Cloud hosting pricing, vendors side by side
What one 2 vCPU / 4 GB server costs for a month on each platform we track, plus egress, read off each vendor's own page with a link on every row.
Price one workload across every cloud hosting vendor
Starts at one 2 vCPU / 4 GB server running all month, with 200 GB of egress. Change the numbers and the table re-sorts, cheapest first.
| Vendor | Estimated month | Cheapest listed option | What is not priced | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DigitalOcean | $26.00 | Pay as you go: Basic Droplet, Regular, 2 vCPUs / 4 GiB / 80 GiB SSD, Droplet outbound transfer beyond the pooled allowance | Sourcechecked 2026-10-25 | |
| Fly.io | $29.75 | Pay As You Go: Machine shared-cpu-2x with 4 GB RAM, always on (iad), Outbound data to the internet, North America and Europe | Sourcechecked 2026-10-25 | |
| AWS | $33.53 | Pay as you go: EC2 t4g.medium (2 vCPU, 4 GiB, Graviton2), Linux on-demand, Data transfer out to the internet (from us-east-1) | Sourcechecked 2026-10-25 | |
| Google Cloud | $36.46 | Pay as you go: Compute Engine e2-medium (2 shared vCPU, 4 GiB), Internet egress from Cloud Storage, worldwide (excl. Asia, Australia, China) | Sourcechecked 2026-10-25 | |
| Microsoft Azure | $39.07 | Pay as you go: VM Standard_B2s (2 vCPU, 4 GB, burstable) Linux, Internet egress from East US (Microsoft network routing) | Sourcechecked 2026-10-25 | |
| Render | $136.25 | Pro ($25.00 a month): Web service / worker instance 2c-4g (2 CPU, 4 GB), Bandwidth beyond the plan allowance (Pro) | Sourcechecked 2026-10-25 | |
| Vercel | Check the vendor's page | No published rate for this workload | Sourcechecked 2026-10-25 |
List prices in USD before tax and discounts. Each vendor is priced on its cheapest plan that lists a rate for every line, and the vendor's own region and tier assumptions apply (see each vendor page). "From" means some lines have no listed price, so the real bill is higher.
The rates behind the estimate
The published rate for each line of the workload, with the free or included amount. Each row links to the vendor's own pricing page.
| Vendor | Rate | Free or included | Plan | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AWS | EC2 t4g.medium (2 vCPU, 4 GiB, Graviton2), Linux on-demand$24.53 per instance-month | None | All | Sourcechecked 2026-10-25 |
| EC2 t3.medium (2 vCPU, 4 GiB, Intel), Linux on-demand$30.37 per instance-month | None | All | Sourcechecked 2026-10-25 | |
| Data transfer out to the internet (from us-east-1)$0.09 per GB, falling with volume | First 100 GB free | All | Sourcechecked 2026-10-25 | |
| Microsoft Azure | VM Standard_B2s (2 vCPU, 4 GB, burstable) Linux$30.37 per instance-month | None | All | Sourcechecked 2026-10-25 |
| Internet egress from East US (Microsoft network routing)$0.087 per GB, falling with volume | First 100 GB free | All | Sourcechecked 2026-10-25 | |
| Google Cloud | Compute Engine e2-medium (2 shared vCPU, 4 GiB)$24.46 per instance-month | None | All | Sourcechecked 2026-10-25 |
| Internet egress from Cloud Storage, worldwide (excl. Asia, Australia, China)$0.12 per GB, falling with volume | First 100 GB free | All | Sourcechecked 2026-10-25 | |
| Vercel | No usage rate published on the pricing page. Plans: Hobby $0.00, Pro $20.00, Enterprise (not published). | Sourcechecked 2026-10-25 | ||
| Fly.io | Machine shared-cpu-2x with 4 GB RAM, always on (iad)$25.75 per instance-month | None | All | Sourcechecked 2026-10-25 |
| Outbound data to the internet, North America and Europe$0.02 per GB | None | All | Sourcechecked 2026-10-25 | |
| Outbound data to the internet, Asia Pacific, Oceania, South America$0.04 per GB | None | All | Sourcechecked 2026-10-25 | |
| Outbound data to the internet, Africa and India$0.12 per GB | None | All | Sourcechecked 2026-10-25 | |
| Render | Web service / worker instance 2c-4g (2 CPU, 4 GB)$85 per instance-month | None | All | Sourcechecked 2026-10-25 |
| Bandwidth beyond the plan allowance (Pro)$0.15 per GB | First 25 GB included | Pro | Sourcechecked 2026-10-25 | |
| DigitalOcean | Basic Droplet, Regular, 2 vCPUs / 4 GiB / 80 GiB SSD$24 per instance-month | None | All | Sourcechecked 2026-10-25 |
| Droplet outbound transfer beyond the pooled allowance$0.01 per GB | None | All | Sourcechecked 2026-10-25 | |
| App Platform outbound transfer beyond allowance$0.02 per GB | None | All | Sourcechecked 2026-10-25 | |
How to choose cloud hosting on price
Compare like for like
Egress is the hidden line
Count the platform fee
Cloud hosting pricing questions
Which cloud hosting vendor is cheapest?
For one 2 vCPU / 4 GB server running all month, with 200 GB of egress, DigitalOcean comes out lowest at about $26.00 a month on list prices, and Render highest at about $136.25, checked 2026-10-25. A different workload can change the order, so enter your own numbers in the estimator.
How is the estimate worked out?
Each vendor is priced on its cheapest plan that lists a rate for every line of the workload: the plan fee plus each usage line, after any free or included amount. A plan's monthly minimum counts as a floor. Volume tiers are applied in order. Taxes, discounts and committed-use deals are left out.
Why are some vendors missing a price?
Vercel does not publish a rate for this workload on the pricing page, so the table says so instead of guessing.
How current are these prices?
Every rate was read off the vendor's own pricing page on 2026-10-25 and links to it. Prices change often: check the vendor's page before you commit, and tell us if a number here is out of date.
Vendor pages and other categories
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