Last reviewed: 2026-04-30
VPS for Development Environments
A VPS development environment gives you a persistent server that is reachable from anywhere and not tied to a laptop battery, home network, or local VM state. Linux and BSD plans work well for remote editors, preview apps, package builds, Docker Compose stacks, tunnels, and team utilities. Windows plans fit RDP-administered Microsoft-stack development and testing. Size it around the heaviest thing you run: language servers, containers, database fixtures, and build processes can use more RAM than the app itself.
Recommended plans
Starter
1 vCPU, 3 GB RAM, 20 GB NVMe SSD, 10 TB transfer
Low-cost entry point for light services, testing, and personal workloads.
Standard
2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 30 GB NVMe SSD, 10 TB transfer
More memory and CPU headroom for steady services or a few concurrent users.
Performance
4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM, 40 GB NVMe SSD, 10 TB transfer
Balanced production tier for busier apps, game servers, and build jobs.
Software
Common software
- Docker
- tmux
- code-server
- Git
- PostgreSQL
- RDP
Sizing
Traffic and storage
- Bandwidth
- Usually below 1 TB/month unless preview apps or package caches are public
- Storage
- 20-60 GB for repositories, containers, package caches, and small databases
- Planning note
- Standard is a comfortable default if Docker, databases, and editor services run together.
Setup
Setup approach
- Deploy: choose a plan, region, and OS image.
- Install: add only the packages your workload needs.
- Configure: set firewall rules, updates, backups, and monitoring.