Contabo VPS vs Scaleway Instances
Neither wins outright: Contabo VPS is cheaper for 2 of 3 workloads and Scaleway Instances for the rest.
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 | Contabo VPS | Scaleway Instances | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry plan | $5.50/mo | $4.20/mo | 1.3× Scaleway Instances |
| Compute | — | $0.0060/vCPU-hr | — |
| Data transfer out | Free | $0.010/GB | — |
| Free tier | Yes | No | — |
Source: Contabo pricing (May 2026) · Scaleway 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 | Contabo VPS | Scaleway Instances | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| Side projectA personal site or small app with modest traffic, a few gigabytes of assets, and one small always-on process. | $5.50 | $5.38 | Scaleway Instancessaves $0.12/mo (2%) |
| Growing SaaSA funded product serving a few thousand daily users, with an image-heavy frontend and two application servers. | $11 | $19 | Contabo VPSsaves $7.76/mo (41%) |
| Media-heavy siteA publisher or video product where delivery dominates the bill and compute is almost an afterthought. | $5.50 | $104 | Contabo VPSsaves $99/mo (95%) |
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
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
Scaleway Instances
by Scaleway
French-hosted compute with EU data residency, billed per second, sitting between the budget hosts and the hyperscalers on price.
Common questions
- Is Contabo VPS or Scaleway Instances cheaper in 2026?
- It depends on volume — Contabo VPS wins 2 of the 3 modelled workloads and Scaleway Instances wins 1. The scenario table above shows where the crossover falls.
- What is the difference in egress cost between Contabo VPS and Scaleway Instances?
- Contabo VPS does not charge for data transfer out at all, while Scaleway Instances charges $0.010 per GB. On a read-heavy workload that difference is the entire comparison.
- Which has the better free tier, Contabo VPS or Scaleway Instances?
- Contabo VPS does — Unlimited traffic, throttled after 32 TB. Scaleway Instances bills from the first unit of usage.
- 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.