In a crowded market where users are often forced to choose between low cost or high performance, the European giant OVHcloud has made a significant move with an offer that seems almost too good to be true: a VPS with 4 vCores, 8 GB of RAM, and 75 GB NVMe for just €3.82 + VAT per month. This proposition has garnered interest from developers, sysadmins, and hosting enthusiasts worldwide.
But is it truly a “steal” with no catch or just aggressive marketing?
OVHcloud, the European cloud heavyweight
Founded in 1999 in France, OVHcloud has established itself as Europe’s largest cloud provider and one of the leading global players. The company operates over 30 data centers across Europe, North America, and Asia-Pacific, and is known for its competitive prices and robust infrastructure suitable for businesses of all sizes.
Their business model is built on three main pillars: powerful hardware, generous bandwidth, and affordable rates. However, this new promotion exceeds even their usual standards and threatens to shake up the low-cost VPS market, where competitors like Hetzner, Contabo, and DigitalOcean have been dominant in quality-to-price comparisons.
The specs: a “category-defying” VPS
OVH’s offer focuses on a VPS with features that typically cost around €15-20 per month with most competitors:
- CPU: 4 vCores based on Intel processors (Haswell in this case).
- RAM: 8 GB.
- Storage: 75 GB in NVMe SSD, providing read/write speeds far surpassing traditional SATA SSDs.
- Virtualization: OpenStack Nova.
- Network: IPv4 and IPv6 included.
To put it in perspective, in this price range (under €5), most options usually provide 1-2 cores and 1-2 GB of RAM, often with slower disks. This VPS quadruples those figures, offering an unprecedented power-to-price ratio.
Performance test results
Recent tests on an OVH server in Germany (Roubaix, Hauts-de-France) provide concrete performance data:
Geekbench 5:
- Single Core: 787
- Multi Core: 2761
SysBench CPU (5s):
- Single-threaded: 970
- Multi-threaded (4 threads): 3648
Memory (SysBench):
- Read: 21,464 MB/s
- Write: 15,504 MB/s
Disk tests (fio, 50/50 R/W):
- 4K read/write: 80 MB/s (~20K IOPS)
- 64K read/write: about 1.35-1.36 GB/s (~21K IOPS)
- 512K-1M read/write: up to 5.8 GB/s combined
These results confirm that NVMe isn’t just a marketing buzzword; its speed rivals high-end disks, translating into faster application loads, agile database queries, and a smooth experience with lightweight virtualization environments like Docker or Kubernetes.
Possible use cases
A VPS with these specs covers a broad range of needs. Some attractive scenarios include:
High-performance web hosting
Ideal for multiple CMS-based sites (WordPress, Joomla, Drupal), with enough RAM for caching (Redis, Memcached) and databases (MySQL/MariaDB).Development and CI/CD environments
With 4 cores, it can compile medium-large projects, run CI/CD pipelines in GitLab or GitHub Actions, and deploy Docker Compose apps without running out of memory.Game servers
Titles like Minecraft, Terraria, or Valheim can run smoothly, supporting many concurrent players.Personal cloud and multimedia
Tools like Nextcloud, Jellyfin, or Plex operate seamlessly, enabling private storage, file sync, and streaming with real-time transcoding.Cybersecurity labs
Security professionals and sysadmins needing isolated environments for pentesting, honeypots, or network simulations will find this VPS economical and flexible.
Important considerations
This incredible low price also comes with limitations and caveats:
Self-management required: OVH offers these plans without advanced support. Server management (installation, security, backups) falls entirely on the user.
International latency: Data centers are in Europe, so users in Asia or Latin America may experience latencies over 150-200 ms unless they use a CDN.
Shared resources: Like any VPS, performance may vary depending on the physical node’s load.
Basic support: As a promotional product, ticket response times might be longer than in higher-tier plans.
Companies already relying on these solutions
In Spain, companies like Color Vivo Internet incorporate these solutions into their hosting offerings, providing optimized VPS for WordPress and WooCommerce.
Depending on project scale, Color Vivo leverages OVH VPS infrastructure and also employs private cloud solutions from Stackscale (Grupo Aire), deployed in high-availability data centers in Madrid. This approach caters to everything from small online shops to large corporate platforms demanding performance and data sovereignty within Spain.
Is OVH launching an aggressive strategy?
Some experts believe this promotion might be part of a mass customer acquisition strategy targeting emerging markets and individual developers. By offering mid-range resources at low prices, OVH aims to build loyalty with users who may later upgrade to premium services like Public Cloud, Bare Metal servers, or enterprise solutions.
The competitive landscape also plays a role:
- Hetzner remains the price/performance leader but generally offers traditional SSD VPS.
- Contabo stands out for larger disk capacities, albeit at slightly higher prices.
- DigitalOcean and Linode prioritize user experience and support but rarely match these low rates.
With this move, OVH seems intent on redefining the notion of an affordable VPS, demonstrating that low cost doesn’t necessarily mean limited performance.
Final thoughts
OVH’s offer of a VPS with 4 vCores, 8 GB RAM, and 75 GB NVMe for just €3.82 + VAT isn’t just marketing hype; it’s a tangible, powerful proposition that combines considerable capacity with a difficult-to-beat price point.
For tech-savvy users, developers needing an inexpensive yet robust environment, or small businesses looking to cut infrastructure costs, this could be one of the most attractive options of 2025.
However, it’s important to recognize that this isn’t a “for everyone” product: the need for self-management and potential performance variability make it more suitable for sysadmins, developers, and enthusiast users than those unfamiliar with server administration.