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Cloud · head to head

Contabo vs Restate

Contabo logo

Contabo

Cloud

Affordable high-performance VPS hosting

From
€4.5/month
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite
Restate logo

Restate

Developer Tools

Durable execution engine in Rust with a free tier and low-latency workflows

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Restate 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; Restate the runtime is under a Business Source Licence rather than an open source licence, so building a competing managed offering on it is prohibited and some procurement functions will reject it on licence grounds alone.
  • They diverge on capability: Contabo covers VPS Hosting, Restate covers Durable execution.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Contabo and Restate actually diverge.

Attributes where Contabo and Restate differ
AttributeContaboRestate
Starting price€4.5/monthFree
Pricing modelUnknownPer month by durable action count
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsLinux, WindowsLinux, macOS, Web
CategoryCloudDeveloper Tools
Founded2003Unknown

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated).

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 Restate

  • Durable execution
  • Virtual objects
  • Single binary runtime
  • Multi-language SDKs
  • Workflows and sagas
  • Restate Cloud

What people use each for

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

Contabo

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

Restate

  • Payment or order flows where a crash between two external API calls must not double-charge or lose the ordernot Contabo
  • AI agent loops that call tools over minutes or hours and must survive a deployment mid-runnot Contabo
  • Replacing hand-rolled retry, idempotency key and outbox code across a set of microservicesnot Contabo
  • A small team that wants durable workflows without operating a Temporal cluster and its databasenot 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

Restate

  • The runtime is under a Business Source Licence rather than an open source licence, so building a competing managed offering on it is prohibited and some procurement functions will reject it on licence grounds alone.
  • Restate Cloud jumps from a free fifty thousand actions straight to 300 US dollars a month for twenty million, so a workload sitting at a few hundred thousand actions pays enterprise-shaped money for hobby-shaped volume.
  • It is a young project against Temporal’s established base, so hiring engineers who already know it is unrealistic and the answer to most questions is in the docs rather than on Stack Overflow.
  • The programming model requires structuring code around durable handlers and virtual objects, which is a genuine rewrite for existing services rather than a library you add.
  • The single-binary simplicity that makes small deployments cheap also means fewer operational knobs at very large scale than a system designed as separable components.

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

Restate

Free
  • FreeFree
    • Fifty thousand durable actions per month
    • No credit card required
    • Community support
  • Starter$300/month
    • Twenty million actions per month
    • Two hundred actions per second, bursting to one thousand
    • Twenty GB storage
  • Pro$1000/month
    • Fifty million actions per month
    • Five hundred actions per second, bursting to two thousand
    • Fifty GB storage
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Negotiated volume
    • Twenty-four seven P0 support
    • 99.99 per cent SLA

Which should you pick?

Choose Contabo if

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

Choose Restate if

  • You need durable execution.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, macOS, Web.
  • You also want virtual objects.
Restate review

Questions people ask

Is Contabo or Restate better?
Neither clearly leads. Contabo starts at €4.5/month and Restate at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Contabo or Restate?
Restate has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at €4.5/month for Contabo and Free for Restate.
Does Contabo or Restate run on more platforms?
Contabo runs on Linux, Windows. Restate runs on Linux, macOS, Web.
Can I use Restate for free?
Yes. Restate 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 Restate is typically brought in for.
What can Contabo do that Restate cannot?
Contabo covers VPS Hosting, Dedicated Servers, Object Storage, Snapshots. Restate covers Durable execution, Virtual objects, Single binary runtime, Multi-language SDKs.

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
Restate: Is Restate open source?

The SDKs are MIT. The runtime is under a Business Source Licence, which permits self-hosting but not offering it as a competing service.

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
Restate: How does it compare with Temporal?

Same problem, different shape: one Rust binary with embedded storage instead of a server plus database plus workers, and lower per-step latency.

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
Restate: Is there a free tier?

Yes, fifty thousand durable actions a month on Restate Cloud 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
Restate: Which languages are supported?

TypeScript, Java, Kotlin, Go, Python and Rust.

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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