Vultr vs IBM Cloud
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Vultr and IBM Cloud.
Quick Verdict
4.0/5
Vultr
0 reviews
3.2/5
IBM Cloud
0 reviews
Vultr is rated higher (4.0 vs 3.2). 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. IBM Cloud offers Virtual Server Instances, Kubernetes, bare metal, and strong mainframe (Z-series) integration. Used by financial services needing IBM Z connectivity. 60+ global datacenters.
Vultr High-performance cloud infrastructure with global data centers and competitive pricing | IBM Cloud Enterprise cloud with mainframe integration | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 4.0 (0 reviews)✓ | 3.2 (0 reviews) |
| Pricing model | paid | freemium |
| Starting price | From $2.5/mo | Free tier available✓ |
| Best for | Teams needing low-latency compute across multiple continents, API-first fleets, and self-serve GPU or bare metal with predictable billing | Enterprises anchored to IBM Z, Power, SAP, or Oracle estates, and regulated financial services teams needing certification coverage and mainframe adjacency |
| Specifications (entry plan) | ||
| CPU cores | 1 vCPU | — |
| RAM | 1 GB | — |
| Storage | 10 GB | — |
| Bandwidth | 1 TB/mo | — |
| SLA uptime | 100% | — |
| Data-center count | 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 | hourly billingnvme storageipv6ddos protectionbackups includedsnapshotsbare metalgpu availables3 compatibleeu datacenterus datacenterapac datacenterterraform providerapi accesswindows available | free tierhourly billinggpu availableeu datacenterus datacenterapac datacenterapi access |
| Visit Vultr → | Visit IBM Cloud → | |
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)
IBM Cloud
Pros
- + IBM Z (mainframe) and Power Virtual Server integration that no commodity host offers
- + Credit-backed 99.99% SLA on Virtual Server for VPC with multizone regions of three or more separate data centers
- + Ten instance profile families including Confidential Computing and storage-optimized shapes
- + Bare metal, spot-style transient servers, reserved capacity, and hourly billing in one contract surface
- + Free Lite account plus generous rotating new-account credits for trials
Cons
- - Two overlapping platforms (Classic and VPC) with different APIs, images, and pricing
- - Roughly 10x the monthly cost of value leaders for a comparable 2-vCPU VM
- - DDoS scrubbing is a separate paid product (Cloud Internet Services)
- - Metered extras (boot volume, egress, load balancers) make cost prediction work
- - Base support tier is not the enterprise support IBM's reputation implies
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