Overview
BudgetVM is all about value for money. I've been using their Japan VPS for over three months now, and I wanted to share my real-world experience for anyone on a budget who's considering a Japan-based VPS.1. Stability: Better than smaller providers, but not "zero downtime"
Overall, I haven't been disappointed. At least I haven't run into any "unreachable for half a day" situations.
Over the past three months, I experienced one scheduled maintenance. I received a notification email two days in advance, and the maintenance was scheduled for 2 AM Japan time (1 AM my time). Website traffic was already low at that hour. The maintenance lasted about 40 minutes, and after the reboot, all data was intact – hassle-free.
However, there was one minor hiccup: about two weeks ago, around 3 PM, I suddenly lost connection to the server. At first, I thought it was my home network, but after switching to my office connection with no luck, I submitted a support ticket. The response was relatively quick – I heard back within 20 minutes. They said it was a "temporary bandwidth adjustment" at the Tokyo node and that they were working on it, asking me to wait about an hour. It ended up taking 55 minutes before I could connect again. They didn't offer any compensation, but at least they kept me informed – way better than my previous provider, which would go 3 hours without replying to tickets.
2. Speed: Solid performance for Japan-based traffic
Performance for local Japan traffic is great. I run a website primarily serving clients in Tokyo and Osaka, and they've reported that "pages load noticeably faster than before." I measured the latency myself – it's around 8-18ms. Uploading a 100MB product image to the server takes about 45 seconds at best, and never more than a minute even under slower conditions.
3. Price: "Budget" truly lives up to its name – the value is the standout feature
I'm on the 2-core, 2GB RAM plan with 80GB SSD storage and 1.5TB bandwidth, costing just $8/month. If you pay annually, you can get an additional 30% off. That's 20% cheaper than Linode's Japan plan (which starts at $10/month for similar specs), and nearly half the price of AWS Japan.
There are no hidden fees – no deposit required upon signup, no "low first month, high renewal" tricks. The renewal price stays the same as the first month. For someone running a small site on a tight budget, this really saves a lot. However, if you need to upgrade – say, bumping RAM to 4GB – it costs an extra $3/month, which is still cheaper than most other providers.
