Migrating to Cloud: Choosing the Right VPS

Recently, I published a blog post introducing the concept of self-hosting, titled About Self-Hosting. In that post, I shared how I repurposed my old 2015 notebook into a personal server, primarily for Network Attached Storage (NAS) and hosting several websites I’ve developed.

The system I built requires the notebook to stay powered on continuously, have a static public IP address, and some modifications to my home network—such as enabling port forwarding and configuring the firewall to allow only specific incoming ports. This setup works fine if everything remains unchanged. However, if I switch to a different Internet Service Provider (ISP) and they require me to use their own equipment, self-hosting might no longer be viable, especially if port forwarding is restricted.

I've lived in the same place for 7 years, using the same ISP. They’ve allowed me to use my own OpenWRT router and Wi-Fi access point (AP). In that time, my public IP address has only changed once. Now that I'm moving, I may need to completely reconfigure my network. During this transition, I decided to explore cloud-based VPS (Virtual Private Server) options—and this is how I selected a provider.

Tools 1 : VPSBenchmarks

To get a sense of what's available and how different providers compare in terms of performance and cost, I used a site called VPSBenchmarks.

Best VPS 2025

These are the Best VPS tested in 2025 in 6 price ranges. In the 12 months up to May 2025, VPSBenchmarks benchmarked 120 cloud servers from 46 providers to evaluate their performance as web servers, their capacity to handle heavy loads, their stability and network speed.

VPSBenchmarksVPSBenchmarks

They provided the list of best VPS providers, for different price categories.

What I appreciate most is how they break down and grade various VPS packages by performance metrics like CPU, stability, and network throughput. This makes it easy to compare options side-by-side.

Since I live in Asia, it’s important to find a provider with data centers in this region. Many top-ranked providers like HostUp, Contabo, and Hetzner are EU-focused, meaning they either don’t offer servers in Asia or do so at significantly higher prices. So, I narrowed my focus to Linode, Kamatera, Vultr, and OVHCloud, which have servers in South Korea, Japan, or Singapore.

Tools 2: CloudPingTest

Another useful tool is CloudPingTest, which lets you measure ping latency to different cloud providers (AWS, Azure, GCP, DigitalOcean, etc.) directly from your browser.

Cloud Ping Test (Latency) for different providers like AWS, Azure, GCP

Test ping time (latency) for different cloud providers like AWS, Azure, GCP, Digital Ocean from your web browser.

The website has a minimalist UI—almost like a developer tool 😅—but it’s quite powerful. You can select a server location and test its latency from your current location.

If your service doesn’t require very low latency, you could consider providers based in the EU for their better price-to-performance ratio. That said, for my use case (hosting a blog, portfolio, and personal homepage), I want my visitors to avoid any noticeable delays. I consider any latency under 300ms to be acceptable.

Comparison

As I mentioned earlier, I would be testing VPS from 4 different providers: Linode, Kamatera, Vultr, and OVHCloud. As I would be running some websites using Docker, my minimum hardware requirement for the VPS would be:

1. 1GB of RAM
   1. Docker's minimum system requirement is 512MB, but I wanted more headroom
   2. This number may seem small, but there is a way to expand it using the storage, using swap method
2. 20GB of storage
   1. It is enough for both system files and swap. I planned to allocate 2GB for swap to compensate for the low RAM
   2. Faster storage type (NVMe) will be best, as we are going to use it as swap partition
   3. Adding RAM is so much more expensive compared to adding fast storage

I have no traffic quote consideration, as I'm not planning to host high-traffic or data-heavy services.

Here's what I found:

Linode: Jack of all trades

Linode does everything well enough. The latency is a bit on the higher side, but it is still good enough for my requirement under 300ms. There is also no hardware customization, so we can only have whatever they offer.

Kamatera - Cheap and customizable

Kamatera, on the other hand, offers hardware customization. It lets us to tailor the hardware according to our needs. The storage for the cheapest option is only 20GB, but we can add another 5GB drive with only +0.25 USD. We can use the additional drive as swap partition, which means we still have the whole main drive for storage. It offers quite low latency, but the CPU performance is a bit lacking. Pricewise, it costs the least expensive.

Vultr - Good performance but expensive

Vultr offers a cheaper option than the one I included in the table. The cheapest option that still fits my needs is the Regular Performance 1GB option. However, it is not the one on the top of the list from VPSBenchmarks. Vultr offers the lowest latency and good CPU performance. It also offers free trial options so you can test their services. However, it costs the most, although it is not by huge margin.

OVHCloud - Best performance but high latency

OVHCloud, does not offer any free trial for their VPS, so I have to pay 1-month service to test it out. It offers so much more in terms of hardware specification. The only catch is its high latency. They however provide special pricing if we opt for 2-year commitment, and if we pay it upfront. I do hope that their quality is maintained for the next 2 years.

Conclusion

Here's a quick summary of each provider:

Ultimately, the best VPS depends on your needs—whether it's performance, flexibility, cost, or latency. For my personal purposes, I'm leaning toward OVHCloud, due to the performance and the long-term cost-saving.