Scaleway vs Contabo
Scaleway is a European cloud that bills its VMs per hour of uptime, next to GPUs, managed databases and Kubernetes. Contabo is a hosting company that rents KVM servers by the month at a very low flat rent, in regions around the world.
The companies and products
Scaleway
Scaleway is a European cloud and AI provider, part of the iliad Group, that rents virtual machines, GPUs, storage and managed services.
Scaleway Instances are KVM virtual machines you pick from fixed shapes, from small shared-vCPU Development Instances to dedicated-vCPU and Arm64 types, running Linux or Windows Server. You get root, SSH, a public IP and security groups, and you install and run your own software next to Scaleway products like managed databases, Kubernetes, object storage and GPU Instances. It is general cloud infrastructure, not an agent sandbox, so this page compares the two where they overlap: giving an agent its own Linux machine.
Contabo
Contabo is a German hosting company, founded in Munich in 2003, that rents VPS, dedicated-core VDS, GPU and dedicated servers by the month.
A Contabo Cloud VPS is a KVM virtual machine with shared vCPU cores, a fixed RAM allocation, a static IPv4 and root access, which you order, pay for and then manage yourself. It is a VPS host, not a sandbox product: there is no per-second billing, no agent tooling and no managed HTTPS in front of the server. It fits people who want one cheap server that runs all month in a region of their choice.
Which use cases each one fits
For each use case, Battleships prices every sandbox provider on the same workload and sorts them from the cheapest monthly bill up. “42nd cheapest of 364” means 41 of the other 363 providers run that workload, with every feature it needs, for less. “With limits” means the provider runs it but misses something, so it is listed after every full match. Open a use case for its whole ranking and what each provider misses.
| Use case and its workload | Scaleway: price rank | Contabo: price rank | boat: price rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software factory 100 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 2,200 sessions of 8 h a month A software factory starts and stops many machines; Scaleway bills each one by the hour, Contabo by the month, and boat per second with agents built in. | 49th of 367, with limits $322 a month | 79th of 367, with limits $660 a month | 3rd cheapest of 367 $634 a month |
| Always-on AI employees 50 machines 24/7 · 2 vCPU / 4 GB | 90th of 366, with limits $208 a month | 95th of 366, with limits $330 a month | 5th cheapest of 366 $657 a month |
| Code interpreter bursts 100 at once · 1 vCPU / 2 GB · 200,000 sessions of 1 min a month None of the three suits many one-minute runs well: Scaleway bills at least an hour, Contabo a month, and boat's start limits queue big bursts. | 166th of 345, with limits $893 a month | 159th of 345, with limits $660 a month | 186th of 345, with limits $2,000 a month |
| Sandboxes for your users 300 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 30,000 sessions of 23 min a month Neither suits 300 user sandboxes well: Scaleway needs a quota raise from support first, and Contabo means renting each server for a whole month. | 84th of 361, with limits $738 a month | 153rd of 361, with limits $1,980 a month | Cheapest of 361 $209 a month |
| RL rollouts 1,000 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 1,000,000 sessions of 3 min a month Contabo's monthly rent comes out lower than Scaleway's hourly bill for many parallel rollouts, but both are a compromise, and boat queues big bursts of starts. | 176th of 360, with limits $18,254 a month | 108th of 360, with limits $6,600 a month | 34th of 360, with limits $2,000 a month |
| Agent evals 250 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 15,000 sessions of 20 min a month Scaleway's hourly Instances fit agent evals better than Contabo's monthly rent; boat bills per second and can fork a running sandbox for each attempt. | 42nd cheapest of 364 $776 a month | 177th of 364, with limits $1,650 a month | 10th cheapest of 364 $200 a month |
| CI runners 40 at once · 8 vCPU / 16 GB · 6,000 sessions of 12 min a month Both run Docker builds on a full VM, but a Contabo runner is rented for the month whether busy or not, while Scaleway bills each job at least an hour. | 82nd cheapest of 377 $777 a month | 133rd cheapest of 377 $2,980 a month | 4th cheapest of 377 $86 a month |
| 24/7 dev boxes 1 machine 24/7 · 4 vCPU / 8 GB Contabo fits one box that runs all month best, at $7 a month for 4 vCPU / 8 GB; Scaleway comes to $41 and boat to $26, with snapshots every minute. | 30th cheapest of 368 $41 a month | Cheapest of 368 $6.6 a month | 18th cheapest of 368 $26 a month |
| Computer-use agents 50 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 20,000 sessions of 15 min a month Neither has a desktop built in, so you install and stream one yourself; boat streams a 60fps desktop with Chromium for computer use. | 94th of 369, with limits $168 a month | 140th of 369, with limits $330 a month | 6th cheapest of 369 $200 a month |
| Browser-use agents 50 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 30,000 sessions of 10 min a month | 173rd of 367, with limits $126 a month | 232nd of 367, with limits $330 a month | 7th cheapest of 367 $200 a month |
| Scraping & bots (startup scale) 50 at once · 1 vCPU / 2 GB · 100,000 sessions of 3 min a month | 149th of 346, with limits $13 a month | 258th of 346, with limits $330 a month | 6th cheapest of 346 $90 a month |
| Mass scraping & bots (undetectable) 1,000 at once · 1 vCPU / 2 GB · 3,000,000 sessions of 2 min a month | 34th of 338, with limits $253 a month | 184th of 338, with limits $6,600 a month | 71st of 338, with limits $1,800 a month |
| Parallel red teaming 200 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 5,000 sessions of 30 min a month | 103rd of 360, with limits $29 a month | 321st of 360, with limits $1,320 a month | 2nd cheapest of 360 $200 a month |
| GPU eval jobs 10 at once · 8 vCPU / 32 GB · 500 sessions of 30 min a month | Can't run it | Can't run it | Can't run it |
| macOS agents 5 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 1,000 sessions of 20 min a month | Can't run it | Can't run it | Can't run it |
Key features
| Feature | Scaleway | Contabo | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | A general European cloud: VMs, GPUs, storage and managed services | Monthly-rented VPS and VDS servers you set up yourself | Sandbox VMs for agents, started and stopped from an API |
| Isolation | Full KVM VM with its own kernel | Full KVM VM; Cloud VPS shares vCPU cores, Cloud VDS has dedicated cores | Full VM with its own kernel on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X hosts |
| Billing | Per hour of uptime, including startup and standby | Monthly rent, minimum first term of one month | Per second from a monthly plan; a stopped sandbox costs nothing |
| Stopping | Powered off from console or API, compute stops; disks and IPs keep billing | The rent runs all month, busy or idle | A stopped sandbox costs nothing and keeps its disk |
| Nested virtualization | Not documented | Not supported on any VPS plan; supported on Cloud VDS | /dev/kvm on every machine, with Docker and systemd |
| Snapshots | Images and volume snapshots you create yourself | 1 to 5 manual snapshot slots by plan, kept 30 days; none on Cloud VDS | Automatic snapshots every minute and on stop |
| Fork | Make an image of the Instance, then boot new ones from it | No fork | Fork a running sandbox in one call |
| Reaching the machine | Public IPv4 and IPv6; HTTPS needs your own proxy, certificates and DNS | Static IPv4 and a /64 IPv6, all ports; TLS and domains are yours to set up | HTTPS URLs for up to 50 ports, token-protected; raw TCP; own IP |
| Coding agents and desktop | None built in; you install agents and a desktop yourself | None built in; 1-Click images for apps like n8n and Ollama | Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode preinstalled with an API; 60fps desktop with Chromium |
| Keeping keys out of the machine | Secret Manager, but the machine fetches secrets, so they end up on it | None; secrets live on the server | AI credentials proxy for model providers and any HTTPS API you register |
| How many at once | Quotas per shape, for example 10 DEV1-L after identity checks; more through support | No published limit; big orders can wait on identity checks and stock | 100 to 2,000 sandboxes by plan, raised self-serve |
| Outbound rules | Security groups limit outbound traffic by protocol, port and IP range | Firewall rules; no outbound allowlist | Open internet; no provider-side allowlist |
| GPUs, Windows and Arm | Nvidia B300, H100, L4 and L40S by the minute; Windows Server; Arm64 | RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell GPU VPS; Windows Server add-on; no Arm | No GPUs, no Windows guests (Wine for Windows apps), x86 only |
| Regions | Paris, Amsterdam, Warsaw and Milan | 11 locations: EU, UK, US, Singapore, Japan, India, Australia | EU only: Germany, Finland, France, with EU data residency |
Every feature Battleships tracks (43)
| Feature | Scaleway | Contabo | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full VM (own kernel) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Docker inside | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Nested virtualization | Not published | No | Yes |
| Root | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Systemd | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Desktop GUI | No | No | Yes |
| Browser | No | No | Yes |
| Computer-use API | No | No | Yes |
| SSH | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Persistent disk | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Pause/resume | No | No | Yes |
| Automatic snapshots | No | No | Yes |
| Fork/clone | Yes | No | Yes |
| Live fork (no pause) | Yes | No | Yes |
| Memory fork | No | No | No |
| Custom image (Docker or snapshot) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| ≥24 h sessions | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Idle auto-stop | No | No | No |
| Wake on request | No | No | No |
| HTTPS preview URLs | No | No | Yes |
| Raw TCP inbound | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Public IPv4 | Yes | Yes | No |
| Egress allowlist | Yes | No | No |
| Secret proxy | No | No | Yes |
| Secret proxy for any API | No | No | Yes |
| Preinstalled agents | No | No | Yes |
| Agent harness API | No | No | Yes |
| MCP server | No | No | No |
| GPU | Yes | Yes | No |
| Windows | Yes | Yes | No |
| Arm64 | Yes | No | No |
| Self-hosting | No | No | No |
| BYOC | No | No | No |
| Open source | No | No | No |
| Scoped API keys | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Spend limits | No | Not published | Yes |
| Usage per sandbox (API) | No | No | Yes |
| Audit logs | Yes | Not published | No |
| SSO | Yes | No | No |
| SOC 2 | No | No | No |
| HIPAA | No | No | No |
| EU data residency | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Zero data retention | Not published | Not published | Yes |
Performance
Neither Scaleway nor Contabo was part of the public StarSling benchmark run, so there is no comparable CPU score for either. boat did 26.69 Node.js build-and-test runs per second at 4 vCPU / 8 GB on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X hosts. The Scaleway DEV1 types and Contabo Cloud VPS priced here both use shared vCPUs, so heavy, sustained load can slow down.
Node.js build-and-test loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, higher is better. Measured with the open hpc-sandbox-benchmarks suite. Scaleway and Contabo have no published run in this suite yet, so there is no like-for-like number to compare.
Pricing in five scenarios
Each bill is priced from the providers' public price lists by the open Battleships engine, with the cheapest plan that runs the scenario.
| Scenario | Scaleway, a month | Contabo, a month | boat, a month |
|---|---|---|---|
| One coding agent, workdays 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, 8 hours a day, 22 days a month, files kept between days | $14 · Usage account | $7 · Usage account | $20 · $20/mo |
| One agent that never stops 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, running 24/7 all month | $41 · Usage account | $7 · Usage account | $26 · $20/mo |
| 50 agents in parallel 50 machines of 4 vCPU / 8 GB at once, 8-hour sessions, 1,100 sessions a month, Docker inside | $537 · Usage account | $330 · Usage account | $317 · $20/mo × 3 seats |
| Sandboxes for your users 2 vCPU / 4 GB, 30,000 sessions of 10 minutes a month, up to 300 at once | $734 · Usage account | $1,980 · Usage account · with limits | $200 · $100/mo × 2 seats |
| 1,000 short jobs at once 2 vCPU / 4 GB, 1,000 at once, 3 minutes each, 200,000 jobs a month | $4,892 · Usage account | $6,600 · Usage account · with limits | $2,000 · $2000/mo · with limits |
Scaleway: Scaleway bills each Instance shape per hour of uptime, including startup and standby, so a short job pays a full hour. Disks and public IPv4 bill on top and keep billing while an Instance is powered off.
Contabo: Contabo charges a flat monthly rent per server, busy or idle, with a one-month minimum and listed rates that assume a 24-month term. Each machine you need at once is a full month's rent.
Contabo: You pick a monthly plan from $20, and all of it becomes usage credit spent per second on running sandboxes. A stopped sandbox costs nothing and keeps its disk.
Limits in those scenarios
Scaleway caps each Instance shape with a quota, such as 10 DEV1-L or 15 DEV1-M after identity checks, so 50 agents or 300 user sandboxes need a support request first. Contabo publishes no limit on servers per account, but big orders can wait on identity checks and stock, and 300 sandboxes or 1,000 short jobs mean renting that many servers for a month. Contabo's Cloud VPS cores are shared, so heavy, sustained CPU use can slow down. On boat the limit is 100 to 2,000 sandboxes by plan plus start rates, so the 1,000-job burst gets queued.
| Scenario | Scaleway | Contabo | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| One coding agent, workdays | None that bite |
| None that bite |
| One agent that never stops | None that bite | None that bite | None that bite |
| 50 agents in parallel | None that bite |
| None that bite |
| Sandboxes for your users | None that bite |
| None that bite |
| 1,000 short jobs at once | None that bite |
|
|
Which one should you use?
Use Scaleway when
machines run part of the day, or must sit next to GPUs, managed databases, Kubernetes and outbound firewall rules in one European cloud.
- Pay by the hour, not the month. Useful if machines run part-time: Scaleway bills each Instance per hour of uptime, so you can delete it after a job.
- A whole cloud in one account. Useful if the VM must sit next to managed databases, Kubernetes, private networks and outbound firewall rules.
- Many GPU types and Arm64. Useful for model work or Arm tests: Scaleway rents B300, H100, L4 and L40S GPUs by the minute, plus Arm64 Instances.
Use Contabo when
you want one cheap server that runs all month, with a static IP, or a machine outside Europe.
- A very low flat rent. Useful for one server that runs all month: a 4 vCPU / 8 GB Cloud VPS comes to about $7 a month.
- Regions around the world. Useful if your users are far from Europe: Contabo has servers in the US, UK, Singapore, Japan, India and Australia.
- Unmetered traffic and a static IP. Useful for a public server: each VPS gets a static IPv4, a /64 IPv6 and unlimited traffic under fair use.
Where boat fits
Scaleway and Contabo both rent plain VMs that you set up and run yourself. If what you are really running is agents that start, stop and fork machines all day, boat gives each one a full VM from an API in seconds, saved every minute, with coding agents, a desktop and HTTPS ports built in.
Stops that keep the disk
Agents sit idle between tasks. Scaleway keeps billing disks and IPs on a powered-off Instance, and Contabo bills the full month. On boat a stopped sandbox costs nothing and its disk is saved every minute.
Fork and /dev/kvm
Contabo has no fork and no nested virtualization on its VPS plans, and Scaleway forks only through images you make. boat forks a running sandbox in one call, with /dev/kvm, Docker and systemd on every machine.
Agents and keys handled for you
On both, you install each agent, drive it over SSH and put its API keys on a disk it can read. boat preinstalls Claude Code, Codex and OpenCode with an API, and its credentials proxy keeps real keys out.
Use boat when agents start, stop and fork machines all day: each sandbox is a full VM from an API in seconds, saved every minute, with a desktop, HTTPS ports and coding agents you drive from outside. Compare it one to one: boat vs Scaleway and boat vs Contabo.
Questions people ask
Is Scaleway cheaper than Contabo?
Usually not. One agent that never stops comes to $7 a month on Contabo against $41 on Scaleway, and 50 agents in parallel to $330 against $537. Scaleway wins when machines only run briefly: 300 user sandboxes come to $734 on Scaleway against $1,980 on Contabo, which also doesn't fit.
Does Contabo have hourly billing like Scaleway?
No. Contabo rents servers by the month with a one-month minimum, while Scaleway bills per hour of uptime. boat bills per second while a sandbox runs.
Which is faster, Scaleway or Contabo?
There is no comparable measurement: neither was part of the StarSling benchmark run. Both of the shapes priced here use shared vCPUs. boat scored 26.69 runs per second at 4 vCPU / 8 GB.
Can Scaleway and Contabo run Docker and nested VMs?
Both give root on a full VM, so Docker works. Contabo says nested virtualization is not supported on any VPS plan, only on Cloud VDS, and Scaleway's docs do not cover it. Every boat sandbox has /dev/kvm.
Where do Scaleway and Contabo run?
Scaleway runs in Paris, Amsterdam, Warsaw and Milan. Contabo has 11 locations across the EU, the UK, the US, Singapore, Japan, India and Australia. boat runs in Germany, Finland and France, with EU data residency.
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