About runcheap.dev

Who writes this

Marc, a systems engineer working on Linux, containers and cost control. runcheap.dev is a personal blog: it is not sponsored, it has no affiliate links, and no hosting provider pays for a mention.

How numbers get on the page

• Prices and limits are read from the provider's own price page or its public API at the date printed at the top of the guide, never from memory and never from another blog.
• Commands and flags are run against a real container or VPS before they are published. Versions are pinned, because "latest" changes what your backups are written in.
• Benchmarks are run at least twice. Container benchmarks on a shared host vary run to run, so a single run's ranking is not a result — ranges are reported, and any claim that did not hold across runs is dropped.
• When a source will not serve a number (a storefront that hides prices from your region, a plan marked unavailable), the guide says so instead of filling the gap. An empty cell with an explanation beats a confident wrong figure.

How a guide gets made

This is a one-person blog, and the first draft is produced with an AI assistant. That is not a disclaimer bolted onto the bottom — it tells you what to check and what to trust.

• The question is mine. Topics come from a query the site already appears for, or from something I needed and could not find written down properly.
• The assistant drafts, I verify. Every price is re-read on the provider's page, every command is run on a real box, and a figure I cannot reproduce gets cut rather than softened.
• AI never decides what is true. It writes sentences; it does not get to be the source. When a provider will not serve a number, the guide says so.
• My name is on it because I answer for it. I publish, correct and retract. A wrong number that someone points out gets fixed with a new verification date.

If "written by a human" means "typed by a human" to you, this blog is not that, and you should weigh the numbers with that in mind. The verification is real either way — which is the only part I can actually put a date on.

Dates you will see

Every guide carries Verified YYYY-MM-DD next to its publication date. That is the date the pricing table and the commands were last checked — not the date the post was edited. If a provider changes its prices and the guide does not reflect it, the guide is stale and it says which day it was last true.

Corrections

If a number on this site is wrong, it gets fixed and republished with a new verification date. A retracted claim does not stay on the live site. There is no comment system: corrections are made in the guide itself.

What this blog is not

• Not a news site. Nothing here is written to be read the day it is published and forgotten.
• Not a hosting review farm. Providers appear only when a guide needs to price something.
• Not bulk content. One guide a week, each tied to a question someone actually asked or a bill someone actually paid.

Start here

• What a VPS actually costs — the entry point for every other cost guide.
• Self-hosting n8n — a worked example of a full monthly bill.
• Docker Compose vs Kubernetes — the architecture decision most small projects get wrong.