Vultr vs IONOS Cloud
Vultr and IONOS Cloud both rent plain KVM servers that you set up yourself. Vultr spreads them over 33 locations with many GPU types and bills by the hour, while IONOS is a German cloud that bills its Cubes by the minute and can filter outbound traffic.
The companies and products
Vultr
Vultr is a general-purpose cloud, and Cloud Compute is its line of KVM virtual servers.
A Vultr instance is a Linux or Windows VM you rent by size, with root, a public IPv4, local SSD or NVMe and a monthly transfer allowance. You choose shared vCPU plans (Regular, High Performance, High Frequency) or dedicated vCPU plans (Optimized Cloud Compute, VX1), and run your own software next to Vultr block storage, file systems, VPCs, Kubernetes, bare metal and GPUs. It is a server host, not an agent sandbox, so this page compares the two where they overlap: giving an agent its own Linux machine.
IONOS Cloud
IONOS Cloud is the public cloud of IONOS, a German hosting company in the United Internet group. It is a hyperscaler-style IaaS cloud, not an agent sandbox.
You rent KVM virtual machines: Cubes (fixed sizes from 1 to 16 vCPU with a local NVMe disk, billed by the minute), vCPU servers up to 60 vCPU and 230 GB of RAM, Dedicated Core servers and H200 GPU VMs. You build them in the Data Center Designer or through the Cloud API, SDKs and Terraform, next to block storage, private networks, firewalls and managed services. It is for teams that want to run their own servers in Germany, the rest of Europe or the US, and set up everything on them themselves.
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. “47th cheapest of 364” means 46 of the other 363 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 | Vultr: price rank | IONOS Cloud: price rank | bochka: price rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software factory 100 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 2,200 sessions of 8 h a month Both give a root KVM machine where Docker runs, but neither ships agents, a desktop or automatic snapshots; bochka ranks 3rd here with all three built in. | 114th of 367, with limits $1,060 a month | 64th of 367, with limits $492 a month | 3rd cheapest of 367 $634 a month |
| Always-on AI employees 50 machines 24/7 · 2 vCPU / 4 GB | 144th of 366, with limits $1,000 a month | 107th of 366, with limits $540 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 | 168th of 345, with limits $1,000 a month | 53rd of 345, with limits $27 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 Vultr nor IONOS publishes how many machines a new account can run at once, so 300 user sandboxes need a support request first; bochka ranks 1st with 100 to 2,000 sandboxes by plan. | 98th of 361, with limits $899 a month | 35th of 361, with limits $182 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 IONOS ranks 9th thanks to per-minute billing, while Vultr bills every started hour and ranks 179th. | 179th of 360, with limits $20,000 a month | 9th of 360, with limits $740 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 | 47th cheapest of 364 $893 a month | 93rd of 364, with limits $137 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 IONOS ranks 1st for CI runners at $60 a month and bochka 4th at $86, while Vultr's hourly minimum puts it 91st. | 91st cheapest of 377 $857 a month | Cheapest of 377 $60 a month | 4th cheapest of 377 $86 a month |
| 24/7 dev boxes 1 machine 24/7 · 4 vCPU / 8 GB A dev box that stays on all month suits both clouds: IONOS comes to $20, bochka $26 and Vultr $40. | 28th cheapest of 368 $40 a month | 9th cheapest of 368 $20 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 Neither cloud has a desktop stream or computer-use tools, so you install one yourself; bochka ranks 6th with a 60fps desktop built in. | 252nd of 369, with limits $1,190 a month | 86th of 369, with limits $137 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 Both clouds give you a headless server for browser agents, and bochka ranks 7th with Chromium and browser control ready. | 300th of 367, with limits $894 a month | 156th of 367, with limits $74 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 | 175th of 346, with limits $89 a month | 153rd of 346, with limits $40 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 | 72nd of 338, with limits $1,818 a month | 39th of 338, with limits $897 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 | 168th of 360, with limits $150 a month | 105th of 360, with limits $38 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 Both clouds rent GPUs: Vultr has many Nvidia and AMD types, IONOS has H200 only, and bochka has none. | 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 | Vultr | IONOS Cloud | bochka |
|---|---|---|---|
| What you get | A general KVM server you set up and run yourself | General-purpose cloud servers (Cubes, vCPU and Dedicated Core servers) plus storage and networks | A sandbox API for agents, on full VMs |
| Isolation | Every instance is a KVM VM with its own kernel | Every server is a KVM VM with its own kernel | Every sandbox is a full VM with its own kernel |
| Docker and nested virtualization | Root and Docker; virtualization documented for VX1 and bare metal only | Root Linux VM where you install Docker; your own VMs inside are not documented | Docker, root, systemd and /dev/kvm on every machine, documented |
| Billing unit | Every started hour; most plans capped at 672 hours a month | Cubes billed by the minute at a fixed rate per size | Per second, from a monthly plan that becomes usage credit |
| Stopping a machine | A stopped instance is billed in full until you destroy it | A suspended Cube keeps billing; you snapshot and delete it to stop paying | A stopped sandbox costs nothing and keeps its disk |
| Snapshots | Manual disk snapshots that can take up to 30 minutes, usable in any region | Manual full snapshots of one volume, usable only in the same location | Automatic snapshots every minute and on stop |
| Fork | Snapshot, then deploy new instances from it (disk, no memory) | Snapshot a disk, then create new VMs from it (disk, no memory) | Fork a running sandbox in one call (disk, no memory) |
| Reaching the machine | Public IPv4 on any port; HTTPS needs your own domain, proxy and certificates | Public IP on each VM and any port you open; private LANs and load balancers | HTTPS URLs for up to 50 ports, token-protected; raw TCP; own IP |
| Outbound rules | Vultr Firewall filters incoming traffic only; outbound rules go in the guest | Network Security Groups with ingress and egress rules by IP, port and protocol | Open internet on every plan; no provider-side allowlist |
| Desktop and computer use | Headless Linux; you install a desktop and VNC yourself | None; a remote console for troubleshooting servers | 60fps desktop and Chromium, computer use and browser control, embeddable stream |
| Coding agents and keys | None; you install agents and put secrets on the server yourself | None in the VM; an MCP server manages IONOS resources, and secrets go in the VM | Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and more preinstalled, driven by API; AI credentials proxy for any HTTPS API |
| GPUs | Nvidia L40S, A100, H100, GH200, B200 and AMD MI300X, MI325X, MI355X | NVIDIA H200 PCIe VMs, 1 to 8 GPUs | None |
| Windows | Windows Server instances for a license fee | Windows Server VMs with a licence billed per vCPU | No Windows guests; Wine for Windows apps |
| Regions | 33 locations on six continents | Germany, UK, France, Spain and the US | EU only: Germany, Finland, France |
Every feature Battleships tracks (43)
| Feature | Vultr | IONOS Cloud | bochka |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full VM (own kernel) | Not published | Yes | Yes |
| Docker inside | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Nested virtualization | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Root | Yes | Not published | Yes |
| Systemd | Yes | Not published | 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 | No | Yes | Yes |
| Automatic snapshots | No | No | Yes |
| Fork/clone | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Live fork (no pause) | Not published | Yes | 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 | Yes | Yes |
| Raw TCP inbound | Yes | Not published | Yes |
| Public IPv4 | Yes | Yes | No |
| Egress allowlist | No | Yes | 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 | Not published | Yes | 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 | Yes | Yes |
| Audit logs | Yes | Not published | No |
| SSO | Yes | Yes | No |
| SOC 2 | Not published | Not published | No |
| HIPAA | Not published | No | No |
| EU data residency | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Zero data retention | Not published | Not published | Yes |
Performance
There is no comparable measurement for Vultr or IONOS Cloud: neither was in the public StarSling benchmark run. In that run bochka did 26.69 Node.js build-and-test runs per second at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X hosts. Both clouds sell several CPU types, so their speed depends on the plan and location you pick.
Node.js build-and-test loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, higher is better. Measured with the open hpc-sandbox-benchmarks suite. Vultr and IONOS Cloud 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 | Vultr, a month | IONOS Cloud, 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 | $10 · Usage account | $5 · Pay as you go | $20 · $20/mo |
| One agent that never stops 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, running 24/7 all month | $40 · Usage account | $20 · Pay as you go | $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 | $524 · Usage account | $240 · Pay as you go | $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 | $894 · Usage account | $74 · Pay as you go · 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 | $5,960 · Usage account | $148 · Pay as you go · with limits | $2,000 · $2000/mo · with limits |
Vultr: Each Vultr plan has a fixed hourly price, billed by the started hour, and most plans are capped at 672 hours a month. Billing runs from deploy to destroy, including while stopped; the prices here use the shared vCPU Regular plans.
IONOS Cloud: IONOS bills Cubes by the minute at a fixed rate per size, with the NVMe disk included. Suspended Cubes keep billing, so the low workday figure assumes you snapshot and delete the machine each night; reserved IPv4 and traffic past 2 TB a month cost extra.
IONOS Cloud: 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
Neither Vultr nor IONOS publishes how many machines a new account can run at once; both raise limits through support. On Vultr, 300 user sandboxes and 1,000 short jobs at once fit on price but likely need a ticket first, and on IONOS they are not confirmed at all. On bochka the limit is a sandbox count (100 to 2,000 by plan) plus starts per minute, so the 1,000-job burst gets queued and needs more starts per day than the $2,000 plan allows.
| Scenario | Vultr | IONOS Cloud | bochka |
|---|---|---|---|
| One coding agent, workdays | None that bite | 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 |
| None that bite |
| Sandboxes for your users | None that bite |
| None that bite |
| 1,000 short jobs at once | None that bite |
|
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Which one should you use?
Use Vultr when
you need servers in many regions around the world, a wide choice of Nvidia and AMD GPUs, or snapshots you can deploy in any region.
- Regions around the world. Useful if your users are far from Europe: Vultr runs in 33 locations, from Sao Paulo and Mumbai to Tokyo and Sydney.
- More kinds of GPUs. Useful if you train or serve models: Vultr rents Nvidia L40S to B200 and AMD MI300X to MI355X, where IONOS rents H200 only.
- Snapshots that travel. Useful if you move servers between regions: a Vultr snapshot can be deployed in any region, while an IONOS snapshot stays in its location.
Use IONOS Cloud when
you want a German provider, per-minute billing for short-lived Cubes, outbound firewall rules, or H200 GPUs in Europe.
- Billed by the minute. Useful for short jobs: IONOS bills Cubes by the minute, while Vultr bills every started hour.
- Outbound firewall rules. Useful if you must limit what a machine can reach: IONOS Network Security Groups filter egress by IP, port and protocol.
- A German company with UK and US sites. Useful if you want a German provider: IONOS runs in Germany, France and Spain, and also in the UK and the US.
Where bochka fits
Vultr and IONOS are clouds that rent empty servers, not agent sandboxes. If what you are really running is agents, bochka gives each one a full VM that comes ready: coding agents you drive from outside, a desktop, HTTPS ports, and a disk saved every minute. It runs in the EU only and has no GPUs, so GPU work stays on a cloud.
A disk saved every minute
An agent that breaks its machine loses work unless someone took a snapshot. On Vultr and IONOS snapshots are manual, and stopping the bill means snapshot, delete and rebuild. bochka saves the disk every minute and on stop.
Agents and a desktop already inside
Both clouds hand you an empty Linux VM, so you install each agent, a desktop and VNC, and copy real API keys onto the disk. bochka ships coding agents, a 60fps desktop and a credentials proxy that keeps keys out.
Hundreds of sandboxes without a ticket
Neither Vultr nor IONOS publishes how many machines a new account can run at once, so 300 user sandboxes means asking support first. bochka allows 100 to 2,000 sandboxes by plan, with fork of a running one in one call.
Use bochka when what you run is agents: each one gets a full VM with coding agents, a desktop, HTTPS ports and snapshots every minute built in, and stops that cost nothing. Compare it one to one: bochka vs Vultr and bochka vs IONOS Cloud.
Questions people ask
Is Vultr cheaper than IONOS Cloud?
No, IONOS's list prices are lower in every scenario we priced. One agent running all month comes to $20 on IONOS, $26 on bochka and $40 on Vultr, and 50 agents in parallel come to $240, $317 and $524. IONOS's workday figure of $5 assumes you delete the machine each night, since suspended Cubes keep billing.
Which is faster, Vultr or IONOS?
We have no comparable measurement for either: neither was in the public StarSling benchmark run. bochka did 26.69 Node.js build-and-test runs per second at 4 vCPU / 8 GB in that run.
Can Vultr and IONOS run Docker?
Yes, both give you a root Linux KVM VM where Docker runs. Vultr documents virtualization only for VX1 and bare metal, and IONOS does not document running your own VMs inside. On bochka, Docker, systemd and /dev/kvm are documented on every machine.
Do I pay for a stopped machine?
On Vultr, yes: a stopped instance is billed in full until you destroy it. On IONOS, suspended Cubes continue to incur costs, so you snapshot and delete them to stop paying. On bochka, a stopped sandbox costs nothing and keeps its disk.
Which has GPUs?
Both. Vultr rents Nvidia L40S, A100, H100, GH200 and B200 and AMD MI300X, MI325X and MI355X machines. IONOS rents NVIDIA H200 VMs with 1 to 8 GPUs in Frankfurt and Worcester. bochka has no GPUs.
Where do they run?
Vultr has 33 locations on six continents. IONOS runs in Germany, the UK, France, Spain and the US. bochka runs only in the EU (Germany, Finland and France), with EU data residency.
Try bochka
Install the CLI, then run bochka new.
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