How to size a VPS: vCPU, RAM & NVMe

Too small slows your application down, too large costs unnecessarily. Sizing your VPS correctly saves money and hassle. These rules of thumb help you choose.

vCPU – compute power

vCPUs determine how many tasks run in parallel. Rule of thumb:

• 1–2 vCPU: small websites, blogs, test/staging environments
• 4 vCPU: dynamic web apps, small shops, databases with moderate load
• 8+ vCPU: high-traffic applications, multiple services, container clusters

RAM – memory

RAM is often the deciding factor. Databases, caching and many simultaneous connections need memory:

• 4 GB: entry level, a single application
• 8–16 GB: web app + database, multiple services
• 32 GB+: memory-intensive databases, container workloads

NVMe – storage & I/O

It’s not just capacity that counts, but speed. Pure NVMe storage delivers high I/O performance – important for databases and many small reads/writes. Plan headroom for logs, backups and growth.

Example configurations

• WordPress blog: 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 60 GB NVMe
• Shop with database: 4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM, 120 GB NVMe
• Multiple services / containers: 8 vCPU, 16 GB RAM, 240 GB NVMe

When in doubt, start smaller and upgrade later – that’s possible anytime without reinstalling. Try it in the live configurator on the vServer page or look at the pricing.