Best VPS for media & backups.
prices as of · re-ranked daily · 185 qualifying plans
Jellyfin, Nextcloud and backup targets are storage-per-dollar problems with a bandwidth twist: the disk holds the library, the pipe streams it. We only include plans with 2 GB+ RAM, 2+ vCPU and 150 GB+ disk. Today 185 of the 524 plans qualify, and the top pick costs $29.89/mo. They're ranked by how much of the hardware this workload relies on you get for each dollar.
The plan to start with is HOSTKEY vm.storage-4000 · 8 vCPU · 12 GB at $29.89/mo, 8 vCPU and 12 GB of RAM, picked from 185 plans that clear the minimums, checked 16 Sept 2026.
What actually matters here
- Included storage rules
- This ranking only includes plans with 150 GB or more of included disk and weights storage heavily, because block storage add-ons cost extra everywhere.
- Bandwidth is the running cost
- Streaming a 4 GB film to family is 4 GB of egress every time. Unmetered plans (flagged) remove the mental math.
- Transcoding caveat
- Without GPU passthrough, transcoding runs on the CPU. Stick to formats your clients can play directly, or pick a bigger CPU tier if they need conversion.
- 1
$29.89/mo
- 2
$16.04/mo
- 3
$10.27/mo
- 4
netcupVPS 8000 G12 · 16 vCore · 64 GB
16 vCPU · 64 GB RAM · 2048 GB NVMe · value 96/100
✓ unmetered traffic
$46.49/mo
- 5
$56.54/mo
- 6
$85.51/mo
- 7
$128.27/mo
- 8
$171.02/mo
- 9netcup
VPS 4000 G12 · 12 vCore · 32 GB
12 vCPU · 32 GB RAM · 1024 GB NVMe · value 96/100
✓ unmetered traffic
$31.43/mo
- 10
$45/mo
One-click stacks for this workload
Everything below runs on any VPS if you set it up yourself. These providers also offer it as a one-click install in their official catalog (verified 20 Jul 2026).
- Jellyfin
- one-click on Hostinger
- Nextcloud
- one-click on Hetzner, Vultr, DigitalOcean, Linode, Scaleway, Contabo, Hostinger
- Docker
- one-click on Hetzner, Vultr, DigitalOcean, Linode, OVHcloud, Scaleway, Contabo, Hostinger, IONOS
- WireGuard
- one-click on Hetzner, Vultr, DigitalOcean, Linode, Contabo, Hostinger
Frequently asked
- What is the cheapest VPS that qualifies for media & backups?
- Contabo Cloud VPS 6 · 6 vCPU · 12 GB at $8.65/mo (excl. VAT) meets the minimum requirements as of 16 Sept 2026.
- How are these requirements chosen?
- The minimums (2 GB RAM, 2 vCPU) reflect what the workload actually stresses, as explained under "what matters", and the ranking weights those dimensions rather than raw price.
- How fresh is this list?
- Prices are re-fetched from all 26 providers daily and this ranking recomputes automatically. Last refresh: 16 Sept 2026.