10 Best FREE VPS Hosting Trials (That Actually Work) in 2024

After weeks of extensive research looking for the best free VPS hosting, I’ve come to the conclusion that almost all free services are either a scam or simply not good.

Instead, free VPS trials allow you to try out high-performance plans risk-free. But even then, some hosts like to make cancellation a real headache or severely limit your capabilities until you take out your wallet. To find out which trials are worth your time, I signed up for as many as I could and tested them thoroughly.

Kamatera came out on top, thanks to its highly customizable cloud infrastructure and generous 30-day trial with $100 credit. It’s also one of the few hosts that allow you to scale and customize your trial plan as needed (at least until your credit runs out). So, you can get a true feel for what a Kamatera VPS can do for you without paying a cent.

However, all of the hosts listed below offer top-quality VPS hosting and will let you try out a powerful VPS solution risk free. I’ve also included some truly free VPS services at the bottom of the list you can also check out. Keep reading to find the best option for you. Or, if you can’t wait to get started, sign up with Kamatera today.

Why We Prefer Free VPS Trials Over Forever-Free VPS Hosting

VPS hosting offers better performance and dedicated server resources, including more RAM, CPU cores, and storage. It’s a lot more expensive and complex to run than shared hosting, so when we see a “free” VPS service, we have to ask how the hosting provider can cover the server costs. In many cases, these services might collect and sell your data or place ads on your site. The service might even be subpar or, at worst, a scam.

While some reputable free VPS hosting services exist – including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Render, and Microsoft Azure – they often come with limitations and complex setups. Most also enforce low resource and usage limits that may force you to upgrade to a paid plan.

If you need a powerful yet beginner- or wallet-friendly VPS service, I highly recommend going for one of our top recommended VPS hosting services with free trials. The best VPS hosts offer stress-free ways to try out their services before you commit.

What We Look For in the Best Free VPS Hosting Trials

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 from $100 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 and money-back guarantees 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.

Quick Look at Our Top Free VPS Hosts

1. Kamatera: Try Out a Powerful Cloud VPS With a 30-Day Trial and $100 Credit1

Kamatera offers a powerful cloud VPS hosting solution, where rather than hosting your site on a single physical server, you have access to a cluster of cloud servers across the world. This setup comes with many benefits, including the ability to scale your resources instantly.

With such highly customizable servers, I was worried that Kamatera’s free Linux and Windows cloud VPS trial might be tightly controlled, but that wasn’t the case. The 30-day free trial is generous, giving you access to a single cloud VPS with $100 credit (plus 1 TB of storage and outgoing traffic) for an entire month. Even after the trial, the prices are very affordable.

As long as you stay under this $100 limit, you can scale your resources as you please, and even add or remove optional features such as firewalls, load balancers, and so on. A word of warning though – if you do end up accidentally going over the $100 credit, you will be charged for the excess. But as long as you don’t go too crazy, you should be able to get a real taste of the powerful cloud VPS Kamatera offers without paying a dime.

Features:

• 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.

Read our full Kamatera review for more information.

2. ScalaHosting: Flexible Managed VPS With an “Anytime” Money-Back Guarantee1

ScalaHosting offers customizable managed VPSs with an impressive “anytime” money-back guarantee. This means that you can request a refund at any time, and you’ll get money back for the unused portion of your contract. You can also cancel within the first 30 days to get a full refund. Unfortunately, ScalaHosting doesn’t technically offer a free trial – but you can still trial its service for 30 days risk-free this way. Do note that 30-day refunds are only available for new customers and not existing ones, though.

As part of your service, you’ll get the usual perks of VPS management. A support team will set up your VPS, optimize its performance, update it with the latest patches, perform daily remote backups, monitor its uptime, and scan for malware. Just keep in mind that while unmanaged VPS plans include Linux and Windows options, managed plans only offer Rocky Linux or Alma Linux as the OS.

ScalaHosting also has a proprietary control panel called SPanel, although you do have the choice of paying for the popular cPanel if you wish. However, SPanel is a great alternative. It makes VPS management a breeze and you can have unlimited accounts without incurring an extra cost. All in all, ScalaHosting is perfect for beginners – it’s easy to work with and you can get a refund at any time.

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 SShield 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.

Read more about ScalaHosting’s VPS features in our expert review.

3. IONOS: 30-Day VPS Money-Back Guarantee for Cheap Unmanaged VPS1

If you’re looking for one of the cheapest self-managed solutions on the market, IONOS offers VPS plans starting at just $2.00. Furthermore, you’ll benefit from a 30-day money-back guarantee as a new customer.

While IONOS is certainly a budget solution, it still offered good performance and uptime in our tests. In addition, you’ll get some nice premium features: you can configure your firewall policies, create an image of your VPS at any time, and request a dedicated personal consultant to help answer any queries.

That said, it can be hard to get in touch with your advisor at times, and they won’t help you manage your server. To get the most value out of IONOS, you’ll need to know how to configure, optimize, and maintain a VPS server.

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.

Learn more about IONOS in our comprehensive review.

4. InterServer: Low-Cost Month-to-Month VPS Plans (And Almost Free for Your First Month)1

With a wide selection of pre-configured Linux, Windows, and storage VPS plans to choose from, InterServer makes setup easy. Bonus: if you purchase 4 slices of VPS or more, you get a fully managed service for free. So InterServer is an excellent option if you can’t (or don’t want to) handle the technical details.

Though InterServer doesn’t offer a money-back guarantee for VPS hosting, its plans are billed month-to-month so you can cancel at any time. Only lower-cost shared Web Hosting plans (Standard, Windows, and WordPress) offer a 30-day money-back guarantee. However, you can try InterServer’s more powerful Cloud VPS plans at a steep discount – pay just $0.01 for your first month.

The host also supports a wide variety of platforms (OpenVZ, KVM, and Hyper-V), operating systems (CentOS, Debian, FreeBSD, Ubuntu, and Windows 2008), control panels (DirectAdmin, cPanel, and Plesk), and 400+ scripts (too many to detail) – meaning you can really customize your InterServer VPS setup beyond the standard performance specs. However, do note that managed services are only offered on the software you install via InterServer.

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 remote backup services from InterServer. These storage plans cover storage VPS and general site file backup via FTP, SFTP, or rsync.

Read our expert InterServer review for more details.

5. Cloudways: 3-Day Trial for Managed Services on the Biggest Cloud Platforms1

Rather than providing web hosting services on its own servers, Cloudways instead acts as a management service for some of the biggest cloud hosts, such as Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and its parent company, Digital Ocean. You then benefit from the top performance of these hosting companies without needing to know how to configure a virtual server yourself.

Despite being a third party, you can directly purchase various hosting plans from multiple vendors through Cloudways. You don’t need to engage directly with the infrastructure provider company. Instead, you can utilize the user-friendly Cloudways platform to oversee your server instances. However, Cloudways only supports Linux-based OSs, so I’d suggest trying Kamatera or ScalaHosting if you’re looking for Windows support.

Cloudways does offer a 3-day free trial – it’s very short, but no credit card is required to sign up and you get full access to support. However, outside of the trial, standard prices can be up to 30% more expensive than ScalaHosting’s managed plans, depending on your chosen infrastructure provider. Choosing DigitalOcean, Linode, or Vultr will cost you less, whereas Google Cloud or Amazon AWS will cost you more.

Features:

• 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.

For more information, read our expert Cloudways review.

6. DigitalOcean: Generous Free 60-Day Trial With $200 in Credits1

DigitalOcean offers powerful cloud services like Google Cloud and AWS – but costs much less. It gives customers a generous 60-day trial with $200 in credits so you can test out its Droplets infrastructure. However, like Cloudways, DigitalOcean only offers Linux-based hosting services.

DigitalOcean services are also completely unmanaged, and there’s a steep learning curve to find out how to use its platform. That said, its services are a little more user-friendly than many unmanaged ones, and it supports various popular no-code CMSs like WordPress and Ghost. You’ll also find well-known apps in the DigitalOcean Marketplace that you can automatically install on your server.

In my opinion, DigitalOcean is also definitely more user-friendly than the big players it’s competing against – including Google Cloud, AWS, Azure, and Oracle. But if you’re a complete beginner, you can opt for a DigitalOcean managed service through Cloudways or add managed services to a Kamatera or ScalaHosting VPS plan.

Features

• High usage limits. You can run up to 10 Basic Droplets or 15 static sites on your free trial – just watch your costs. Once your free $200 DigitalOcean trial credit runs out, you’ll need to pay for any additional usage even if you’re still within the 60-day trial period.
• 99.99% uptime guarantee. DigitalOcean offers one of the highest SLAs, covering you for downtime and ensuring top reliability. You can test out its uptime rate using free tools like UptimeRobot during your free trial or even set up a DigitalOcean uptime monitor.
• Range of “building block” services. DigitalOcean offers many complementary cloud services, including managed Kubernetes, managed database plans, an App Platform, load balancers, security (firewall, DDoS protection), block/object storage, and more.
• DigitalOcean Marketplace. You can install 300+ popular free and paid plugins, extensions, and add-ons in one click – including CMSs and frameworks to create your site/app.

Read our full DigitalOcean review to learn more about Droplets.

Notable Web Hosts With Free VPS Hosting Plans

If you’re looking for completely free VPS hosting, look no further. These hosts offer forever-free hosting – but do note that their free services are unmanaged and limited. They may not suit you if you’re not familiar with maintaining your own server or need a high-performance plan.

7. Amazon Web Services (AWS)1

Amazon offers a variety of free trials, short-term free plans, and forever-free services. You can take advantage of AWS’ Lightsail extended 3-month free trial (with up to 750 hours of usage per month) for both Linux and Windows servers.

If you want to build a serverless app, AWS offers forever-free services like Lambda and DynamoDB, that you can access through its Free Tier service. If you exceed the resource limits, you’ll incur charges based on AWS’ standard pricing. On top of this, AWS’ services are unmanaged and can be quite complex to understand, set up, and manage.

8. Microsoft Azure1

Like AWS, Microsoft Azure offers a free Virtual Machine (VM) trial for both Windows and Linux servers. However, Microsoft’s trial extends to a full year, so does it technically count as free VPS hosting? I think so! There’s a 750 hour monthly limit across your servers – that’s 6 hours more than the total number of hours in a 31-day month. As a bonus, you also get a $200 credit that you can use for other Azure products.

Microsoft’s services are mainly cloud-based and unmanaged. Like many other cloud-based services, you can take advantage of on-demand usage and switch your server on and off as needed. If you’re a student, you can also sign up for a recurring annual $100 credit to use on Azure hosting and other products.

9. Google Cloud1

If you’re looking for free VPS hosting, Google’s e2-micro VM instance is available as part of Google Cloud’s Free Tier service. It offers 1 GB of RAM, 0.25 vCPU cores (with occasional bursts up to 2 vCPUs), 30 GB HDD, and 1 GB of egress bandwidth per month. These resources are pretty limited, so this plan is suitable for prototypes or static sites. You should also be cautious about exceeding tier limits to avoid unexpected charges.

You can also try Google Cloud’s Compute Engine and Cloud Run hosting services for free for 90 days with a $300 credit. However, the free trial doesn’t allow you to create Windows-based VM instances. Once you use up your credit, you’ll also need to upgrade to a paid plan.

10. Render1

If you’re a hobbyist or want to start a small project, Render may just be the free hosting service you’re looking for. The free tier includes some useful freebies, including a forever-free Redis cache of up to 25 MB and 50 connections, as well as a PostgreSQL free trial for up to 30 days featuring 0.1 vCPU, 256 MB RAM, and 1 GB of storage.

Other useful features include auto backups, unlimited inbound bandwidth, DDoS protection, and email support. While you can host and automatically deploy static sites via Git for free, its free plan is extremely limited. You’ll only get 512 MB RAM, 0.1 vCPU, and 100 GB bandwidth/month, as well as SSD storage starting at $0.25 GB/month. You can also always upgrade to a paid plan if you need more resources or features.

Find the Best VPS Trial or Free Plan for You

So, which free VPS host 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 Kamatera1. It offers a flexible 30-day cloud VPS hosting trial with $100 free credit and expert assistance throughout the process.

If you’re looking for stress-free hosting, you can try out ScalaHosting’s managed cloud VPS plans1. On top of a 30-day money-back guarantee, it offers an anytime money-back guarantee and will refund you for any unused services.

If you’re looking for the cheapest option for unmanaged VPS, check out IONOS1. 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.

Still unsure? You can check out the table below for a side-by-side comparison.

FAQ

What is the best VPS service?

The best VPS service for you depends on your particular needs. Are you a beginner to VPS? In that case, I’d recommend ScalaHosting, which offers managed service with good support. However, if you’re a developer, Kamatera would be a better fit due to its customizability and affordability. You can save a lot, but make sure you know your way around a server before you start planning that vacation.

How can I get a free VPS without a credit card?

Cloudways lets you sign up for its 3-day trial without a credit card. That said, you won’t be able to find a host that offers “forever-free” VPS hosting that isn’t a scam or limited to the point that it’s almost useless. Many of the options covered in our list of the top hosts with free VPS trials are affordable to those on a tight budget and either offer free trials, a money-back guarantee, or both.

How is VPS hosting better than shared hosting?

VPS allows for a lot more customization and flexibility. You can scale your resources to your exact needs and install whichever OS and software best suits your needs. VPS is also generally more secure and reliable, as you’re kept isolated from other users on the same server. Not certain if a VPS is the best choice for you? Every VPS host on our top 10 list allows you to test them out without any risk.

Why is VPS so expensive?

VPS is a more sophisticated technology than shared hosting, offering greater levels of control and performance. This leads to an increase in price. However, VPSs don’t have to be expensive – IONOS offers VPS instances at very low prices. Or, if you’d prefer cheaper shared hosting, check out our list of the top web hosts in 2024.