Cloud & Infrastructure · head to head
Contabo vs Fly.io
Contabo
Cloud & Infrastructure
Affordable high-performance VPS hosting
- From
- €4.5/month
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Only Fly.io has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
- Each has a real cost: Contabo fully unmanaged infrastructure requires all setup and maintenance by customer; Fly.io egress is priced by destination region, from $0.02 per GB in North America and Europe to $0.12 per GB for Africa and India, so the same traffic costs six times more depending on where users are
- They diverge on capability: Contabo covers VPS Hosting, Fly.io covers Global deployment.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Contabo and Fly.io actually diverge.
Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated), category (Cloud & Infrastructure).
What each one covers
Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.
Only in Contabo
- VPS Hosting
- Dedicated Servers
- Object Storage
- Snapshots
- DDoS Protection
- Custom ISO
- Multiple Locations
- SSD Storage
Only in Fly.io
- Global deployment
- Docker support
- Postgres databases
- Redis support
- Auto-scaling
- Health checks
- Backups
- Monitoring
Both cover
- Docker
- Cloud deployment
- Web support
- Api support
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
Contabo
- Web hostingnot Fly.io
- Game serversnot Fly.io
- Development environmentsnot Fly.io
- VPN serversnot Fly.io
Fly.io
- Deploying containerised applications close to users across regionsnot Contabo
- Running full stack apps and databases on managed machinesnot Contabo
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Contabo
- Fully unmanaged infrastructure requires all setup and maintenance by customer
- No formal SLA with financial compensation for downtime violations
Fly.io
- Egress is priced by destination region, from $0.02 per GB in North America and Europe to $0.12 per GB for Africa and India, so the same traffic costs six times more depending on where users are
- Stopped machines still bill at $0.15 per GB of root filesystem a month, so a paused service is not a free one
- Volumes are billed on provisioned capacity rather than usage, at $0.15 per GB a month
- Reservation discounts of 40% require paying a year up front, from $36 to $1,440
- Fly Kubernetes is a separate $75 a month per cluster
- Dedicated IPv4 addresses are $2 a month each
Pricing, plan by plan
Contabo
€4.5/month- Cloud VPS$4.5/month
- 4 vCPU
- 8 GB RAM
- 100 GB SSD
- Cloud VDS$39/month
- Dedicated cores
- 24 GB RAM
- 180 GB NVMe
- Dedicated Server$149/month
- AMD CPU
- 64 GB RAM
- 1 TB NVMe
Fly.io
Free- FreeFree
- 3 shared-cpu-1x VMs
- 3GB persistence storage
- 160GB outbound data/month
- Pay-as-you-goFree
- Unlimited applications
- Dedicated machines
- Global deployment
Which should you pick?
Choose Contabo if
- You need vps hosting.
- You work on Linux, Windows.
- You also want dedicated servers.
Choose Fly.io if
- You need global deployment.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Web, Api, Docker.
- You also want docker support.
Questions people ask
- Is Contabo or Fly.io better?
- Neither clearly leads. Contabo starts at €4.5/month and Fly.io at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, Contabo or Fly.io?
- Fly.io has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at €4.5/month for Contabo and Free for Fly.io.
- Does Contabo or Fly.io run on more platforms?
- Contabo runs on Linux, Windows. Fly.io runs on Web, Api, Docker.
- Can I use Fly.io for free?
- Yes. Fly.io has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Contabo starts at €4.5/month.
- What is Contabo best used for?
- Contabo is most often used for web hosting, game servers, development environments, vpn servers. Of those, web hosting and game servers are not what Fly.io is typically brought in for.
- What can Contabo do that Fly.io cannot?
- Contabo covers VPS Hosting, Dedicated Servers, Object Storage, Snapshots. Fly.io covers Global deployment, Docker support, Postgres databases, Redis support. Both handle Docker, Cloud deployment, Web support, Api support.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
Contabo: What is the base pricing for Contabo VPS?
Contabo Cloud VPS starts at EUR 4.50 per month (approximately $4.95 USD) with 4 vCPU cores and 8 GB RAM. Prices scale up to EUR 39+ per month for dedicated performance VPS with higher specs.
SourceContabo: Does Contabo raise prices at renewal?
No. Unlike many hosting providers, Contabo does not increase renewal prices. The promotional price you get at sign-up is locked in for future renewals.
SourceContabo: What data center locations does Contabo offer?
Contabo operates 9 global data center regions including multiple EU locations, US East/Central/West Coast, United Kingdom, India, Singapore, Japan, and Australia.
SourceContabo: Does Contabo provide managed services?
No. Contabo VPS is fully unmanaged. You handle all setup, security patching, and system maintenance. Managed hosting adds 2 hours per month of dedicated support for a fee.
SourceContabo: What is Contabo's uptime guarantee?
Contabo maintains a 99.996% uptime guarantee across all plans. The platform includes unlimited traffic and free DDoS protection.
Source