AWS EC2 vs Contabo VPS
Contabo VPS is cheaper across every workload modelled here.
List prices checked
Rate cards side by side
Only the axes at least one of them bills on. A dash means that provider does not charge for it.
| Billing axis | AWS EC2 | Contabo VPS | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry plan | — | $5.50/mo | — |
| Compute | $0.042/vCPU-hr | — | — |
| Data transfer out | $0.090/GB | Free | — |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes | — |
Source: Amazon Web Services pricing (May 2026) · Contabo pricing (May 2026). Published list prices only — committed-use discounts, regional variation, and per-request charges are not included. Not yet independently re-checked against the vendor’s page.
Monthly cost for three real workloads
The rate cards applied to identical usage. This is where the winner changes.
| Workload | AWS EC2 | Contabo VPS | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| Side projectA personal site or small app with modest traffic, a few gigabytes of assets, and one small always-on process. | $39 | $5.50 | Contabo VPSsaves $34/mo (86%) |
| Growing SaaSA funded product serving a few thousand daily users, with an image-heavy frontend and two application servers. | $151 | $11 | Contabo VPSsaves $140/mo (93%) |
| Media-heavy siteA publisher or video product where delivery dominates the bill and compute is almost an afterthought. | $930 | $5.50 | Contabo VPSsaves $925/mo (99%) |
Workload definitions are identical on every comparison page, so figures here can be read against any other pair in the same category.
What each one is for
AWS EC2
by Amazon Web Services
On-demand instances across every region and instance family. List rates are the highest in this category on both compute and egress; reserved instances and savings plans are how the price actually comes down.
Free tier: 750 hours per month of a t-class micro instance for 12 months
Contabo VPS
by Contabo
The most RAM and disk per dollar in the category, with unlimited traffic. Single-thread performance and network consistency are noticeably weaker than the price suggests.
Free tier: Unlimited traffic, throttled after 32 TB
Common questions
- Is AWS EC2 or Contabo VPS cheaper in 2026?
- Contabo VPS is cheaper in all 3 modelled workloads.
- What is the difference in egress cost between AWS EC2 and Contabo VPS?
- Contabo VPS does not charge for data transfer out at all, while AWS EC2 charges $0.090 per GB. On a read-heavy workload that difference is the entire comparison.
- Which has the better free tier, AWS EC2 or Contabo VPS?
- Both publish one. AWS EC2: 750 hours per month of a t-class micro instance for 12 months. Contabo VPS: Unlimited traffic, throttled after 32 TB.
- What do these estimates not include?
- Committed-use and reserved discounts, regional price variation, per-request API charges, support plans, and minimum retention periods. All of those move real invoices, sometimes by a lot. These figures compare published list prices for the same workload, which is the comparison the rate cards alone cannot give you.