If you haven't looked at the VPS market in a while, things have changed. The "AWS will eat everything" narrative from the early 2020s didn't play out. VPS is not dead — it grew[reference:0].
Here's a quick map of who's where in 2026.
Europe – Best Value, No‑Frills
Europe remains the value leader. Hetzner holds the top spot with ARM Ampere CAX instances starting around $4/month[reference:1]. OVHcloud has recovered from the 2021 Strasbourg fire and is expanding BareMetal and Public Cloud since its IPO[reference:2]. Scaleway and Contabo round out the European options[reference:3].
If you want the best performance per dollar, start with Europe. Pricing is honest, specs are real, and data sovereignty is strong[reference:4].
US Providers – The Two Pillars
DigitalOcean acquired Cloudways (managed PaaS) for $350M and Paperspace (GPU cloud) for $111M, expanding from basic VPS into managed and GPU territories[reference:5]. Linode was acquired by Akamai for ~$900M and rebranded as "Akamai Cloud Compute," combining VPS with Akamai's 100+ PoPs[reference:6].
Both remain solid. DigitalOcean for simplicity, Linode for the API and stability.
Global Players – Vultr and the New Guard
Vultr raised a $333M Series A in December 2024 at a $3.5B valuation, now operating 35 global PoPs[reference:7]. They have the largest global footprint and are pushing into GPU cloud through an NVIDIA partnership.
AWS Lightsail remains the entry point to AWS, but it's not the value leader. If you need global coverage, Vultr is the most flexible.
Cloudflare's Impact on Pricing
After Cloudflare's public pressure campaign on egress fees, AWS, GCP, and Azure began waiving egress in certain scenarios. But free or very low egress on no‑frills VPS remains a strong differentiator[reference:8]. This matters for bandwidth‑heavy workloads.
What This Means for You
If you're just starting, Europe (Hetzner) gives the best value. If you need global reach, Vultr has the most locations. If you want simplicity, DigitalOcean is still the easiest to use. If you care about API stability, Linode (Akamai) is mature and reliable[reference:9].
Need help choosing? Check our detailed VPS guides.