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The ARM "server" space for the hobbyist willing to spend < 10 EUR/USD a month is a bit of a sad story. Scaleway had their nicely priced C1 instances. Well, the

The ARM "server" space for the hobbyist willing to spend < 10 EUR/USD a month is a bit of a sad story. Scaleway had their nicely priced C1 instances. Well, they still have and they run pretty solidly in my (limited) experience. But they have not updated the kernel for ages. It seems pretty clear that they will shut them down sooner or later without any successor. Is there any other comparable offering out there? (I intentionally mix owning and renting a server. Aren't we in the age of the cloud...)

yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
Honestly, is there anything at 10 USD/EUR per month? I mean, yes, I'd rather pay the same as I do for cheap Digital Ocean or whatever, but outside of AWS options are thin even if you are willing to pay a little bit more.
- kingosticks 6y ago
  Technically you could get a Raspberry Pi at https://www.mythic-beasts.com/order/rpi https://www.mythic-beasts.com/order/rpi for £7.25 per month but I'm not sure if this is what you had in mind. It's not exactly a server and it's not going to win any prizes for performance.
  - selfhoster11 6y ago
    For the type of workloads a Pi is capable of, and given the low capex of setting one up, it only makes sense to pay for this if you have extremely rubbish broadband at home.
    - csunbird 6y ago
      I agree. for 7.45 per month, you can just buy your own RPi.
      - sitkack 6y ago
        How will you handle the complexity of managing your own hardware?
        selfhoster11 6y ago
        There is none. Plug it in, call it a day. As long as the IP address on your router doesn't shift too frequently, it's basically maintenance free. A Pi 4 doesn't heat up too much unless you're CPU-bound and running without an additional cooler. I routinely have days of uptime in a row, and the only time I reboot is when I'm bored.
  - usr1106 6y ago
    Yes, something like this. No IPv4 might be inconvienent at times. The price is nearly twice as much as a scaleway C1, not sure how the specs really compare. What does Brexit mean for EU customers? Do we slip paying VAT now? 24% in my case.
- keithlfrost 6y ago
  My current selection is https://contabo.com/en/vps https://contabo.com/en/vps
  - StillBored 6y ago
    Thanks! I usually look for machines with unlimited transfer because otherwise it seems like they are trying to make all their money on transit. Those VPS, while limited, actually come with what I would consider a fairly reasonable monthly quota (32T) for a low cost plan.
  - usr1106 6y ago
    The price sounds good for the spec. But what do I do with 8 GB RAM and 200 GB disk to run an irc client, a minimal Web server and maybe an ssh jumpbox? They happily run with 1 - 2 GB RAM and 10 GB disk. On the non-quantitive side I really prefer to run ARM over ugly Intel.
- TacticalCoder 6y ago
  > Honestly, is there anything at 10 USD/EUR per month? Well you can have an Intel Atom N2800 / 4GB DDR3 / 2Tb HDD dedicated server at OVH for 8 EUR / month. And, like all their entry level servers, it's 100 Mbps max, which really hurts when you've got fiber at home. But in some cases they can be convenient. They have a lot of different offers at various prices (Kimsufi / So you start / OVH: all the same company basically).
  - yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
    Ah, sorry, I meant ARM
- usr1106 6y ago
  > Honestly, is there anything at 10 USD/EUR per month? In case you didn't know, a Scaleway C1 is * 2.99 per month, billed hourly * 1.00 per month for the network (unlimited) and you can drop that if you have other machines in the same datacenter and do not need direct internet access * ~ 1.00 per month for VAT (I guess that's 0,00 if you are outside of the EU) Of course they are not for high performance computing, but there are enough use cases where the performance is prefectly good enough. I use them for ssh jumpboxes and find their latency better than AWS EC2, which is much more expensive.
tecleandor 6y ago
C1 and C2 are EOLed. I read somewhere (here?) that their design was problematic and the maintenance was expensive :(
- zimpenfish 6y ago
  Which is a shame because I really like my C1 - although they're not planning on deleting the C1 instances for now (according to support a couple of months ago.)
  - depingus 6y ago
    I had a C1 that ran well enough for my usage but eventually had to move to a DEV1-S for Wireguard (old kernel on the C1). I just wish they would let me run Alpine Linux on the DEV1-S. Its available for the more expensive DEV1 instances, but they obviously don't want me taking full advantage of the meager resources the DEV1-S offers.
    - usr1106 6y ago
      Can't you just install it yourself? (Haven't worked with DEV1-S yet, so I don't know.) Of course if you do it under time is money principle that's a trainwreck compared to using their image. But if you do it for the fun of it...
- m01 6y ago
  Apparently they emailed customers, see here: https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/g11uuj/scaleway_retiring_their_arm64c2_instances/ https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/g11uuj/scaleway...
  - usr1106 6y ago
    Yeah, C2 (ARM64 virtual) is no longer available. Not sure whether all existing machine have really been shut down. I haven't had any. C1 (ARM32 dedicated) was still available recently when I checked last time. Existing customers' instances are definitely still running, used one today.
phamilton 6y ago
t4g line from AWS is in that range
- usr1106 6y ago
  Thanks, had forgotten about those. About twice as much as a C1, more if you have a lot of traffic, like e.g. tunneling video streams. Of course they are not fully comparable products. AWS maintenance might be better. But I don't have any high availability requirements for my toy projects. Free trial until June (I guess you still pay for the traffic and maybe the storage. Haven't read the fineprint.)
ksec 6y ago
>Scaleway had their nicely priced C1 instances.... They were far too ahead of its time that didn't make any sense ( It isn't a pun against their Tag Line ). Once AWS Graviton 2 has the whole ecosystem ready ScaleWay could then enjoy the benefits. To kick start ARM on server space ScaleWay is biting off more than they can chew. The same answer to people ask why doesn't DO do Edge Worker / Container.

yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago

Honestly, is there anything at 10 USD/EUR per month? I mean, yes, I'd rather pay the same as I do for cheap Digital Ocean or whatever, but outside of AWS options are thin even if you are willing to pay a little bit more.

kingosticks 6y ago
Technically you could get a Raspberry Pi at https://www.mythic-beasts.com/order/rpi https://www.mythic-beasts.com/order/rpi for £7.25 per month but I'm not sure if this is what you had in mind. It's not exactly a server and it's not going to win any prizes for performance.
- selfhoster11 6y ago
  For the type of workloads a Pi is capable of, and given the low capex of setting one up, it only makes sense to pay for this if you have extremely rubbish broadband at home.
  - csunbird 6y ago
    I agree. for 7.45 per month, you can just buy your own RPi.
    - sitkack 6y ago
      How will you handle the complexity of managing your own hardware?
      - selfhoster11 6y ago
        There is none. Plug it in, call it a day. As long as the IP address on your router doesn't shift too frequently, it's basically maintenance free. A Pi 4 doesn't heat up too much unless you're CPU-bound and running without an additional cooler. I routinely have days of uptime in a row, and the only time I reboot is when I'm bored.
- usr1106 6y ago
  Yes, something like this. No IPv4 might be inconvienent at times. The price is nearly twice as much as a scaleway C1, not sure how the specs really compare. What does Brexit mean for EU customers? Do we slip paying VAT now? 24% in my case.
keithlfrost 6y ago
My current selection is https://contabo.com/en/vps https://contabo.com/en/vps
- StillBored 6y ago
  Thanks! I usually look for machines with unlimited transfer because otherwise it seems like they are trying to make all their money on transit. Those VPS, while limited, actually come with what I would consider a fairly reasonable monthly quota (32T) for a low cost plan.
- usr1106 6y ago
  The price sounds good for the spec. But what do I do with 8 GB RAM and 200 GB disk to run an irc client, a minimal Web server and maybe an ssh jumpbox? They happily run with 1 - 2 GB RAM and 10 GB disk. On the non-quantitive side I really prefer to run ARM over ugly Intel.
TacticalCoder 6y ago
> Honestly, is there anything at 10 USD/EUR per month? Well you can have an Intel Atom N2800 / 4GB DDR3 / 2Tb HDD dedicated server at OVH for 8 EUR / month. And, like all their entry level servers, it's 100 Mbps max, which really hurts when you've got fiber at home. But in some cases they can be convenient. They have a lot of different offers at various prices (Kimsufi / So you start / OVH: all the same company basically).
- yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
  Ah, sorry, I meant ARM
usr1106 6y ago
> Honestly, is there anything at 10 USD/EUR per month? In case you didn't know, a Scaleway C1 is * 2.99 per month, billed hourly * 1.00 per month for the network (unlimited) and you can drop that if you have other machines in the same datacenter and do not need direct internet access * ~ 1.00 per month for VAT (I guess that's 0,00 if you are outside of the EU) Of course they are not for high performance computing, but there are enough use cases where the performance is prefectly good enough. I use them for ssh jumpboxes and find their latency better than AWS EC2, which is much more expensive.

tecleandor 6y ago

C1 and C2 are EOLed. I read somewhere (here?) that their design was problematic and the maintenance was expensive :(

zimpenfish 6y ago
Which is a shame because I really like my C1 - although they're not planning on deleting the C1 instances for now (according to support a couple of months ago.)
- depingus 6y ago
  I had a C1 that ran well enough for my usage but eventually had to move to a DEV1-S for Wireguard (old kernel on the C1). I just wish they would let me run Alpine Linux on the DEV1-S. Its available for the more expensive DEV1 instances, but they obviously don't want me taking full advantage of the meager resources the DEV1-S offers.
  - usr1106 6y ago
    Can't you just install it yourself? (Haven't worked with DEV1-S yet, so I don't know.) Of course if you do it under time is money principle that's a trainwreck compared to using their image. But if you do it for the fun of it...
m01 6y ago
Apparently they emailed customers, see here: https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/g11uuj/scaleway_retiring_their_arm64c2_instances/ https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/g11uuj/scaleway...
- usr1106 6y ago
  Yeah, C2 (ARM64 virtual) is no longer available. Not sure whether all existing machine have really been shut down. I haven't had any. C1 (ARM32 dedicated) was still available recently when I checked last time. Existing customers' instances are definitely still running, used one today.

phamilton 6y ago

t4g line from AWS is in that range

usr1106 6y ago
Thanks, had forgotten about those. About twice as much as a C1, more if you have a lot of traffic, like e.g. tunneling video streams. Of course they are not fully comparable products. AWS maintenance might be better. But I don't have any high availability requirements for my toy projects. Free trial until June (I guess you still pay for the traffic and maybe the storage. Haven't read the fineprint.)

ksec 6y ago

>Scaleway had their nicely priced C1 instances.... They were far too ahead of its time that didn't make any sense ( It isn't a pun against their Tag Line ). Once AWS Graviton 2 has the whole ecosystem ready ScaleWay could then enjoy the benefits. To kick start ARM on server space ScaleWay is biting off more than they can chew. The same answer to people ask why doesn't DO do Edge Worker / Container.