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What We Look For in the Best Free VPS Hosting Services1. Kamatera: Try Out a Powerful Cloud VPS With a 30-Day Trial and $100 Credit2. IONOS: 30-Day VPS Trial and $100 Credit for Cheap Unmanaged VPS3. InterServer: Low-Cost Month-to-Month VPS Plans (And Almost-Free for Your First Month)4. ScalaHosting: Flexible Managed VPS With an “Anytime” Money-Back Guarantee5. Cloudways: 3-Day Trial for Managed Service on the Biggest Cloud Platforms6. GreenGeeks: 30 Days To Try Beginner-Friendly Managed VPS With Great SupportOther Notable Web Hosts Offering Free VPS TrialsFinding the Best VPS Trial for YouFAQ
Short on Time? These Are the Best Web Hosts With Free VPS Trials in 2024:
- Expert’s Choice
Kamatera
Kamatera is a popular choice with our readers– 30-day free access to a cloud VPS plan with credits and some nice extras. -
IONOS – Affordable unmanaged VPS with scalable resources and 30-day risk-free trial.
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InterServer – Low-cost monthly VPS plans with free managed services and only $0.01 for your first month.
What We Look For in the Best Free VPS Hosting Services
When comparing the best hosts offering free VPS trials, I prioritized a number of important features.- Generous trial resources. There’s not much point in trying out a host’s most basic or – even worse – irrelevant plan. The hosts on this list let you trial their best services and set them up according to your needs. Some even offer generous trial credits of up to $300.
- Easy cancellation. Some hosts like to entice you into a free trial, only to make the cancellation process as difficult as possible. I chose hosts that let you cancel your account easily.
- Long trial length. A short trial isn’t going to give you enough time to properly evaluate a host’s services. That’s why most of the free trials on this list are at least 30 days long.
- Flexibility. A VPS is highly customizable and your needs can be highly individual. The VPS trials on this list allow you to try out multiple configurations and features without imposing too many limits.
- Fast server setup. Wasting the first few days of your trial waiting for the server to be set up and made available isn’t fun. Hosts which can provide a quick set up of your server earned some extra brownie points.
![Kamatera 30-day free trial with a $100 credit offer landing page](https://dt2sdf0db8zob.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/-opt-best-free-vps-hosting-1.jpeg)
Kamatera Cloud Hosting
Plan NameStorageBandwidthCPURAMPrice
More detailsFeatures:
- Great performance. Kamatera’s cloud VPS use powerful Intel Xeon Platinum and Cascade processors, providing your site with impressive speeds.
- Designated account manager. During the length of the trial, you’ll get access to a designated account manager who will answer any questions you may have about Kamatera’s service. You even get technical advice about the ideal VPS configuration for your needs.
- Fast server setup. Upon signing up, your server will be set up and available within a minute.
- 24/7 technical support. The free trial includes access to Kamatera’s technical support team, which is available through phone, email, and tickets.
Length of free trial | 30 days |
Data center locations | New York, Texas, California, Illinois, Florida, Toronto, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, London, Italy, Sweden, Spain, Hong Kong, Petach Tikva, Haifa, Rosh Haayin, Tel Aviv |
Beginner-friendly | ✘ |
Resources | Fully customizable: up to 104 vCPUs, 512GB RAM, 16TB SSD storage, 5TB or 50 Mbit/sec unmetered bandwidth per month |
Starting price for cheapest VPS plan | $4.00 |
![IONOS 30-day free trial USA offer landing page](https://dt2sdf0db8zob.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/-opt-best-free-vps-hosting-2.jpeg)
IONOS VPS Hosting
Plan NameStorageBandwidthCPURAMPrice
More detailsA free domain name is included with some hosting plans from IONOS
Features:
- Unlimited traffic. All IONOS servers allow for unlimited traffic up to 1 Gbit/s – you’ll never reach a cap or have to pay overage fees.
- Secure cloud backups. For an added fee, you can purchase Acronis cloud backup storage with integrated malware protection and robust encryption. You can take full or incremental backups.
- Choice of Operating Systems. IONOS VPS plans offer a wide range of OS choices, including Windows (2019 or 2022) and the latest versions of AlmaLinux, Debian, Rocky Linux, and Ubuntu.
- Manage your VPS on the go. IONOS is one of the few VPS hosts with a responsive and functional mobile app. You can manage your servers, monitor performance, pay invoices, and more.
Length of free trial | 30 days (cloud and VPS hosting) |
Data center locations | United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, France |
Beginner-friendly | ✘ |
Resources | 1-12 vCPUs, 1-24 GB RAM, 10 GB-640 GB SSD storage, unlimited traffic (up to 1 Gbit/s) |
Starting price for cheapest VPS plan | $2.00 |
3. InterServer: Low-Cost Month-to-Month VPS Plans (And Almost-Free for Your First Month)
![InterServer $0.01 discount offer coupon landing page](https://dt2sdf0db8zob.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/-opt-best-free-vps-hosting-3.jpeg)
Features
- Many major CMSs are supported. With InterServer, you can automatically install a number of popular and niche CMSs for blogging, e-commerce, and more – WordPress, Joomla!, TYPO3, Pubvana, Magento, and Zen Cart included.
- 99.9% uptime guarantee. InterServer’s performance is backed up by an uptime SLA. You’ll be compensated should it not meet this target. However, in general, InterServer’s uptime is very reliable.
- 24/7 support. You can contact InterServer via live chat, ticket, and phone 24/7.
- Premium remote backups. For an additional fee, you can purchase premium backup services from InterServer. Its storage plans cover storage VPS and general site file backup via FTP, SFTP, or rsync.
Length of free trial | 30 days discounted with coupon (cancel any month thereafter) |
Data center locations | US (New Jersey and California) |
Beginner-friendly | ✔ (fully managed) |
Resources | 1-16 cores, 2-32 GB RAM, 30-480 SSD/1-16TB SATA storage, 2-32 TB bandwidth |
Starting price for cheapest VPS plan | $6.00 |
![ScalaHosting managed VPS plans with anytime money-back guarantee](https://dt2sdf0db8zob.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/-opt-best-free-vps-hosting-4.png)
ScalaHosting VPS Hosting
Plan NameStorageBandwidthCPURAMPrice
More detailsA free domain name is included with some hosting plans from ScalaHosting
Features:
- Scalable resources. You can scale your resources up or down at any time. However, this does require a reboot of your server.
- Self-managed VPS. There’s also the option of unmanaged VPS. While you lose all the benefits of managed VPS, you do gain root access, allowing for a lot more customizability.
- SShield security. If you choose the free SPanel, you also get Shield security for free. This is an AI solution that monitors your server, blocking web attacks and notifying you of any vulnerabilities.
- Unlimited website migration. With managed VPS, ScalaHosting will migrate an unlimited amount of websites to its hosting service.
Length of free trial | 30 days (money-back guarantee) |
Data center locations | Dallas, New York, and Sofia (Bulgaria) |
Beginner-friendly | ✔ (if you choose the managed plan) |
Resources | Fully customizable, up to 2-24 vCPUs, 4GB-64GB RAM, 50GB-2000GB NVMe SSD, unmetered bandwidth |
Starting price for cheapest VPS plan | $20.00 |
![Cloudways dashboard](https://dt2sdf0db8zob.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/-opt-best-free-vps-hosting-5.png)
Cloudways Cloud Hosting
Plan NameStorageBandwidthCPURAMPrice
More detailsFeatures:
- Easy WordPress installation. Cloudways has software that can automatically install multiple instances of WordPress for you on a single server. From there, you’ll get Cloudways’ pre-optimized hosting stack for top WordPress performance.
- Dedicated staging environment. You can launch a dedicated staging area to test site changes and new plugins without affecting your live site. Once you’re ready, you can push these changes to the live site with a single click.
- Premium CDN. On all Cloudways plans, you can add on the premium Cloudflare Enterprise CDN, which significantly increases the performance of your site across the globe. Though costing extra, it offers image and mobile optimization as well as an additional layer of security.
- 24/7/365 support with guaranteed response times. Cloudways Standard support guarantees a response within 12 hours to a support ticket and 3 hours for a high-priority ticket. Premium support includes a private Slack channel and phone support with a response time of 5 minutes. If Cloudways doesn’t meet these SLA promises, you’ll be entitled to service credits.
Length of free trial | 3 days |
Data center locations | 65+ data centers across all major continents, including US, Brazil, Canada, Ireland, UK, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Italy, Belgium, Germany, India, South Africa, Bahrain, Singapore, Australia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea (depending on your cloud service provider). |
Beginner-friendly | ✔ |
Resources | 1-16 vCPU, 1 GB-72 GB RAM, 20 GB-640 GB SSD storage, 2 GB-7 TB bandwidth |
Starting price for cheapest VPS plan | $11.00 |
6. GreenGeeks: 30 Days To Try Beginner-Friendly Managed VPS With Great Support
![GreenGeeks VPS hosting offer landing page](https://dt2sdf0db8zob.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/-opt-best-free-vps-hosting-6.jpeg)
GreenGeeks VPS Hosting
Plan NameStorageBandwidthCPURAMPrice
More detailsA free domain name is included with some hosting plans from GreenGeeks
Features:
- Softaculous included. The free cPanel license includes the useful Softaculous app installer and a license. This lets you install over 350 applications, each with a single click.
- Proactive 24/7 monitoring. As part of its managed service, GreenGeeks will monitor your server for issues. If an issue is detected, the support team will automatically jump in to solve it.
- RAID-10 SSD. GreenGeeks’ SSD storage is kept in a highly redundant RAID-10 array. With this configuration, your data will be mirrored across multiple drives to prevent loss.
- Free dedicated IP. Each GreenGeeks VPS plan includes a complimentary dedicated IP, which we thoroughly check against blacklists to provide you with a clean address.
Length of free trial | 30 days (money-back guarantee) |
Data center locations | Chicago, Montreal, Amsterdam, Singapore |
Beginner-friendly | ✔ |
Resources | 4-6 vCPU, 2 GB-8 GB RAM, 50 GB-150 GB SSD, 10 TB data transfer |
Starting price for cheapest VPS plan | $39.95 |
Other Notable Web Hosts Offering Free VPS Trials
The following hosts also offer free trials, credits, and money-back guarantees for their hosting services. However, they may be costlier or more complex to manage, which is why they didn’t make our top 6.7. DigitalOcean
![DigitalOcean 60-day trial with $200 credit offer landing page](https://dt2sdf0db8zob.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/-opt-best-free-vps-hosting-7.jpeg)
8. Amazon Web Services (AWS)
![Amazon Web Services (AWS) Lightsail free trial offer landing page](https://dt2sdf0db8zob.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/-opt-best-free-vps-hosting-8.jpeg)
9. Microsoft Azure
![Microsoft Azure free trial and $200 credit offer landing page](https://dt2sdf0db8zob.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/-opt-best-free-vps-hosting-9.jpeg)
10. Google Cloud
![Google Cloud free $300 credit offer landing page](https://dt2sdf0db8zob.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/-opt-best-free-vps-hosting-10.jpeg)
Finding the Best VPS Trial for You
So, which free VPS trial is best for you? It depends on your needs. If you’re a developer who needs fully customizable servers that can be scaled up or down on short notice, I recommend Kamatera. It offers a flexible 30-day trial with $100 free credit. If you’re looking for the cheapest option for unmanaged VPS, check out IONOS. You’ll get 30 days to try it out, and if it meets your expectations, you’ll pay less than you would with many other alternatives. However, these two options aren’t very beginner-friendly. VPS can be complex to manage, even if you know your way around a server. InterServer’s managed VPS is the best fit for those lacking skills or time. It even offers free management when you purchase 4 slices or more. Still unsure? You can check out the table below for a side-by-side comparison.Standout Feature | Trial Length | Good for Beginners? | Starting Price After Trial | ||
Kamatera | Fully-customizable Cloud VPS with great performance | 30 days | No, cloud VPS is completely unmanaged | $4.00 | |
IONOS | Cheapest option for unmanaged VPS | 30 days | No, VPS is completely unmanaged | $2.00 | |
InterServer | Tons of supported servers, platforms, operating systems, CMSs, control panels, and scripts | 30 days discounted (cancel any month) | Yes, free fully managed services (4 slices or more) | $6.00 | |
ScalaHosting | Fully-managed VPS with an easy-to-use control panel | 30-day and anytime money-back guarantee | Yes, if you choose a managed plan | $20.00 | |
Cloudways | User-friendly VPS management for the biggest cloud platforms | 3 days | Yes, cloud VPS is fully managed | $11.00 | |
GreenGeeks | Beginner-friendlyand eco-friendly managed VPS hosting with helpful technical support | 30-day money-back guarantee | Yes, VPS is fully managed | $39.95 |