Secondary DNS
Your zones answered from a second network, in New York and Bucharest. BIND, Knot or PowerDNS barely wake four cores up.
Micro dedicated server
Five dollars a month buys a server, not a share of one
One AMD Opteron X2150 APU cartridge in our New York and Bucharest racks: 4 cores, 8 GB, a 32 GB SSD and a 500 Mbps port nobody meters. You get root, an IPv4 address of your own and the same 24/7 desk every bigger machine gets. $5 a month, $13 once to build it.
Where the five dollars go
The bill, one line per part, straight from the order catalogue
These are the catalogue's own figures for the standard build, the ones the checkout charges. Nothing on this page is typed in by hand.
- $4Processor: AMD Opteron X2150 APU, 4 cores at 1.1 GHz
- $1Memory: 8 GB DDR3
- $0Storage: 32 GB SSD, Ubuntu 26.04 installed
- $0Network: 500 Mbps port, nothing metered
- $0Address: 1 IPv4, basic support included
$5 a monthplus $13 once, when the machine is built. First invoice $18, then $5.
Want more? The order form prices a 1.8 GHz processor at $10 more a month, a disk up to 240 GB SSD at $13, a 1 Gbps port at $79, and a monitored support tier at $2. Each line changes only its own figure.
What fits
Six jobs that are happier on a tiny server of their own
None of these needs speed. All of them need to stay up, keep their address and stay out of the way of your real workload.
Your own VPN
WireGuard for the team, the office or the house, on an address that never changes, through a 500 Mbps port that does not count what passes.
Uptime checks and a status page
The watcher that must live outside the thing it watches. Uptime Kuma, a static status page, a cron that pings the big servers.
A CI runner
A GitHub Actions or GitLab runner nobody else queues on, with your secrets kept on hardware you rent whole.
A small site or app
A blog, a landing page, a Nextcloud for one household, a bot. Ubuntu 26.04 comes installed; 27 other systems are on the order form.
A quiet collector
Logs and metrics from your other machines, a copy of the configuration files you cannot afford to lose, kept somewhere that is not those machines.
Read this first
Four things a $5 server will not do, said before you pay
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It will not be quick
4 cores at 1.1 GHz are fine for DNS, tunnels and small sites and wrong for video, builds in a hurry or anything with a GPU in its name. The value page compares every machine we run under $100; the instant page has the ones racked and ready today.
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It will not take more memory
8 GB is what the cartridge holds, full stop. A database that wants to sit in memory, or a stack of containers, needs the next line up.
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It has one disk
The 32 GB SSD is the system and your data, with no mirror. Keep a copy elsewhere, pick the bigger disk on the order form (up to 240 GB SSD), or add the nightly backup offered there.
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It is built when you order it
The $5 price is the standard build: $13 once for the work, 4 to 24 hours until it is online. The order page also shows this line's machines that are already racked, online in about 30 minutes at their own price.
Line by line
The machine, exactly as the order form builds it
| Part | What you get |
|---|---|
| The box | One server cartridge in a shared chassis, with its own processor, memory, disk and port; no virtualisation layer |
| Processor | AMD Opteron X2150 APU, 4 cores at 1.1 GHz (1.8 GHz for $10 more) |
| Memory | 8 GB DDR3 |
| Disk | 32 GB SSD (up to 240 GB SSD on the order form) |
| Port | 500 Mbps, unmetered (1 Gbps for $79) |
| Addresses | 1 IPv4 included, IPv6 on request |
| System | Ubuntu 26.04 as standard, 27 Linux and Windows systems to pick from, reinstalled from your dashboard whenever you like |
| Access | Root or administrator, power and reinstall from the dashboard |
| Support | Basic 24/7 included; monitored tier for $2 a month |
| Where | New York and Bucharest, your pick on the order page |
| When | 4 to 24 hours after approval |
| Price | $5 a month and $13 once |
Read from the order catalogue as the page is served, so this table and the checkout cannot disagree.
Asked before buying
The $5 dedicated server, questions and straight answers
Is this a VPS with a different name?
No. It is one physical cartridge with its own 4-core processor, 8 GB of memory, its own disk and its own port, and nobody else runs on it. There is no hypervisor between you and the hardware.
What exactly is in the $5?
The AMD Opteron X2150 APU, 8 GB DDR3, the 32 GB SSD, one IPv4 address, the unmetered 500 Mbps port and basic support. Everything else, from a faster processor to a Windows licence, is a line on the order form with its own price.
What is the $13 for?
Building the machine: configuring the cartridge, installing the system you picked and routing the address. It is charged once, on the first invoice, which is therefore $18. After that the invoice is $5.
How soon is it online?
4 to 24 hours after your order is approved, with the login details in your dashboard. If one of this line's machines is already racked, the order page offers it too, and that one is online in about 30 minutes.
Does it run Windows?
Yes. Windows Server editions and Windows 11 Pro are on the order form next to Ubuntu 26.04, Debian, AlmaLinux and Proxmox VE, with the licence priced there. 8 GB runs a small Windows service comfortably and a desktop session tightly.
Is 500 Mbps really unmetered?
Yes. Nothing counts the traffic either way, so a VPN that carries a whole household's month costs the same as an idle box. A 1 Gbps port is available for $79 a month.
Which city will it be in?
Your choice of New York and Bucharest, made on the order page. Both sit on our own network, so a nameserver or a VPN here is on a different path from a server anywhere else.
What if I outgrow it?
Order a bigger machine, copy your data over, close this one. Billing stops when a server is closed, with no notice period and no exit charge. Every line under $100 is compared on the value page.
That is the whole offer
A real server, $5 a month, in New York and Bucharest
4 cores, 8 GB, a 32 GB SSD, an unmetered 500 Mbps port and an address of your own. $13 once to build it, then the price on this page.