OVHcloud vs Contabo
OVHcloud Public Cloud rents OpenStack VMs billed by the second, with GPUs, quotas and a whole cloud around them. Contabo rents a KVM server by the month, which is hard to beat for one box that never stops but pays a full month for every short job.
The companies and products
OVHcloud
OVHcloud is a French cloud provider; its Public Cloud rents OpenStack virtual machines, storage and networking by the second.
A Public Cloud instance is a Linux or Windows VM picked from families such as General Purpose (B3), Compute (C3), Memory (R3), GPU and the shared-resource Discovery range (D2). You run your own software on it, next to OVHcloud products like private networks, gateways, load balancers, Kubernetes and object storage, through a Control Panel, an API or OpenStack tools. It is general infrastructure, not an agent sandbox, so this page compares the two where they overlap: giving an agent its own Linux machine.
Contabo
Contabo is a German hosting company, founded in Munich in 2003, that rents VPS, dedicated-core VDS, GPU and dedicated servers by the month.
A Contabo Cloud VPS is a KVM virtual machine with shared vCPU cores, a fixed RAM allocation, a static IPv4 and root access, which you order, pay for and then manage yourself. It is a VPS host, not a sandbox product: there is no per-second billing, no agent tooling and no managed HTTPS in front of the server. It fits people who want one cheap server that runs all month in a region of their choice.
Which use cases each one fits
For each use case, Battleships prices every sandbox provider on the same workload and sorts them from the cheapest monthly bill up. “29th cheapest of 377” means 28 of the other 376 providers run that workload, with every feature it needs, for less. “With limits” means the provider runs it but misses something, so it is listed after every full match. Open a use case for its whole ranking and what each provider misses.
| Use case and its workload | OVHcloud: price rank | Contabo: price rank | bochka: price rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software factory 100 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 2,200 sessions of 8 h a month A software factory starts and stops many machines a day, which OVHcloud does by API per second and Contabo cannot do without monthly rents; bochka adds agents, snapshots and free stops. | 90th of 367, with limits $814 a month | 79th of 367, with limits $660 a month | 3rd cheapest of 367 $634 a month |
| Always-on AI employees 50 machines 24/7 · 2 vCPU / 4 GB | 136th of 366, with limits $934 a month | 95th of 366, with limits $330 a month | 5th cheapest of 366 $657 a month |
| Code interpreter bursts 100 at once · 1 vCPU / 2 GB · 200,000 sessions of 1 min a month OVHcloud fits short code runs far better than Contabo, since it bills by the second after a 1-minute minimum while Contabo rents each server for a month. | 56th of 345, with limits $43 a month | 159th of 345, with limits $660 a month | 186th of 345, with limits $2,000 a month |
| Sandboxes for your users 300 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 30,000 sessions of 23 min a month Neither fits 300 sandboxes at once without asking first: OVHcloud's quota for that many is not confirmed, and Contabo would mean renting 300 servers for the month; bochka ranks 1st. | 43rd of 361, with limits $299 a month | 153rd of 361, with limits $1,980 a month | Cheapest of 361 $209 a month |
| RL rollouts 1,000 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 1,000,000 sessions of 3 min a month OVHcloud ranks 27th for RL rollouts thanks to per-second billing, ahead of bochka at 34th and far ahead of Contabo at 108th. | 27th of 360, with limits $1,280 a month | 108th of 360, with limits $6,600 a month | 34th of 360, with limits $2,000 a month |
| Agent evals 250 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 15,000 sessions of 20 min a month | 99th of 364, with limits $231 a month | 177th of 364, with limits $1,650 a month | 10th cheapest of 364 $200 a month |
| CI runners 40 at once · 8 vCPU / 16 GB · 6,000 sessions of 12 min a month Both run Docker builds on a full VM, but an OVHcloud runner can be deleted between jobs while a Contabo runner is rented all month, busy or not. | 29th cheapest of 377 $300 a month | 133rd cheapest of 377 $2,980 a month | 4th cheapest of 377 $86 a month |
| 24/7 dev boxes 1 machine 24/7 · 4 vCPU / 8 GB Contabo ranks 1st here: a flat monthly rent buys a 4 vCPU / 8 GB box with root and a static IPv4, while OVHcloud ranks 23rd and bochka ranks 18th. | 23rd cheapest of 368 $34 a month | Cheapest of 368 $6.6 a month | 18th cheapest of 368 $26 a month |
| Computer-use agents 50 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 20,000 sessions of 15 min a month Both are headless servers where you install and stream a desktop yourself; bochka ships a 60fps desktop with Chromium and computer use. | 108th of 369, with limits $231 a month | 140th of 369, with limits $330 a month | 6th cheapest of 369 $200 a month |
| Browser-use agents 50 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 30,000 sessions of 10 min a month | 174th of 367, with limits $128 a month | 232nd of 367, with limits $330 a month | 7th cheapest of 367 $200 a month |
| Scraping & bots (startup scale) 50 at once · 1 vCPU / 2 GB · 100,000 sessions of 3 min a month | 159th of 346, with limits $65 a month | 258th of 346, with limits $330 a month | 6th cheapest of 346 $90 a month |
| Mass scraping & bots (undetectable) 1,000 at once · 1 vCPU / 2 GB · 3,000,000 sessions of 2 min a month | 47th of 338, with limits $1,290 a month | 184th of 338, with limits $6,600 a month | 71st of 338, with limits $1,800 a month |
| Parallel red teaming 200 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 5,000 sessions of 30 min a month Many short parallel attacks suit per-second OVHcloud over monthly Contabo, and bochka ranks 2nd with fork of a running sandbox and free stops. | 120th of 360, with limits $64 a month | 321st of 360, with limits $1,320 a month | 2nd cheapest of 360 $200 a month |
| GPU eval jobs 10 at once · 8 vCPU / 32 GB · 500 sessions of 30 min a month | Can't run it | Can't run it | Can't run it |
| macOS agents 5 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 1,000 sessions of 20 min a month | Can't run it | Can't run it | Can't run it |
Key features
| Feature | OVHcloud | Contabo | bochka |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | General OpenStack VMs next to networks, Kubernetes and storage | Monthly-rented VPS and VDS servers you set up yourself | Sandbox VMs for agents, started and stopped from an API |
| Billing | Per second after a 1-minute minimum, until you delete the instance | Monthly rent, minimum first term of one month; listed prices assume a 24-month term | Monthly plan from $20 turned into usage credit, spent per second while running |
| Isolation | Full KVM VM with its own kernel | KVM VM; Cloud VPS shares vCPU cores, Cloud VDS has dedicated cores | Full VM with its own kernel on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X hosts |
| Starting a machine | From the API, Control Panel or OpenStack tools; boot time not published | Order and pay, then a few minutes of provisioning; orders can need identity checks | A new sandbox from the API in seconds |
| Nested virtualization | vmx flag passed, but a live migration can make the guest kernel panic | Not supported on any VPS plan; supported on Cloud VDS | /dev/kvm on every machine, documented |
| Stopping | Turned-off and paused instances bill at the same rate; shelving bills only a disk snapshot | No stop that saves money; the rent runs all month | A stopped sandbox costs nothing and keeps its disk |
| Saved state | On-demand instance backups, or a schedule such as daily backups | 1 to 5 manual disk snapshots by plan, kept 30 days; none on Cloud VDS | Automatic snapshots every minute and on stop |
| Fork | Back up an instance, then create a new one from it (disk, no memory) | No fork; snapshots restore in place | Fork a running sandbox in one call (disk, no memory) |
| Desktop and computer use | None built in; you install a desktop and connect over SSH or RDP | Headless server; a VNC console for setup and rescue | 60fps desktop and Chromium, computer use and browser control, embeddable stream |
| Coding agents | None; you install and drive agents yourself over SSH | None built in; 1-Click images for apps like n8n, Ollama and OpenClaw | Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and more preinstalled, with a prompt, steer and events API |
| Keeping keys out of the machine | No credentials proxy; secrets live on the instance | None; secrets live inside the server | AI credentials proxy for model providers and any HTTPS API you register |
| Reaching the machine | Public IPv4 on any port; HTTPS needs your own certificates or a load balancer | Static IPv4 and a /64 IPv6, all ports; domains and TLS are yours to set up | HTTPS URLs with TLS for up to 50 ports, token-protected; raw TCP; own IP |
| GPUs and Windows | Nvidia L4 and L40S instances by the hour; Windows Server with the license included | GPU VPS with an Nvidia RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell; Windows Server as a licensed add-on | No GPUs; no Windows guests (Wine for Windows apps) |
| Regions | Europe, Canada, the US, Singapore and Sydney, plus Local Zones | 11 locations: EU, UK, US, Singapore, Japan, India and Australia | EU only: Germany, Finland, France |
Every feature Battleships tracks (43)
| Feature | OVHcloud | Contabo | bochka |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full VM (own kernel) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Docker inside | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Nested virtualization | Yes | No | Yes |
| Root | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Systemd | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Desktop GUI | No | No | Yes |
| Browser | No | No | Yes |
| Computer-use API | No | No | Yes |
| SSH | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Persistent disk | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Pause/resume | Yes | No | Yes |
| Automatic snapshots | Yes | No | Yes |
| Fork/clone | Yes | No | Yes |
| Live fork (no pause) | Yes | No | Yes |
| Memory fork | No | No | No |
| Custom image (Docker or snapshot) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| ≥24 h sessions | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Idle auto-stop | No | No | No |
| Wake on request | No | No | No |
| HTTPS preview URLs | No | No | Yes |
| Raw TCP inbound | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Public IPv4 | Yes | Yes | No |
| Egress allowlist | Yes | No | No |
| Secret proxy | No | No | Yes |
| Secret proxy for any API | No | No | Yes |
| Preinstalled agents | No | No | Yes |
| Agent harness API | No | No | Yes |
| MCP server | No | No | No |
| GPU | Yes | Yes | No |
| Windows | Yes | Yes | No |
| Arm64 | No | No | No |
| Self-hosting | No | No | No |
| BYOC | No | No | No |
| Open source | No | No | No |
| Scoped API keys | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Spend limits | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Usage per sandbox (API) | No | No | Yes |
| Audit logs | Not published | Not published | No |
| SSO | Yes | No | No |
| SOC 2 | Yes | No | No |
| HIPAA | Yes | No | No |
| EU data residency | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Zero data retention | Not published | Not published | Yes |
Performance
Neither OVHcloud nor Contabo was part of the public StarSling benchmark run, so there is no comparable CPU measurement for either. bochka did 26.69 Node.js build-and-test runs per second at 4 vCPU / 8 GB on that run. The prices here use OVHcloud's Discovery d2 instances and Contabo's Cloud VPS, which both share their CPU cores, so heavy sustained builds can slow down on either.
Node.js build-and-test loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, higher is better. Measured with the open hpc-sandbox-benchmarks suite. OVHcloud and Contabo have no published run in this suite yet, so there is no like-for-like number to compare.
Pricing in five scenarios
Each bill is priced from the providers' public price lists by the open Battleships engine, with the cheapest plan that runs the scenario.
| Scenario | OVHcloud, a month | Contabo, a month | bochka, a month |
|---|---|---|---|
| One coding agent, workdays 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, 8 hours a day, 22 days a month, files kept between days | $8 · Usage account | $7 · Usage account | $20 · $20/mo |
| One agent that never stops 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, running 24/7 all month | $34 · Usage account | $7 · Usage account | $26 · $20/mo |
| 50 agents in parallel 50 machines of 4 vCPU / 8 GB at once, 8-hour sessions, 1,100 sessions a month, Docker inside | $406 · Usage account | $330 · Usage account | $317 · $20/mo × 3 seats |
| Sandboxes for your users 2 vCPU / 4 GB, 30,000 sessions of 10 minutes a month, up to 300 at once | $128 · Usage account · with limits | $1,980 · Usage account · with limits | $200 · $100/mo × 2 seats |
| 1,000 short jobs at once 2 vCPU / 4 GB, 1,000 at once, 3 minutes each, 200,000 jobs a month | $256 · Usage account · with limits | $6,600 · Usage account · with limits | $2,000 · $2000/mo · with limits |
OVHcloud: OVHcloud bills every second an instance exists, after a 1-minute minimum, until you delete it; turned-off and paused instances bill at the same rate, and shelved ones bill only their snapshot. Since October 2026, B3, C3 and R3 instances also bill local storage and a public IPv4 on top.
Contabo: Contabo charges a flat monthly rent per server, busy or idle, with a minimum first term of one month and lower rates for longer terms. Every machine you need at the same time is a full month's rent.
Contabo: You pick a monthly plan from $20, and all of it becomes usage credit spent per second on running sandboxes. A stopped sandbox costs nothing and keeps its disk.
Limits in those scenarios
OVHcloud raises quotas in steps of 20, 50, 100 and 200 VMs by buying prepaid credit, so 300 user sandboxes or 1,000 short jobs at once need support first. Contabo publishes no limit on servers per account, but each one takes a few minutes after payment and a month of rent, so 1,000 short jobs at once comes to $6,600 against $256 on OVHcloud. On bochka, 300 user sandboxes fit for $200, but start-rate limits mean even the top plan queues the 1,000-job burst.
| Scenario | OVHcloud | Contabo | bochka |
|---|---|---|---|
| One coding agent, workdays | None that bite |
| None that bite |
| One agent that never stops | None that bite | None that bite | None that bite |
| 50 agents in parallel |
|
| None that bite |
| Sandboxes for your users |
|
| None that bite |
| 1,000 short jobs at once |
|
|
|
Which one should you use?
Use OVHcloud when
machines come and go during the day, or when you need GPUs by the hour, Windows Server, private networks and managed services in one cloud.
- Billing by the second. Useful if machines come and go: OVHcloud bills each second after a 1-minute minimum, so a short job pays for minutes, not a month.
- A whole cloud around the server. Useful if the machine must sit on private networks next to Kubernetes, load balancers and object storage, with outbound security group rules.
- GPUs by the hour. Useful if your agents run models: OVHcloud rents Nvidia L4 and L40S instances by the hour.
Use Contabo when
you want one cheap server that runs all month, a GPU on a monthly rent, or a machine in Asia, the UK or Australia.
- One server that runs all month. Useful for one always-on box: a flat monthly rent buys a 4 vCPU / 8 GB Cloud VPS with a static IPv4.
- More places to run. Useful if your users are in Asia or the UK: Contabo also has servers in Japan, India, Singapore and the UK.
- A big GPU on a monthly rent. Useful if you want a fixed-price GPU machine: Contabo rents a VPS with an Nvidia RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell.
Where bochka fits
OVHcloud and Contabo both rent plain servers that start empty, and you build the agent setup on top. If what you are really running is agents, bochka gives each one a full VM that is ready to work: coding agents, a desktop, HTTPS ports and snapshots every minute built in, and stops that cost nothing.
Stops that keep the disk
Agents sit idle between tasks. A turned-off OVHcloud instance bills at the full rate unless you shelve it, and a Contabo server is rented for the month whether busy or not. A stopped bochka sandbox costs nothing and keeps its disk.
Saved every minute, and fork while running
When an agent wrecks a machine, OVHcloud's scheduled backups can be a day old and Contabo has 1 to 5 manual snapshots you must remember to take. bochka snapshots every minute and forks a running sandbox in one call.
Agents, a desktop and /dev/kvm ready
On both, you install the agents, the desktop and the keys yourself, and the agent can read those keys. Nested VMs can crash on an OVHcloud live migration and need pricier Cloud VDS on Contabo; bochka has them, plus a credentials proxy.
Use bochka when agents start, stop and fork machines all day: each sandbox is a full VM from an API in seconds, saved every minute, with a desktop, HTTPS ports and coding agents you drive from outside. Compare it one to one: bochka vs OVHcloud and bochka vs Contabo.
Questions people ask
Is OVHcloud cheaper than Contabo?
For one server that runs all month, no: Contabo comes to $7 a month against $34 on OVHcloud. For short or bursty work, yes: 300 user sandboxes come to $128 on OVHcloud against $1,980 on Contabo, because Contabo rents each server for a month. 50 agents in parallel come to $406 on OVHcloud, $330 on Contabo and $317 on bochka.
Which is faster, OVHcloud or Contabo?
There is no comparable measurement: neither was in the StarSling benchmark run, where bochka did 26.69 runs per second at 4 vCPU / 8 GB. The cheap tiers of both share CPU cores, so sustained heavy work can slow down; OVHcloud's B3 and C3 and Contabo's Cloud VDS have dedicated cores.
Does Contabo bill by the hour like OVHcloud?
No. Contabo rents servers by the month with a minimum first term of one month. OVHcloud bills by the second after a 1-minute minimum, but a turned-off instance still bills until you delete or shelve it. bochka bills per second while a sandbox runs, and a stopped one costs nothing.
Can OVHcloud and Contabo run Docker and nested VMs?
Both give root on a full VM, so Docker works. OVHcloud passes the vmx flag, but warns a live migration can make the guest kernel panic; Contabo does not support nested virtualization on any VPS plan, only on Cloud VDS. Every bochka sandbox has Docker, systemd and /dev/kvm.
Can I run Claude Code on OVHcloud or Contabo?
Yes, on either you install it yourself and run it over SSH with your API key on the server. bochka preinstalls Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and others, drives them through an API, and keeps real keys out of the sandbox with its credentials proxy.
Where do OVHcloud, Contabo and bochka run?
OVHcloud runs in Europe, Canada, the US, Singapore and Sydney. Contabo has 11 locations in the EU, the UK, the US, Singapore, Japan, India and Australia. bochka runs only in the EU, in Germany, Finland and France, with EU data residency.
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