biggest hike+173%
bitdoze.com — video deck · 2026
VPS prices are
out of control.
Three hikes in three months, broken promises across the market — and the mini PC + free tunnel stack that replaces the bill.
Hetzner
netcup
OVHcloud
Cloudflare
Tailscale
01 · What happened
Hetzner: three hikes.
Three months.
CX23shared vCPU€3.99→€5.49+37.5%
CPX22shared vCPU€7.99→€19.49+144%
CCX23dedicated vCPU€31.49→€85.99+173%
EX63dedicated · config€160→€583/mo+264%
April 1: ~33% average across the cloud lineup. Then two more adjustments in May and June.
02 · The whole market
Not just Hetzner.
netcup
+0%
Average increase, up to ~24%. Broke the “we never raise prices for existing customers” promise. The community calls it the RAMpocalypse.
OVHcloud
+40–67%
VPS range, April 1. VPS-1: $4.90 → $7.60. Plus a new $2.39/month surcharge per IPv4 address.
Real invoice
€5.30 → €34.09
Catalin Pit's Hetzner bill over two years: +543% for the same server.
03 · Why now
The RAMpocalypse.
- AI datacenters are eating global DRAM supply. Hyperscalers buy memory before you do.
- DDR5 spot prices exploded through 2025–26 — RAM became the new bottleneck.
- IPv4 scarcity tax. Addresses are traded like real estate now.
List prices never come back down. Hikes on existing contracts don't reverse.
DDR5 spot price — trend, 2025 → 2026
04 · The math
Rent vs own.
Hetzner CCX23 · rent
€85.99/mo
€1,032 / year
€3,096 over 3 years
VS
Mini PC · own (e.g. GMKtec M6 Ultra, 32GB DDR5)
$630 once
~$6/mo power → $702 year one
$846 over 3 years
BREAK-EVEN ≈ 8 MONTHS vs CCX23 · ~2.5 yrs vs a €28 VPS
10–15W idle · 35–65W load · $2–8/month at $0.20/kWh. The mini PC idles at less than an old light bulb.
05 · The honest part
When a VPS still wins.
- Production that must stay up — datacenter power, network and SLAs beat a box in a closet.
- Anything bandwidth-heavy — residential upload is the ceiling.
- DDoS exposure — your home IP has no scrubbing.
- Multi-region and the bus factor — you can't reboot your closet from the beach. Easily.
The play: one cheap $5 VPS as the public edge + real compute at home.
06 · The catch
Your home IP is a problem.
CG-NAT means no inbound ports, ever. Opening ports means exposing your home network. So every access tool answers one question:
just for you / your team
Private access
You, your laptop, your phone — reaching services that never need to be public.
the whole internet
Public access
Dashboards, web apps, hooks — reachable from anywhere, without port forwarding.
07 · Private access
Tailscale · WireGuard mesh, zero open ports
- Install on the mini PC + phone + laptop — done. Every device gets a stable IP with MagicDNS.
- Personal plan: $0 forever — 6 users (up from 3), unlimited devices, 50 tagged resources.
- Subnet router trick — run it once on the mini PC and reach the whole home LAN.
- Hate SaaS? Headscale — self-hosted control server, same clients.
💰 $0 / month — everything that never needs to be public lives here.
08 · Public access
Cloudflare Tunnel · public, with zero open ports
- Outbound-only connector — the mini PC dials out to Cloudflare. Nothing at home is reachable from outside.
- Free on every plan — unlimited tunnels, unlimited bandwidth, no visitor limits.
- Access adds auth — free up to 50 users, email OTP in two clicks.
- Requires your domain on Cloudflare DNS. Streaming gigabytes of media through it is a gray area — keep Jellyfin personal.
💰 $0 / month — public hostnames with DDoS protection at the edge.
09 · Own the edge
Pangolin · self-hosted Cloudflare Tunnel alternative
- WireGuard under the hood — tunneled reverse proxy with identity-aware access, SSO/OIDC built in.
- Runs on a $5 VPS — you own the edge, no cloud ToS gray areas, no bandwidth debates.
- ★ 22.9K on GitHub — TypeScript, very active, real community.
- Also on the menu: plain WireGuard to a VPS, or port forward + Traefik/Caddy if you have a real public IP (home IP exposed).
⚙ $5 / month for the edge VPS — everything else stays home.
10 · The cheat sheet
Pick by category, not by hype.
Verdict
Ditch the bill.
Not the network.
💰 $5 VPS — public edge
🖥 Mini PC — compute you own
🔒 Tailscale — private
🌐 Tunnel — public
📦 Offsite backups — non-negotiable
Full write-up with the cost tables and buying guide: bitdoze.com/vps-price-increases
Real public IP, keep it dead simple
Port forward + reverse proxy
$0 / mo