Affiliate disclosure - This article contains Contabo affiliate links. If you order a VPS via our links, we earn a commission at no extra cost to you. We have no partnership with DigitalOcean. Contabo's plans were read on its official page on 13 October 2026 and DigitalOcean's on its pricing page and billing documentation on 14 October 2026. Prices change: confirm them before you order.
Short answer: for a VPN server you keep running month after month, Contabo gives far more machine for the money: its entry plan listed 4 vCPU and 8 GB of RAM for 5.50 euros a month, where DigitalOcean's equivalent Droplet listed at 48 dollars. DigitalOcean wins when you want a small server for hours or days, billed per second, in a precise city, with a published transfer allowance and a polished control panel. If you are setting up one long-lived WireGuard server, start with Contabo. If you want to spin up a test server, try a location for an afternoon, or delete and recreate servers often, DigitalOcean fits better.
The plans side by side
| Contabo Cloud VPS 4 | DigitalOcean Basic (4 dollars) | DigitalOcean Basic (6 dollars) | DigitalOcean Basic (48 dollars) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Listed price | 5.50 €/month | $4/month | $6/month | $48/month |
| vCPU | 4 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| RAM | 8 GB | 512 MiB | 1 GiB | 8 GiB |
| Storage | 100 GB SSD | 10 GiB SSD | 25 GiB SSD | 160 GiB SSD |
| Traffic | Unlimited, with an asterisk (fair use) | 500 GiB outbound | 1,000 GiB outbound | 5,000 GiB outbound |
| Port speed | 200 Mbit/s | Not shown on the pricing page | Not shown on the pricing page | Not shown on the pricing page |
| Billing | Monthly, term set at order | Per second, 60-second minimum, capped at the monthly price | Same | Same |
Sources: contabo.com/en/vps (13 October 2026), digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets and DigitalOcean's bandwidth billing documentation (14 October 2026).
Two cautions when you read this table:
- The currencies differ. Contabo lists in euros, DigitalOcean in dollars. Convert at the day's rate, but note that the gap at equal resources (5.50 euros against 48 dollars for 4 vCPU and 8 GB) is far larger than any exchange rate.
- "Unlimited" and "500 GiB" are different kinds of promise. DigitalOcean gives a number you can plan around, and its documentation says extra outbound transfer costs 0.01 dollar per GiB and that allowances are pooled across all Droplets on a team. Contabo gives a fair-use policy rather than a figure.
Where Contabo is ahead
- Resources per euro. At equal vCPU and RAM, the listed price is several times lower. For a VPN, that headroom lets you run other small services on the same machine.
- No counting gigabytes. Traffic is unlimited subject to fair use, which is simpler if a whole household streams through the tunnel.
- Regions where your users are. Contabo's VPS page lists the European Union, the United Kingdom, the United States, Singapore, Japan, India and Australia.
Where DigitalOcean is ahead
- Per-second billing. Its pricing page says Droplets are billed per second with a 60-second minimum. Create a server, test a location, delete it, and you pay for the minutes you used.
- A very small entry point. The 4 dollar Droplet is cheaper than any Contabo plan, if 512 MiB of RAM is enough for you.
- Named cities. Its Droplets page lists San Francisco, Richmond, New York, Kansas City, Atlanta, Toronto, Amsterdam, London, Frankfurt, Bangalore, Singapore and Sydney.
- Automatic weekly backups as an option, priced by DigitalOcean at 20% of the Droplet's cost.
Per-second billing against a monthly plan: run the numbers for how long your server will really stay on.
Which one should you choose for a VPN?
- One WireGuard server you keep for months: Contabo Cloud VPS 4. More resources than a VPN needs, no traffic counter, and the lowest monthly cost per resource.
- A test, a trip, or a server you recreate often: DigitalOcean, billed per second.
- You need a specific city, such as Toronto, Bangalore or Amsterdam: check DigitalOcean's list first.
- You need Japan, India or Australia at a low monthly price: Contabo lists all three.
See the current Contabo Cloud VPS plans
What neither pricing page tells you
- IP reputation. Some streaming services and networks block data centre ranges. No host publishes this, and nobody can guarantee it.
- Real throughput at peak times. We have not benchmarked these plans against each other, so we are not giving you a speed figure.
- Support on the day something breaks. Read recent user reports rather than a comparison table.
Setting it up
The installation does not depend on the host: a fresh Debian or Ubuntu image, one UDP port open in the firewall, and a WireGuard key pair per device. Our Contabo WireGuard guide walks through it step by step, and the same commands work on a DigitalOcean Droplet. For other European hosts, see Contabo vs Hetzner vs OVH, Contabo vs netcup and Contabo vs Hostinger, or the cheapest VPS for WireGuard. If you are weighing several hosts at once, see Contabo alternatives by reason for leaving.
Summary
Contabo and DigitalOcean sell different things. Contabo sells a large server at a low monthly price with traffic under a fair-use policy. DigitalOcean sells small, flexible servers billed per second, with a published transfer allowance and a long list of named cities. For a personal VPN that stays on, the first model costs far less. For short-lived or frequently rebuilt servers, the second is easier.
Start with a Contabo Cloud VPS
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