The cheapest ARM VPS is Hetzner's Cloud CAX11: 2 vCPUs, 4 GB of RAM and 40 GB of NVMe for $7.27 a month (€6.49), billed by the hour. netcup's VPS 500 ARM has the same vCPUs and RAM with a 64 GB disk for $8.94 (€7.98), or about $6.61 a month on a 24-month term.
We checked these prices on 11 October 2026. One finding changes the usual advice: ARM is not the cheaper choice any more. Hetzner's x86 plan with the same specs, CX23, costs $6.71, less than its ARM equivalent.
Who sells ARM servers
Only three of the 20 providers we track sell ARM VPS or cloud plans: Hetzner (4 plans), netcup (5) and Scaleway (22). That's 31 plans in all. DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, OVHcloud's VPS range, Contabo and the rest are x86 only in our data.
All of these use 64-bit ARM (arm64, also written aarch64) processors. They are unmanaged Linux servers with root access.
The 10 cheapest ARM VPS plans
| # | Plan | vCPU | RAM | Storage | Price per month | Billing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hetzner Cloud CAX11 | 2 | 4 GB | 40 GB NVMe | $7.27 (€6.49) | Hourly |
| 2 | netcup VPS 500 ARM G12.5 | 2 | 4 GB | 64 GB NVMe | $8.94 (€7.98) | Monthly |
| 3 | Hetzner Cloud CAX21 | 4 | 8 GB | 80 GB NVMe | $12.32 (€10.99) | Hourly |
| 4 | netcup VPS 1000 ARM G12.5 | 4 | 8 GB | 128 GB NVMe | $15.70 (€14.01) | Monthly |
| 5 | Scaleway BASIC2-A2C-4G | 2 | 4 GB | Not included | $18.81 (€16.79) | Hourly |
| 6 | Hetzner Cloud CAX31 | 8 | 16 GB | 160 GB NVMe | $24.08 (€21.49) | Hourly |
| 7 | Scaleway BASIC2-A2C-8G | 2 | 8 GB | Not included | $28.22 (€25.18) | Hourly |
| 8 | netcup VPS 2000 ARM G12.5 | 8 | 16 GB | 256 GB NVMe | $29.15 (€26.01) | Monthly |
| 9 | Scaleway BASIC2-A4C-8G | 4 | 8 GB | Not included | $42.29 (€37.74) | Hourly |
| 10 | Hetzner Cloud CAX41 | 16 | 32 GB | 320 GB NVMe | $46.49 (€41.49) | Hourly |
netcup's prices fall sharply on a 24-month term: VPS 500 ARM to €5.90 (about $6.61), VPS 1000 ARM to €10.35 ($11.60) and VPS 2000 ARM to €19.23 ($21.55), each renewing at that price.
Cheapest overall: Hetzner CAX11
Hetzner's ARM line is the simplest to try. CAX11 gives you 2 vCPUs, 4 GB, 40 GB of NVMe and 20 TB of traffic for €6.49 a month with hourly billing, so you can create one, test your software on ARM for an hour and delete it. The plans are in Germany and Finland.
Best for a long-running server: netcup ARM
netcup's ARM plans have larger disks than Hetzner's at each size (64 GB against 40 GB at 4 GB of RAM) and unmetered traffic, and they are offered in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and the United States. Paid monthly they cost more than Hetzner; on a 24-month term the 4 GB plan is the cheapest ARM server in our data at about $6.61 a month.
Scaleway: ARM without the disk
Scaleway has by far the most ARM sizes, from 2 vCPUs up to 64, in France and the Netherlands. Its BASIC2-A and STANDARD2-A instances are priced without local storage, so the figures in the table are for compute only and you add block storage on top. That, and a higher starting price ($18.81 for 2 vCPUs and 4 GB), keeps Scaleway out of the budget picks. It is the place to look for large ARM machines or dedicated ARM cores.
Is ARM cheaper than x86? Not in our data
This is the comparison that matters, same provider and same size:
| Size | Hetzner ARM | Hetzner x86 | netcup ARM | netcup x86 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 vCPU, 4 GB | CAX11, $7.27 | CX23, $6.71 | VPS 500 ARM, $8.94 | VPS 500, $8.94 |
| 4 vCPU, 8 GB | CAX21, $12.32 | CX33, $10.07 | VPS 1000 ARM, $15.70 | VPS 1000, $15.70 |
| 8 vCPU, 16 GB | CAX31, $24.08 | CX43, $18.48 | VPS 2000 ARM, $29.15 | VPS 2000, $29.15 |
At Hetzner, ARM costs 8% more at the smallest size and 30% more at 16 GB. At netcup the two are the same price, and the ARM plans come with NVMe disks where the x86 ones list SSD.
And neither provider's ARM plan is the cheapest way to get these specs. OVHcloud's x86 VPS-1 has 2 vCPUs and 4 GB for $5.03 (€4.49), and Contabo's Cloud VPS 4 has 4 vCPUs and 8 GB for $6.16 (€5.50). If price is your only reason for considering ARM, buy x86. Our 4 GB and 16 GB rankings list those plans.
When ARM is still the right choice
- You deploy to ARM elsewhere. If production runs on ARM, or your team develops on Apple Silicon laptops, an ARM server keeps builds and behavior consistent.
- You build images for ARM devices. An
arm64server builds containers for Raspberry Pi-class hardware natively, without emulation. - You want netcup's NVMe at the same price. The ARM plans are the NVMe option in netcup's regular VPS line in our data.
- You are testing compatibility. An hour on a CAX11 costs about a cent.
Software compatibility
Most server software runs on arm64 without changes. The mainstream Linux distributions, Nginx, Apache, PostgreSQL, MySQL and MariaDB, Redis, Node.js, Python, Go, Java, PHP and Docker all publish ARM builds.
The problems come from the edges:
- Docker images built only for x86. Official images are usually multi-architecture. Smaller projects sometimes aren't, and an x86-only image won't run natively. Check the image's supported platforms first. Our Docker VPS guide covers this.
- Closed-source binaries. Proprietary agents, some game servers and older commercial tools may ship for x86 only.
- Native modules. Packages that compile C or C++ code during install (some Node.js and Python libraries) need a compiler on the server or a prebuilt ARM binary. Most popular ones have one.
- Control panels. Check that your hosting panel supports ARM before you plan a server around it.
If your stack is a common web framework, a database and a reverse proxy, you are unlikely to hit any of these.
FAQ
What is the cheapest ARM VPS?
Hetzner Cloud CAX11 at $7.27 a month (€6.49), billed hourly. On a 24-month contract, netcup's VPS 500 ARM is lower at about $6.61 a month (€5.90).
Is ARM cheaper than x86?
Not in our data. Hetzner's ARM plans cost 8% to 30% more than its x86 plans of the same size, netcup charges the same for both, and the cheapest x86 plans from OVHcloud and Contabo undercut every ARM plan.
Will my software run on an ARM VPS?
Almost certainly, if it's open-source server software or a Docker image published for arm64. Check any proprietary binaries and less common images before you commit.
Which providers offer ARM servers?
Hetzner, netcup and Scaleway, among the 20 providers we track.
The bottom line
For ARM specifically, Hetzner's CAX11 at $7.27 is the cheapest with hourly billing and netcup's VPS 500 ARM at $6.61 the cheapest on a two-year term. For the lowest price at the same specs, x86 now wins: Hetzner's own CX23 is $6.71 and OVHcloud's VPS-1 is $5.03. Choose ARM because you need ARM, not to save money.
See every ARM plan, sorted live, on the VPS hosting page and the cloud servers page.
