1. Small VPS hosts win on price, simplicity and predictability
- “Pricing (both cheaper and more predictable), and reduced complexity.” – nicoburns
- “If you need a lot of power you should also look into dedicated servers from small hosts, they usually have very good power‑to‑cost ratios.” – direwolf20
- “Small VPS hosts are 100 % the way to go.” – OkayPhysicist
2. Big‑cloud providers (AWS, Azure, GCP) are overpriced and complex
- “AWS is the most expensive hosting provider in the world.” – cynicalsecurity
- “AWS outbound data is as much as 75 × the cost of eg Hetzner.” – stephenr
- “AWS is usually not the cheapest EVER when it comes to offerings like EC2.” – unethical_ban
3. Hardware cost pressures (RAM, CPU, storage) are squeezing VPS margins
- “The RAM shortage is hurting VPS providers.” – Imustaskforhelp
- “RAM is still cheaper than 10 years ago.” – direwolf20 (contrasted with) “RAM prices are higher now.” – dijit
- “The AI boom is driving up hardware costs.” – echoed by many comments on the AI‑related surge in CPU/DRAM prices.
4. Geopolitical, privacy and sovereignty concerns drive users toward non‑US, no‑KYC hosts
- “Not being US owned can be an important one in this geopolitical climate.” – Insanity
- “Non‑US providers, no KYC, accept crypto payments.” – drnick1
- “Privacy and sovereignty.” – zeagle
- “Local data center.” – saidinesh5
These four themes capture the dominant arguments in the discussion: cost & simplicity of small VPSs, the high price and complexity of the big clouds, the impact of rising hardware costs (especially RAM) on the VPS market, and the appeal of non‑US, privacy‑friendly providers.