Looking for VPS Recommendations for an IoT Project!

General Discussion
1

Hey everyone,

I’m working on an IoT project where a STM32 microcontroller + 4G module will send battery data to a server. I need a VPS (Virtual Private Server) to:
-Host Node-RED for data processing

  • Store data in a PostgreSQL database
  • Visualize data using Grafana
  • Securely handle MQTT communication

Key requirements:

  • Reliable & cost-effective (budget-friendly but scalable)
    -Good performance for handling real-time data
    -Secure (supports SSL, firewall configurations, etc.)

What VPS providers do you recommend for this use case? Would love to hear about your experiences with different platforms like **OVH, DigitalOcean, AWS, Linode, etc.

Thanks in advance for your insights!

2

We use contabo.com since 9 years. We have 2 email servers on diff vps and 3 webshops on a more powerful one. Flawless so far. They have servers in 9 regions in the world. ours are in germany

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3

Hi

None of this means anything, with a VPS you install what ever you need (it has nothing to do with the VPS provider). The only question is how much CPU, RAM Bandwidth and HD space.

I’m happy to help once you let me know what you need.

Thanks
Michael

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4

As long as the provider does not pre install Virtualmin/Webmin and opens ports as required (most will block 22 at least temporarily) everything else is down to your choice and their reputation.

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5

I have never used a vps provider that block port 22!. Its the ssh port. Many block 25 but thats another story

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6

Thanks for the suggestion! I will check Contabo

7

yes one illiterate finger (only one works)

ports 25, 465, and 587

8

Hi Michael, thanks for offering to help! Here are my estimated needs for theproject:

  • CPU: 2 cores (for Node-RED + PostgreSQL + Grafana).
  • RAM: 4 GB (to handle concurrent services smoothly).
  • Storage: 50 GB SSD (stores ~3 months of sensor data).
  • Bandwidth : 1 GB/month (10 device , 30 bytes/hour each). ( i 'am not sure yet)
    I’m new to server sizing—these are rough estimates. Open to corrections!
    thank you!
9

Just to share another experience with Contabo, we had a server hosted with them and it worked well for 4 years, only once 45 minutes of down time. Yet recently on another server they had more than 38 hours of down time and they did not respond to any inquiries about it. Based on that experience we moved to netCup and we are happy with the responsiveness so far.
Hetzner is known to be more solid than these two, we have other serves at Hetzner and they just work. The advantage with them is a free firewall you can configure on their system, so even if the Linux’s firewall goes down or is misconfigured, or docker opens ports etc… you are covered.

10

There is loads of cloudproviders around. It mostly come down to price. I agree that Contabo support sucks but we can fix most things ourselves so that has not been an issue. Our mailservers has run 3 years now with 100% uptime if we take away the minutes they can be down during reboot after upgrade of OS. Another good thing with Contabo is the amount of traffic included. 32 TB outgoing and umnlimited incoming per month.

11

Of course, we also always fix things ourselves. And yes, on some servers we had amazing experience with them. But 38 hours of down time and no answer what so ever on why and when put us in a seriously bad situation with our clients, and we could’t allow it for a second time. And I do understand you have a great experience with them too…

12

ofc 38 hours is not in any way acceptable. If I had that problem I would moved also.

13

We had a similar experience with us, so we left two years ago. We went to Hetzner where we stayed for 8 months, we had backup for the last 7 days, until some bigger problem arose that we did not identify. I tried to restore the existing backups, I used 5 of them and none returned the original installation.
Here I am commenting on VPS and not dedicated servers.

14

I don’t know about VPS (though I need to get one by December) but with the dedicated servers I’ve had, it came down to NETWORK SPEED… cheap usually means “slow”…

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15

Well we get 200mb port and its more than enough for our webshops and email servers. No delays anywhere. Speed depends on so much more for the traffic between the user and the server. But ofc I have never understood why people must have 1 GB fiber at home. For what?

16

1gb at home is a gimick as most router cannot even route multiple connections when getting anywhere near max speed. 1gb connection is only good if it is 1gb up and down and you want to run servers at home but in the UK most providers give you a 1gb option which is 1gb down and I think 100mb up.

17

Here in Cyprus it is no problem getting 1 gb both ways but people think they need it for tv. and the 1 gb is ofc not real. check with a server outside cyprus and you see the real speed

18

Ill message you

19

I use Alwyzon — Virtual Servers in Vienna, Austria

Instant setup and not oversold. Also no strange port blocking and ipv6 is enabled out of the box.

used them for many years.

but since getting 1Gb symmetrical at home I tend to host at home more.