FluidStack vs HostKey
A detailed comparison to help you choose between FluidStack and HostKey.
Quick Verdict
3.6/5
FluidStack
0 reviews
3.1/5
HostKey
0 reviews
FluidStack is rated higher (3.6 vs 3.1). FluidStack aggregates GPU capacity from multiple providers to offer H100, A100, and consumer GPU instances. Pay-as-you-go and reserved capacity. EU and US datacenters with competitive pricing. HostKey provides dedicated servers with GPU options in Netherlands and US. RTX and A100 GPU servers available for ML workloads. Custom hardware configurations and anti-DDoS.
FluidStack Enterprise GPU cloud at competitive pricing | HostKey GPU-enabled dedicated servers in EU and US | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 3.6 (0 reviews)✓ | 3.1 (0 reviews) |
| Pricing model | usage-based | paid |
| Starting price | From $1.3/mo✓ | From $40/mo |
| Best for | AI labs and platform teams committing to 8-10k+ GPUs for training or heavy inference who want managed Slurm/Kubernetes, per-GPU-hour transparency, and a hands-on infrastructure partner | ML and rendering teams wanting dedicated GPU servers in the EU, and buyers who want bare metal with BYOIP and hourly billing at low cost |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ||
| DDoS protection | ✓ | |
| Automated backups | ||
| Snapshots | ||
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ||
| Free tier | ||
| Data-center locations | ||
| Regions | Canada, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden | Amsterdam NL, USA, Turkey, Finland (site also shows FR/DE/UK pickers and legacy RU listings) |
| Tags | ||
| Tags | hourly billinggpu availableeu datacenterus datacenter | nvme storageipv6ddos protectiongpu availableeu datacenterus datacenter |
| Visit FluidStack → | Visit HostKey → | |
FluidStack
Pros
- + Published per-GPU-hour rate card with no egress or ingress fees
- + Fully managed Slurm and Kubernetes on bare metal with 24/7 engineering support
- + Scales from 8 GPUs on-demand to 10k+ reserved — cluster sizes most clouds cannot match quickly
- + EU capacity in the Netherlands and Nordics for data-residency-sensitive training
- + Engineering response times measured in hours by SemiAnalysis during ClusterMAX testing
Cons
- - Aggregated third-party capacity means hardware and day-one polish vary by deployment
- - Contract-first commercial model — 8-GPU on-demand floor, 256-GPU reserved floor, no free tier
- - No public uptime SLA, datacenter list, or documentation library
- - Reactive software supply chain security — unpatched NVIDIA container toolkit found at cluster handover in evaluation
- - Track record is short relative to the scale of its recent customer commitments
HostKey
Pros
- + GPU pricing is competitive: RTX-class bare metal from €118/mo, GPU VPS from €70/mo, A100/H100 available
- + Cheap bare-metal entry at €40/mo with IPMI/iDRAC and unmetered 1 Gbps on advanced NL servers
- + Hourly and monthly billing on instant servers — rare for dedicated hardware
- + BYOIP/AS announcement free on the instant EPYC line; custom builds up to 190 cores and 4.6TB DDR5
- + Amsterdam base with EU data residency plus US and Turkey options
Cons
- - No published uptime SLA percentage or credit schedule
- - Small provider: thin documentation, sales-led quotes, and listings that mix hardware eras
- - Footprint beyond Amsterdam is thin; no multi-region story
- - Mixed pricing currencies (euro lists, dollar tiers) and 'from' prices that require confirmation
- - Backups and snapshots are add-ons; no free tier
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