Best VPS for CI runners.
September 2026 · re-ranked daily · 164 qualifying plans
Build machines are pure vCPU arbitrage: compiles and test suites scale with cores, run in bursts, and don't care where they live — ideal for the cheapest fast cores you can find. We filter the index to plans with 4 GB+ RAM, 4+ vCPU — 164 of 280 qualify today, with the top pick at $46.83/mo. Ranked by how much of the hardware this workload actually stresses each dollar buys.
What actually matters here
- Cores over everything
- Compilation and parallel test suites scale nearly linearly with vCPUs — this ranking weights CPU 3× over RAM.
- Hourly billing is a feature
- Plans billed hourly (flagged below) can be spun up for the workday and destroyed at night, cutting the effective monthly cost by ~70%.
- Disk for caches
- Docker layer and dependency caches are what make the second build fast — 80 GB+ keeps them warm.
- 1netcup
VPS 8000 G12 · 16 vCore · 64 GB
16 vCPU · 64 GB RAM · 2048 GB NVME · value 100/100
✓ hourly billing
$46.83/mo
- 2
$8.72/mo
- 3
$6.39/mo
- 4netcup
VPS 4000 G12 · 12 vCore · 32 GB
12 vCPU · 32 GB RAM · 1024 GB NVME · value 98/100
✓ hourly billing
$31.66/mo
- 5
$16.27/mo
- 6
$18.80/mo
- 7
$29.05/mo
- 8
$10.12/mo
- 9netcup
RS 2000 G12 · 8 dedicated cores · 16 GB
8 vCPU · 16 GB RAM · 512 GB NVME · value 96/100
✓ dedicated vCPU
$20.93/mo
- 10netcup
RS 4000 G12 · 12 dedicated cores · 32 GB
12 vCPU · 32 GB RAM · 1024 GB NVME · value 95/100
✓ dedicated vCPU
$38.99/mo
One-click stacks for this workload
Everything below runs on any VPS with manual setup — these providers ship it preinstalled from their official catalog (verified 20 Jul 2026).
- Docker
- one-click on Hetzner, Vultr, DigitalOcean, Linode, OVHcloud, Scaleway, Contabo, Hostinger, IONOS
Frequently asked
- What is the cheapest VPS that qualifies for ci runners?
- Cloud VPS 4 · 4 vCPU · 8 GB at $6.39/mo (excl. VAT) meets the minimum requirements as of 5 Sept 2026.
- How are these requirements chosen?
- The minimums (4 GB RAM, 4 vCPU) reflect what the workload actually stresses — explained in the "what matters" section — and the ranking weights those dimensions rather than raw price.
- How fresh is this list?
- Prices are re-fetched from all 11 providers daily and this ranking recomputes automatically. Last refresh: 5 Sept 2026.