CloudAtCost vs BuyVM
A detailed comparison to help you choose between CloudAtCost and BuyVM.
Quick Verdict
1.8/5
CloudAtCost
0 reviews
4.1/5
BuyVM
0 reviews
BuyVM is rated higher (4.1 vs 1.8). CloudAtCost offers VPS with a one-time payment — no monthly fees. Pay once, use forever. Canadian company with Toronto datacenter. Not recommended for production workloads but unique pricing model. BuyVM (operated by Frantech Solutions) offers KVM VPS in Las Vegas, New York, and Roost (Luxembourg).
CloudAtCost One-time payment VPS — model discontinued (yearly maintenance fee added, then forced monthly billing; website offline as of Oct 2026) | BuyVM Frantech-operated VPS with DDoS protection | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 1.8 (0 reviews) | 4.1 (0 reviews)✓ |
| Pricing model | one-time (discontinued) | paid |
| Starting price | From $35/mo | From $2/mo✓ |
| Best for | Nobody today. Historically it served hobbyists wanting throwaway always-on servers for the lowest possible one-time cost — a use case better served now by cheap monthly VPS from providers that still exist | Self-managed, bandwidth- and storage-heavy workloads — media servers, community platforms, backups, VPNs — where price per resource matters more than platform polish |
| Specifications (entry plan) | ||
| CPU cores | 1 vCPU | 1 vCPU |
| RAM | — | 0.5 GB |
| Storage | 10 GB | 10 GB |
| Bandwidth | — | — |
| SLA uptime | 99.99%✓ | 99.9% |
| Data-center count | 1 | 3✓ |
| €/vCPU/mo | €35.00 | €2.00✓ |
| €/GB RAM/mo | — | €4.00 |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ✓ | |
| DDoS protection | ✓ | |
| Automated backups | ||
| Snapshots | ✓ | |
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ||
| Free tier | ||
| Data-center locations | ||
| Regions | Ontario, Canada (Kitchener-Waterloo / Toronto area) | Las Vegas, Nevada; New York, New York; Roost, Luxembourg |
| Tags | ||
| Tags | nvme storageus datacenter | nvme storageipv6ddos protectionbackups includedeu datacenterus datacenterapac datacenter |
| Visit CloudAtCost → | Visit BuyVM → | |
CloudAtCost
Pros
- + Historically unique model: one-time payments ($35-$140) for always-on VPS with resource-pool slicing
- + Canadian (Ontario) footprint — genuinely useful latency-wise for Canadian users
- + Permissive use policies made it a favorite for throwaway workloads, learning boxes, and exit nodes
- + VMware ESXi virtualization and a simple self-service panel were workable for the price
Cons
- - Website is offline (verified 2026-10-23: www.cloudatcost.com has no DNS record) — nothing is purchasable
- - The lifetime promise was broken: $9/year maintenance fee, then forced monthly billing on paid-up resources
- - Customers report locked servers, removed resources without consent, and complaints filed with the Ontario Securities Commission
- - Thrift-grade performance (old Xeons, ~25 MB/s disk I/O in user benchmarks) and widely reported multi-day outages
- - Hollow 99.99% SLA (credits only after 24h outages, claimed individually, at company discretion) and near-nonexistent support
BuyVM
Pros
- + Cheapest serious block storage we track: $1.25/256 GB, $5/TB per month, hot-migratable slabs
- + Unmetered 1 Gbps bandwidth on every slice — no egress metering to model
- + Cheap, credible DDoS filtering at $3/month per IP (3.5+ Tbps pooled, Path.net-backed)
- + Real KVM with custom ISOs, full disk encryption, and a free DirectAdmin license
- + 16-year track record with a support reputation that outclasses the price point
Cons
- - Stock shortages on popular slices and locations are routine; no elastic scaling
- - Self-managed only — no managed tier, no object storage product, no autoscaling API
- - Only three locations (Las Vegas, New York, Luxembourg); no Asia-Pacific presence
- - Modest 99.9% SLA with application-layer floods excluded; credits handled via TOS
- - No downgrades, and nightly backups cost extra (10% of base price)
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