I’m looking to learn more by using a VPS and spinning up a few instances. Can anyone recommend a cheaper VPS service?
Please let me know if it would be better to post this in a different community. TYIA
Google Cloud has a free tier, as do many other large cloud providers (Oracle and AWS for sure).
Google Cloud is a little tricky because you just configure a Google Compute instance to match what they say is free, then cross your fingers you don’t get billed (at least that’s my experience).
I’d recommend giving Hetzner a look, they’re similar to Linode/Digital Ocean/etc., but they’re a bit cheaper. They’re a European company, but they’ve recently added a couple North American locations.
Just use Hetzner Cloud. They’re great. And if you want really cheap and low end stuff, have a look at https://lowendstock.com/
I generally use Digital Ocean, but I was also informed recently that Hetzner has new US datacenters, which would significantly lower latency for me. Might be something to look into in the future.
Another vote for Hetzner Cloud, if you don’t mind it being in Germany, you can get even more memory and other specs on their ARM based ones. It does has pretty cheap backups and has DDoS protection and some basic firewall stuff built in all their VPSes.