VPS and web hosting

LXC or KVM: which kind of VPS you need

A VPS can be an LXC container or a KVM virtual machine. Both give you a Linux server with root, but they do not run the same things and do not cost the same. In short: LXC for a small, cheap service, KVM for anything that needs its own kernel or Windows.

Updated on 16 October 20263 min readThe NeoHost team

What an LXC container is

An LXC container uses the kernel of the physical server it runs on. You get your own file system, your own users and root, but the kernel is shared with the other containers. That is why it starts fast and costs little.

At NeoHost, LXC is the Spark family: shared resources, in the NXDATA-1 data center in Bucharest, from €3 a month. It is enough for a Discord bot, a TeamSpeak server, a panel or a small service.

What a KVM virtual machine is

KVM starts a full virtual machine, with its own kernel. To the system inside it, it looks like a physical server: you choose the operating system, Windows included, load kernel modules and run what you like.

At NeoHost the Flex, Core, Compute and Ruby families run on KVM, with dedicated resources. Flex, Core and Compute run in Bucharest, on Intel Xeon Gold 6140; Ruby runs in Frankfurt, on AMD Ryzen 9 7950X.

The differences that matter

	LXC	KVM
Kernel	The physical server’s, shared	Your own
Windows	No	Yes
Docker, WireGuard, kernel modules	No	Yes
Resources	Shared	Dedicated
Starting price at NeoHost	€3 a month (Spark)	€5 a month (Flex); Ruby from €15.90

What shared and dedicated resources mean

On shared resources, the cores of the physical server are split between the containers. While the neighbors are quiet, you get all the power you need; when several of them work hard at the same time, each gets less. For a bot that answers a few commands a minute you will not notice. For a database or a game server, you will.

On dedicated resources, the plan’s cores and memory are yours. A neighbor who loads up their server does not take from them, so performance is the same at any hour. That is what you pay extra for on KVM.

The NeoHost VPS families, in short

Family	Type	Location	CPU	From
Spark	LXC	Bucharest (NXDATA-1)	Intel Xeon Gold 6140	€3 a month
Flex	KVM	Bucharest (NXDATA-1)	Intel Xeon Gold 6140	€5 a month
Core	KVM	Bucharest (NXDATA-1)	Intel Xeon Gold 6140	€8 a month
Compute	KVM	Bucharest (NXDATA-1)	Intel Xeon Gold 6140	€14 a month
Ruby	KVM	Frankfurt (maincubes FRA-01)	AMD Ryzen 9 7950X	€15.90 a month

Each family has five plans, which differ in cores, memory and NVMe storage. You can add memory, NVMe and IPv4 addresses to any plan; cores come only with the plan, so for more of them you move to the next plan. DDoS filtering and IPv6 are included on all of them.

What to choose, by what you run

A Discord bot, a TeamSpeak server or a small script: LXC, which means Spark.
A website, an API or a database: KVM, from Flex up, where the resources are yours.
Docker, a WireGuard VPN or anything that needs its own kernel: KVM.
Windows Server: KVM, on Flex from Flex 3, Core from Core 3, Compute on every plan and Ruby from Ruby 2. The license is not paid for separately.
A game server or any process that depends on one fast core: Ruby, on AMD Ryzen 9 7950X, with GameReady™ OS.

If you start on LXC and later want something that needs KVM, you order a KVM VPS and move your data over. Between plans of the same family you switch from the panel, without a reinstall.