Member OP
Hi everyone. Sorry if this is a dumb question but I need a tiny VPS to run a python telegram bot for my class project. Nothing fancy, just polls some APIs and replies to commands. My budget is $10/year max, is that even possible?
I looked around but most stuff is like $5/month which is way too much for me. I dont need much ram I think? The bot is maybe 50 lines of code. Thanks everyone!
Member
The cheapest I found is €4/mo on Contabo, 4gb ram vps. Shared ipv4 tho. Im running 3 bots on one, works fine. Definitely check lowend stuff every tuesday a lot of deals drop then. $10 is doable if u dont need dedicated ip
Member
Fun little project! I'd grab a NAT VPS for this, 512MB is plenty for a python bot. I'm running similar on a 256MB box from OVHcloud, €4/mo. It actually works great.
$ free -m
total used free
Mem: 256 112 144
$ python3 bot.py &
[1] 1234Just use tmux or systemd, check your dependencies aren't bloated.
For APIs, watch the NAT outbound ports, some limit to 500 conn/min. Rare issue but I've hit it.
Great that you're thinking budget-friendly, Sarah! 😊
Before you deploy anywhere, quick checklist:
I lost a bot's user DB last year because the host vanished overnight. Weekly DB export to your laptop costs nothing. The $8-10 plans are fine for learning, just don't store anything you can't rebuild in 10 minutes. I use https://restic.net for offsite backups now.
Happy building!
Member
I made VPS last month with same budget, used Hostinger $2/mo deal. Very slow disk but bot runs ok sir.
NAT is no problem for telegram bot bro, only need outbound. I use webhook to Vultr free tier for receive, no inbound port needed. 🙏
Sarah if you need help with webhook setup I can share, very easy sir.
Back when I started, that wouldn't buy you a day's worth of dial-up.
I've watched two dozen of these budget hosts evaporate since 2006. Contabo, OVHcloud, whatever they're called this year — mark my words, half of them won't see 2028. The race to the bottom always ends the same way: sudden "network maintenance" that lasts until the domain expires.
Your bot will work fine until it doesn't. At least Hostinger's been around since 2019, which in this market makes them practically a heritage institution. Set your monitoring to ping every 60 seconds, because you won't get a courtesy email when they pull the plug.
What is NAT VPS?? I thought all servers had their own ip address??
Also sorry if this is off topic but is 256mb enough for ubuntu or do I need something lighter??
Thank you everyone for being so nice
Member
NAT just means shared IPv4, Nate — your VPS gets a private IP and the host routes a port range to it. Fine for outbound stuff like Telegram bots. IMO you'd want Debian or Alpine over Ubuntu on 256MB, YMMV though.
Sarah, my take: grab that $8-9 deal, test for a month, keep your code in git. If the host dies, you're out pocket change and 20 minutes of setup. Take it with a grain of salt, but I've had better uptime on cheap NAT boxes than some "premium" brands charging 5x.
For the bot, asyncio + python-telegram-bot keeps memory tiny. No need to overthink it.
Which python version are you running, 3.11?
How much disk space does your bot need?