Context
You want to get into self-hosting? Hosting a personal Nextcloud, a website, or a game server for your friends? The question often comes up: should you buy a Raspberry Pi and set it up at home, or rent a VPS from WinHeberg?
Both options are valid, but they don't serve the same needs. This guide compares them honestly, so you can pick the one that really fits your project.
The Raspberry Pi, a great tool for the right use cases
Before diving into the comparison, let's get one thing straight: the Raspberry Pi is an excellent device. Compact, affordable, versatile, it has democratized embedded computing and lets you build amazing projects. For many use cases, it's even the best possible choice.
The Pi excels particularly for local or educational projects.
- A Pi-hole or AdGuard Home server to block ads on your local network
- A Home Assistant for home automation
- A lightweight personal NAS for your local backups
- An educational or experimental project (learning Linux, electronics, etc.)
- A retro arcade station with RetroPie
- A local media player for your TV
For all these uses, the Pi is perfect and a VPS wouldn't bring anything extra, sometimes it would even be less suitable.
The question really comes up when you want to host a service that's accessible from the Internet, 24/7, with real reliability. That's where a VPS becomes interesting.
The cost calculation: the false bargain of the Raspberry Pi
Many people think a Raspberry Pi is "free" once you've bought it. That's not true. Here's the real cost of hosting a 24/7 project at home.
Initial purchase of a Raspberry Pi 5 (8 GB RAM) with accessories
- Raspberry Pi 5 (8 GB): around €90
- Official 27W power supply: €12
- Case with ventilation: €15
- microSD card or NVMe SSD (256 GB): €30 to €50
- Ethernet network cable: €5
Total initial investment: roughly €150 to €170
On top of that, you have the electricity consumption of a Pi 5 running 24/7. Count on about 5 to 8 W on average, or around 50 to 70 kWh/year. With French electricity rates around €0.25/kWh, that's about €12 to €18 per year.
Compare with our Starter offer (8 GB RAM, 75 GB NVMe SSD)
- VPS Starter: €4.99/month, or €60 per year
Over 3 years, a Raspberry Pi at home will cost you about €190 to €220 (hardware + electricity), versus €180 for a VPS Starter. And that's without counting hardware failures, occasional SD card replacement, or a UPS if you want to handle power outages.
So the VPS is barely more expensive over 3 years, sometimes even cheaper, with far fewer constraints.
The real limits of a Raspberry Pi at home for hosting
If your project needs to be accessible from the Internet and available 24/7, several constraints appear quickly.
Your public IP isn't always guaranteed or fixed
Depending on your ISP and your plan, your public IP can be fixed (the most common case with French providers like Orange and Free on fiber) or dynamic (more common with some operators or 4G/5G plans). And even with a fixed IP, nothing guarantees it'll stay the same after a box change, ISP migration, or plan upgrade.
Even more problematic: some plans (especially 4G/5G fixed or budget offers) put their customers behind a CGNAT, which makes it simply impossible to expose a service from home without going through a VPN or tunnel.
A VPS, on the other hand, guarantees you a dedicated fixed public IP from day one, regardless of your ISP or your Internet plan.
You're behind a NAT
Your box routes multiple devices through a single IP. For a service hosted at home to be reachable from the Internet, you need to open ports on the box, which requires configuring your router correctly. It's not impossible, but it's an extra step, and some boxes don't allow it easily (especially rental boxes or 4G/5G boxes).
A connection that depends on your ISP
If your box crashes, if your ISP has an outage, if someone accidentally unplugs the router, your service is down. A datacenter, on the other hand, has multiple redundant Internet links and a much more stable availability.
The risk of hardware failure
Raspberry Pis are reliable on their own, but microSD cards aren't designed to run 24/7. They wear out due to constant writes (logs, databases, etc.) and can fail after a few months. You then lose all your data if you don't have a backup. Using a USB SSD improves things, but adds cost and complexity.
On our VPS, storage is NVMe SSD in RAID 10, which handles a disk failure without data loss.
Security exposes your home network
Exposing a service from home means opening a door to your private network. If an attacker compromises your Raspberry Pi, they can potentially scan and access your other devices (computers, NAS, cameras, etc.). On a VPS, your server is completely isolated from your home and your private life.
Maintenance is your responsibility
System updates, monitoring, backup management, hardware replacement in case of failure, thermal management in summer... what seems trivial at first quickly becomes time-consuming when the hardware is physical and at your place. With a VPS, you only manage the software, the rest of the infrastructure (hardware, power, cooling, network) is handled by our team.
The concrete advantages of a VPS
For a serious project accessible from the Internet, a VPS offers several guarantees that a Pi at home simply can't.
24/7 availability in a datacenter
The datacenter hosting your VPS has multiple power supplies, backup generators, multiple redundant Internet links, and industrial cooling. Your VPS doesn't stop when there's a thunderstorm at your place or when your box reboots.
A fixed public IP from the start
No NAT, no DynDNS, no box configuration. Your VPS is directly reachable on the Internet through a dedicated and fixed IPv4.
Professional-grade hardware
You benefit from a Xeon Platinum or Ryzen 9 processor (depending on the offer), DDR4 or DDR5 RAM, and NVMe storage in RAID 10. For demanding use cases (databases, compilation, multiplayer game servers), it's several orders of magnitude of difference compared to a Pi.
Easy scaling
Your project is growing? You can upgrade to a higher offer quickly, without reinstalling anything. With a Pi, you'd have to buy new hardware and migrate everything.
Support when things go wrong
If you have an issue, our team is there to help. With a Pi at home, you're alone facing the problem, including at 3 AM.
How to choose between the two?
The right choice really depends on what you want to do.
Pick a Raspberry Pi if...
- Your project is local and stays on your network (Pi-hole, Home Assistant, personal NAS, retro-gaming, media player)
- You want to learn Linux, electronics, computer tinkering
- You have an educational or experimental project
- You want a small secondary server alongside other infrastructure
Pick a VPS if...
- Your project needs to be accessible from the Internet (website, game server for friends, web application, etc.)
- You want 24/7 availability without depending on your power or your box
- You need performance beyond what a Pi can offer
- You want to separate your online projects from your private network for security reasons
- You'd rather pay a little each month than manage hardware
Quick summary
Here's a quick recap to compare the two solutions on the criteria that really matter.
| Criterion | Raspberry Pi at home | VPS |
|---|---|---|
| Ideal for | Local projects, learning | Internet hosting 24/7 |
| Availability | Depends on your power and box | Datacenter with redundancy |
| Fixed public IP | ⚠️ Not always guaranteed + CGNAT risk | ✅ Dedicated from day one |
| Performance | Modest (ARM) | Xeon Platinum or Ryzen 9 |
| Storage | SD card (fragile) or USB SSD | NVMe RAID 10 |
| Security | Exposes your home network | Isolated in a datacenter |
| Maintenance | On you | Handled by the host |
| Cost over 3 years | ~€200 + risks | ~€180 (Starter), all-in |
| Support | You, alone | Support team available |
The Raspberry Pi and the VPS aren't competitors, they're complementary. The Pi is unbeatable for local projects and learning. The VPS is unbeatable for seriously hosting services accessible from the Internet. Many self-hosters even use both in parallel, each for what it does best.
Discover our VPS offers
If your project needs to be online 24/7 and accessible from the Internet, take a look at our VPS offers. Our Starter at €4.99/month (8 GB RAM, 75 GB NVMe) is perfect to start a personal project, and you can upgrade at any time if needed.
And of course, keep your Raspberry Pi handy for your local projects 🍓.
