Contabo vs Hostinger VPS (2026): Entry Price, Renewal Price, and What You Get

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 Hostinger. Plans and prices below were read on each provider's official page on 13 October 2026 and can change: confirm them before you order.

Quick answer: the two hosts sell the same thing in two very different ways. Hostinger shows a low introductory price, a clear monthly bandwidth allowance, NVMe storage, free weekly backups and a 1 Gbps network. Contabo shows a flat list price, far more CPU and RAM for it, and traffic that is unlimited under a fair-use policy, on a slower port. For a self-hosted VPN you plan to keep for years, Contabo's entry plan costs less over time and never makes you count gigabytes. If you want NVMe, included backups and a faster network port on a small server, Hostinger's KVM 2 is the plan to look at, as long as you budget for the renewal price.

The entry plans side by side

Sources: contabo.com/en/vps and hostinger.com/vps-hosting, both read on 13 October 2026.

Read the price rows with three cautions:

• Currencies differ. Contabo's figure was in euros, Hostinger's in US dollars. Convert at the day's rate before you put them next to each other.
• Introductory versus renewal. Hostinger's $6.49 was displayed with a crossed-out $19.49 and the renewal note quoted above. The price you pay after the first term is the renewal one. Contabo also displayed a lower introductory figure next to its €5.50 list price.
• Tax. Contabo's page has an including/excluding VAT switch. Check which position applies to you, and check how Hostinger shows tax at checkout for your country.

The same CPU count, compared honestly

Hostinger's plan with 4 vCPU is KVM 4, not KVM 1. If you want to compare like with like on CPU:

Hostinger gives twice the RAM and twice the storage, on NVMe, at this tier. It also costs more than twice as much at the introductory rate, and about five times as much at the renewal rate, before any currency conversion. Whether that is worth it depends on whether you need 16 GB of RAM. A VPN does not.

Traffic: a number versus a policy

This is the difference that matters most for a VPN, because a VPN carries everything you do.

• Hostinger states a number. 4 TB a month on KVM 1, 8 TB on KVM 2. You know exactly where the line is. 4 TB is a lot for one person, and less comfortable for a household that streams video through the tunnel all day.
• Contabo states a policy. Traffic is "unlimited" with an asterisk that refers to fair use. You do not count gigabytes, but the limit is not a published figure either.

Neither is better in the abstract. If you like knowing the exact ceiling, Hostinger's model is clearer. If you never want to think about it, Contabo's is simpler.

Two pricing models, one destination: a server you control. The introductory rate and the renewal rate are the two tracks to follow before you choose.

Network speed and storage

Hostinger's page lists a 1 Gbps network speed and NVMe storage across its VPS plans, and names AMD EPYC processors. Contabo's entry plan lists a 200 Mbit/s port and SSD storage, with NVMe offered as an option from Cloud VPS 6 up.

A port speed is a ceiling, not a measurement. We have not benchmarked these plans against each other, so we will not tell you how fast either one is in practice. What the listed figures do tell you: if your home connection is faster than 200 Mbit/s and you want the VPN to keep up with it, Contabo's entry port is the bottleneck on paper, and Hostinger's is not.

Backups

Hostinger's page advertises free weekly backups plus manual snapshots on its VPS plans. Contabo's entry plan lists 1 snapshot. For a VPN server this matters less than for a website: a WireGuard configuration is a handful of small files you can keep a copy of yourself. If you plan to host other services on the same machine, included weekly backups become a real advantage.

Which one should you take?

• You want a VPN server for the long run at the lowest steady price: Contabo Cloud VPS 4. More CPU and RAM than a VPN needs, no traffic counter, and a list price that is not an introductory offer.
• You want NVMe, weekly backups and a 1 Gbps network on a small server: Hostinger KVM 2. Budget for the renewal price shown on the page, not the first-term price.
• You only need a server for a short test: read each host's refund terms first. Hostinger displays a 30-day money-back guarantee on its VPS page.
• You want to compare more hosts before deciding: see Contabo vs Hetzner vs OVH, Contabo vs netcup and Contabo vs DigitalOcean.

See the current Contabo Cloud VPS plans

Setting it up

The installation does not depend on the host: a fresh Debian or Ubuntu image, one UDP port opened in the firewall, and a WireGuard key pair per device. Our Contabo WireGuard guide goes through it step by step, and the same commands work on a Hostinger KVM server.

Summary

Contabo and Hostinger are not far apart on the banner price, and very far apart on what follows. Hostinger sells a small, fast, well-equipped server at an introductory rate that rises sharply on renewal, with a stated bandwidth allowance. Contabo sells a much larger server at a flat list price, on a slower port, with traffic under a fair-use policy. For a personal VPN kept for years, the second model costs less. Compare renewal prices, in the same currency, before you decide.

Start with a Contabo Cloud VPS