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Cloud · head to head

Contabo vs Qovery

Contabo logo

Contabo

Cloud

Affordable high-performance VPS hosting

From
€4.5/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Qovery logo

Qovery

Cloud

Deployment platform that provisions and operates Kubernetes inside your own cloud account

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Contabo fully unmanaged infrastructure requires all setup and maintenance by customer; Qovery no plan publishes a price, deployment minute overage rates are not disclosed, and there is a 14 day trial rather than a free tier, so you cannot budget or compare against alternatives without going through sales.
  • They diverge on capability: Contabo covers VPS Hosting, Qovery covers Bring your own cloud.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Contabo and Qovery actually diverge.

Attributes where Contabo and Qovery differ
AttributeContaboQovery
Starting price€4.5/monthOn request
Pricing modelUnknownquote
PlatformsLinux, WindowsWeb, CLI, REST API, Kubernetes
Founded2003Unknown

Identical on both: free tier (No), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Cloud).

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 Qovery

  • Bring your own cloud
  • Preview environments
  • Cluster lifecycle
  • Terraform provider
  • MCP server
  • Policy as code

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Contabo

  • Web hostingnot Qovery
  • Game serversnot Qovery
  • Development environmentsnot Qovery
  • VPN serversnot Qovery

Qovery

  • A regulated business that must keep application data inside its own AWS account but has nobody to build a deployment platformnot Contabo
  • Giving twenty engineers preview environments per pull request without writing and maintaining Terraform and Helm by handnot Contabo
  • Standardising deployment across AWS and GCP when acquisitions have left the organisation on two cloudsnot Contabo
  • Replacing a managed platform when data residency rules put every hosted option out of reachnot 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

Qovery

  • No plan publishes a price, deployment minute overage rates are not disclosed, and there is a 14 day trial rather than a free tier, so you cannot budget or compare against alternatives without going through sales.
  • The GPL-3.0 engine and console do not constitute a self-hostable product, because the control plane and API are closed and the self-hosted option is gated behind Enterprise, so the open licence gives you no exit if the company changes direction.
  • Qovery provisions managed Kubernetes into your account, which means the cloud bill sits on top of the licence and Qovery initiates control plane and ingress controller upgrades on infrastructure your team is accountable for.
  • The company repositioned to agentic infrastructure in June 2026 and now ships a deployment platform, a browser development portal and autonomous coding agents concurrently, so a buyer of the deployment product is not at the centre of the roadmap.
  • Team and Business are capped at two and three connected clusters with fixed 4 vCPU CI runners and no single sign-on on Team, which pushes teams of moderate size onto quoted Enterprise pricing earlier than the plan names imply.

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

Qovery

On request
  • Team$undefined/year
    • Billed on usage with no published rate card
    • 10 users, up to 100 environments, 2 connected clusters
    • 5,000 deployment minutes and 7 day audit logs
  • Business$undefined/year
    • Billed on usage with no published rate card
    • 20 users, up to 250 environments, 3 connected clusters
    • 10,000 deployment minutes and 30 day audit logs
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Custom users, environments and clusters
    • Self-hosted or air-gapped control plane
    • On-premises and bring-your-own-Kubernetes

Which should you pick?

Choose Contabo if

  • You need vps hosting.
  • You work on Linux, Windows.
  • You also want dedicated servers.
Contabo review

Choose Qovery if

  • You need bring your own cloud.
  • You work on Web, CLI, REST API, Kubernetes.
  • You also want preview environments.
Qovery review

Questions people ask

Is Contabo or Qovery better?
Neither clearly leads. Contabo starts at €4.5/month and Qovery at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Contabo or Qovery?
Contabo starts at €4.5/month and Qovery at On request.
Does Contabo or Qovery run on more platforms?
Contabo runs on Linux, Windows. Qovery runs on Web, CLI, REST API, Kubernetes.
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 Qovery is typically brought in for.
What can Contabo do that Qovery cannot?
Contabo covers VPS Hosting, Dedicated Servers, Object Storage, Snapshots. Qovery covers Bring your own cloud, Preview environments, Cluster lifecycle, Terraform provider.

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.

Source
Qovery: Does Qovery run my applications on its own servers?

No. It provisions and operates Kubernetes inside your AWS, GCP, Azure or Scaleway account, so compute and data stay with your cloud provider and that bill is entirely separate from the Qovery licence.

Contabo: 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.

Source
Qovery: Can I self-host Qovery?

Only on Enterprise. The deployment engine and console are GPL-3.0, but the control plane is closed source and the self-hosted and air-gapped deployments are commercial Enterprise features.

Contabo: 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.

Source
Qovery: What does it cost?

Qovery does not publish a rate card. Team and Business are billed on usage and quoted through sales, and Enterprise is fully custom. There is a 14 day trial with no card required.

Contabo: 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.

Source
Qovery: What survives if I stop paying?

The Kubernetes cluster and the workloads keep running in your cloud account, but you lose the console, the deployment pipeline, preview environments and every process built on top of them.

Contabo: 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
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