$24 Medium (4 GB RAM, 4 TB transfer) plus the $15 managed MySQL/PostgreSQL bundle.
- Free option
- 90-day free trial (750 hours/month) on the $5–$12 Linux bundles and the $15 database. New AWS accounts get $100 in credits immediately and can earn another $100. The Free plan lasts up to six months.
- Why it fits
- Projects that want predictable AWS — a fixed-price server with a clear upgrade path into the wider AWS ecosystem.
- How deploys work
- Pick a blueprint (WordPress, LAMP, Node.js, plain Linux), get SSH in the browser or your terminal, and manage it like any VPS.
- The tradeoff
- Costs more per spec than the European VPS crowd, and stopped instances keep billing.
~$65 Premium P0v3 (1 vCPU, 4 GB, autoscale and slots) plus ~$19 for managed PostgreSQL.
- Free option
- F1 Free tier: 1 GB RAM, 60 CPU-minutes/day, no custom domain or SLA. Plus a $200/30-day new-account credit.
- Why it fits
- Teams in the Microsoft ecosystem — .NET shops, enterprise-adjacent projects, or anyone whose employer already pays for Azure.
- How deploys work
- Connect GitHub Actions from the portal, push to a local git remote, or run `az webapp up` — runtime stacks for Node, Python, .NET, PHP, and Java are built in.
- The tradeoff
- Capable and git-friendly, but you pay PaaS prices per plan and navigate the most complicated tier system here.
2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 80 GB SSD, 3 TB transfer.
- Free option
- Limited early-access plan: 1 vCPU, 512 MB RAM, and 10 GB disk in Seattle, Frankfurt, or Miami. Confirm access in your account before relying on it.
- Why it fits
- Developers who want a cheap server near their users, wherever those users are.
- How deploys work
- You get root on a fresh Linux server; setup and deploys are yours to script.
- The tradeoff
- Fully self-managed, and the hour-based billing model is less forgiving than per-second rivals.
