Hosting

Hosting· DeploySmith ·

Serverless Postgres vs VPS+PgBouncer

Intermediate · 9 min read
PostgresqlPgbouncerVpsManaged-DatabaseHosting

Managed Postgres is the default answer for most teams. But the pricing model of serverless databases (Neon, Supabase) and managed instances (Amazon RDS) is built around compute that is billed continuously, while a self-hosted PostgreSQL on a VPS is a fixed monthly cost that does not grow with your load. At some point the curves cross. For a steady, always-on workload, a single VPS running PostgreSQL plus PgBouncer is often dramatically cheaper than a managed database of equivalent size. This is that comparison: the economics, the latency story, and a decision table to help you pick. The version hook matters: PG14 is at end of life Before the cost comparison, a note on versions, because it directly affects a self-hosted setup. …

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Hosting· DeploySmith ·

Hetzner vs DigitalOcean in 2026: Which VPS to Pick

Intermediate · 13 min read
HetznerDigitaloceanVpsComparisonDeployHosting

The two most common answers to ‘which VPS should I deploy to’ are now very different animals. Hetzner is cheaper per gigabyte and includes a huge amount of egress, but its cloud is currently hard to order and it has no managed databases or object storage in the US. DigitalOcean costs more per core but ships a finished managed ecosystem, US regions, and per-second billing. This page compares them on the tiers you actually deploy to and gives a verdict per workload.…

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Hosting· DeploySmith ·

Hetzner Cloud 2026: CX23 vs CAX11, is ARM worth it?

Intermediate · 11 min read
HetznerVpsCloudArmDeployHosting

Hetzner Cloud in 2026 is a different animal than the old ‘cheapest VPS in Europe’ story. Prices rose twice this year, ARM is no longer the budget pick, and the cheapest line is temporarily off sale. Here’s the current catalog, the CX23 vs CAX11 math, and what to actually order for a Node.js app, WordPress, Docker, or a database.…

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