second, with a minimum charge of 60 seconds or $0.01, whichever is higher. The docs cap bundled CPU plans at 672 hours (28 days) a month. DigitalOcean’s newer v5 Droplets have no monthly cap and bill public IPv4 as a separate line item, listed at $0.00 an hour for now and “subject to change.” Our news post on v5 Droplets covers that change.
- Linode (Akamai): hourly rates are rounded up to the nearest hour, and Akamai’s billing docs say you are “never billed more than the monthly rate for each service, excluding network transfer overages.” Since July 1, 2026, G8 Dedicated Linodes, GPU Linodes and additional IPv4 addresses are billed for every hour with no cap (our post on that change).
- Vultr: our data says its Cloud Compute plans are billed hourly, capped at the monthly price.
- Hetzner: its billing FAQ says “Your server’s bill will never exceed its monthly price cap,” and hourly usage is always rounded up.
Powered-off servers still cost money. DigitalOcean, Akamai and Hetzner all say so in their docs: billing stops only when you destroy the server. Shutting a VPS down to save money doesn’t work at any of them; take a snapshot and delete it instead.
Why does Linode look expensive for dedicated CPUs?
People often ask why Linode is “so expensive.” On shared plans it isn’t: it matches DigitalOcean exactly. The difference is in Akamai’s newest dedicated line. Its G8 Dedicated 4x2 plan (4 GB, 2 dedicated vCPUs, 40 GB) is listed at $0.07 an hour with 0 TB of included transfer and no monthly cap. Run it for a 30-day month and you pay 720 × $0.07 = $50.40; a 31-day month is 744 × $0.07 = $52.08, plus every GB of outbound transfer at $0.005. That’s more than twice the $24 shared plan with the same RAM, and the transfer is no longer bundled.
Are there free credits or trials?
None of the three US-style clouds has a free tier for these servers, but each gives new customers credit:
| Provider | New-customer offer | Main limits |
|---|---|---|
| DigitalOcean | $5 signup credit | Expires 90 days after signup; payment method required |
| Linode (Akamai) | US$100 service credit | Payment method required; unused credit expires when the trial ends; GPU plans excluded |
| Vultr | Up to $300 free credit, with a code from its coupons page | New customers only; select products only |
| Hetzner | None in our data | — |
These come from our free-offers data (DigitalOcean and Akamai checked October 25, 2026, Vultr October 17, 2026). For servers that stay free with no end date, see free VPS tiers from Oracle, AWS, Google and Azure.
What to watch for
- Regional prices. Akamai’s FAQ says pricing for some plans differs by region, and its billing docs say newer data centers may bill services and transfer at separate rates. Hetzner’s Singapore location costs more: the CPX22 is $30.99 there against $22.99 in Germany and Finland, per our data.
- Hetzner’s US-dollar prices are before VAT and IPv4. Its euro prices on product pages include IPv4 but not VAT. Compare like with like.
- Hetzner availability. Several of its plans showed as unavailable when our data was checked on October 17, and every Cost-Optimized plan did on October 30, 2026.
- The cap is going away on newer products. DigitalOcean v5 Droplets and Akamai’s G8 and GPU plans bill every hour, so a 31-day month costs more than a 30-day one.
- Transfer doesn’t roll over. An unused allowance is lost at the end of the month at DigitalOcean, and prorated by hours at Akamai.
- Backups are percentages at DigitalOcean and Hetzner. Resizing the server raises the backup fee with it.
- Vultr’s details are thin here. Its pricing page is on our list of sites we don’t read automatically, so we quote only our stored data (October 17, 2026) and couldn’t confirm its overage or backup rates.
Which should you choose?
- You want the simplest bill for a small app in the US: DigitalOcean or Linode cost the same on shared plans. Pick on other things: DigitalOcean’s per-second billing and team-wide transfer pool, or Linode’s lower overage rate and flat backup prices. Compare both on DigitalOcean vs Vultr and our DigitalOcean page.
- You want the lowest US-cloud price for a test or side project: Vultr’s Regular Performance plans are $2 to $4 cheaper per month than the matching DigitalOcean and Linode plans, and the $300 new-customer credit covers months of a small server.
- You serve a lot of traffic: Linode’s $0.005 per GB is half DigitalOcean’s $0.01 per GiB. In Europe, Hetzner’s 20 TB allowance beats both.
- Your users are mostly in Europe and price matters most: Hetzner’s CX23 at $6.49 gives 4 GB for about a quarter of the others’ price, if the plan is in stock. See DigitalOcean vs Hetzner and Hetzner vs Vultr.
- You need dedicated CPU at Akamai: budget for the uncapped hourly rate and for transfer billed from the first GB on G8 plans.
For more providers, including Contabo, UpCloud and Lightsail, see the VPS hosting hub and DigitalOcean alternatives.
Sources
- Akamai: Cloud CPU pricing (read October 30, 2026)
- Akamai: Cloud computing pricing (read October 30, 2026)
- Akamai: Backups pricing (read October 30, 2026)
- Akamai TechDocs: Understanding how billing works (read October 30, 2026)
- Akamai TechDocs: Network transfer usage and costs (read October 30, 2026)
- Akamai TechDocs: Backup service (read October 30, 2026)
- DigitalOcean: Droplet pricing (read October 30, 2026)
- DigitalOcean Docs: Droplet pricing details (read October 30, 2026)
- Hetzner: Cost-Optimized cloud servers (read October 30, 2026)
- Hetzner Docs: Billing FAQ (read October 30, 2026)
- Hetzner Docs: Servers overview (read October 30, 2026)
- AskGPU price data for DigitalOcean and Hetzner (checked October 25, 2026) and Vultr (checked October 17, 2026); free-offers data for DigitalOcean, Akamai and Vultr credits