Welcome to LowEndBox.com, a place to discuss running very low end virtual private servers. I will be listing VPS plans that I found on the web that cost less than USD$7 per month, and how to run various services on them.

So wrote LEAdmin, the founder of LowEndBox, on February 1, 2008.

The first comment:

Nice site! But why $7? I’d suggest to increase $7 to $15, so more good vps can be included.

And LEAdmin replied:

increasing the threshold to $15 would mean that *a lot* of VPS providers will get included, and many are offering 256MB+ memory for that amount per month, i.e. no where near “low end” in the VPS market.

$7 is also comparable to shared hosting, make it a great alternative to your typical shared hosts.

So what were offers like back then?  Let’s look at the first half dozen:

• VT6 Internet: LEB’s very first offer.  64MB of RAM for $7/month
• ServerWays: 100MB RAM, with a 100Mhz limit on CPU for $4.90/month
• echoServers: 64MB VPS, but no price given
• Mini VDS who apparently later became joinvps.com: 64MB for $5.99/month
• DataRealm: 64MB for $5/month
• VPSLink: 64MB for $6.62/month…but only a 12-month prepay

VPSLink was used as an example a year later on the famous article Yes, You Can Run 18 Static Sites on a 64MB Link-1 VPS.

The amazing thing about VPSLink was that until very recently, they were still selling VPSes for that same 2008 price!  Check out their web site from 2022.

In early 2023, they evidently sold out to web.com, as today the site says “vpslink is partnering with Web.com”.

raindog308

Raindog308 is a longtime LowEndTalk community administrator, technical writer, and self-described techno polymath. With deep roots in the *nix world, he has a passion for systems both modern and vintage, ranging from Unix, Perl, Python, and Golang to shell scripting and mainframe-era operating systems like MVS. He’s equally comfortable with relational database systems, having spent years working with Oracle, PostgreSQL, and MySQL.

As an avid user of LowEndBox providers, Raindog runs an empire of LEBs, from tiny boxes for VPNs, to mid-sized instances for application hosting, and heavyweight servers for data storage and complex databases. He brings both technical rigor and real-world experience to every piece he writes.

Beyond the command line, Raindog is a lover of German Shepherds, high-quality knives, target shooting, theology, tabletop RPGs, and hiking in deep, quiet forests.

His goal with every article is to help users, from beginners to seasoned sysadmins, get more value, performance, and enjoyment out of their infrastructure.

You can find him daily in the forums at LowEndTalk under the handle @raindog308.