Paperspace (Gradient) vs Vultr
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Paperspace (Gradient) and Vultr.
Quick Verdict
3.4/5
Paperspace (Gradient)
0 reviews
4.0/5
Vultr
0 reviews
Vultr is rated higher (4.0 vs 3.4). M4000 GPU machines from $0.45/hour Vultr is a cloud platform offering VPS, bare metal servers, and Kubernetes hosting across 32 data centers worldwide. Built for developers and businesses needing scalable, reliable compute resources with transparent billing.
Paperspace (Gradient) ML platform and GPU cloud by DigitalOcean | Vultr High-performance cloud infrastructure with global data centers and competitive pricing | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 3.4 (0 reviews) | 4.0 (0 reviews)✓ |
| Pricing model | freemium | paid |
| Starting price | Free tier available✓ | From $2.5/mo |
| Best for | Individuals, students and existing users wanting managed GPU notebooks and cheap older-generation GPU machines without building infrastructure. | Teams needing low-latency compute across multiple continents, API-first fleets, and self-serve GPU or bare metal with predictable billing |
| Specifications (entry plan) | ||
| CPU cores | — | 1 vCPU |
| RAM | — | 1 GB |
| Storage | — | 10 GB |
| Bandwidth | — | 1 TB/mo |
| SLA uptime | — | 100% |
| Data-center count | 3 | 34✓ |
| €/vCPU/mo | — | €2.50 |
| €/GB RAM/mo | — | €2.50 |
| Performance | ||
| CPU score (sysbench) | — | 4,100 |
| Disk read (fio) | — | 1,800 MB/s |
| Disk IOPS (4K random) | — | 38,000 |
| Network out | — | 1 Gbps |
| Latency (TTFB) | — | 24 ms |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ✓ | |
| DDoS protection | ✓ | |
| Automated backups | ||
| Snapshots | ||
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ||
| Free tier | ✓ | |
| Data-center locations | ||
| Regions | — | 34 regions across North/South America, Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa (see locations page) |
| Tags | ||
| Tags | free tierhourly billinggpu availableus datacenterapi access | hourly billingnvme storageipv6ddos protectionbackups includedsnapshotsbare metalgpu availables3 compatibleeu datacenterus datacenterapac datacenterterraform providerapi accesswindows available |
| Visit Paperspace (Gradient) → | Visit Vultr → | |
Paperspace (Gradient)
Pros
- + Cheap GPU access on older cards: M4000 at $0.45/hour, P4000 at $0.51/hour
- + Free tier plus $8/month Pro plan makes managed GPU notebooks accessible
- + Machines include persistent storage and free unlimited bandwidth
- + Notebook-to-deployment ML workflow (notebooks, workflows, deployments) in one product
- + Amsterdam region gives EU machine placement
Cons
- - Being sunset into DigitalOcean's platform — standalone roadmap and APIs already replaced
- - ML platform (Notebooks/Deployments/Workflows) runs in NY2 only; no APAC presence
- - Newest GPUs (A100/H100/RTX5000) are NY2-only; rate cards have changed recently
- - Team tiers cap at 2-5 members; storage overages at $0.29/GB
Vultr
Pros
- + Truly global: 34 regions on six continents from one console, one API, one price list - with per-region test IPs published
- + Fully published hourly and monthly pricing from $2.50/mo, mature REST API and Terraform provider
- + 100% network and host-node uptime SLA with credits; standardized platform behavior across every region
- + Broad self-serve catalog: NVMe optimized VMs, NVIDIA/AMD GPUs, bare metal, managed databases/Kafka, S3-compatible object storage, VKE
Cons
- - Price-performance trails European leaders: our measured HF 2GB (Amsterdam) had the slowest NVMe storage of six tested providers at a mid-range price
- - Backups cost 20% of instance price, snapshots bill per GB, Windows and extra egress are add-ons
- - No refunds in the terms of service; support is ticket-only for self-serve customers
- - Overlapping instance families (Cloud Compute, VX1, Optimized) make it easy to pick a stale SKU; region count differs across Vultr's own pages (32/33/34)
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