A 24/7 YouTube channel does not have a single evidence-backed VPS winner between Contabo and Hetzner. Start with your stream’s bitrate, then compare the exact plan and region for outbound traffic, port capacity, CPU, public IP charges and total current price; test the actual route before committing.
The published terms describe allowances and service commitments, not how reliably your particular broadcast will run. A VPS that has enough monthly traffic on paper can still have unsuitable sustained network behaviour, and a port-rate ceiling does not establish continuous-stream performance.
There is no universal provider winner
Your decision depends first on what the VPS will do. If it encodes a video file, CPU availability and sustained load matter as well as network capacity. If it only relays an already encoded feed, its compute needs are different. In either case, the target resolution, frame rate, codec and total audio-plus-video bitrate determine the stream’s outbound traffic.
Contabo’s published bandwidth policy says its VPS, VDS and dedicated servers have no default bandwidth limit, but qualifies that statement with fair use. It reserves the option to throttle unusually high or disruptive usage and says it will notify customers who exceed fair use and work with them on a solution. That is a policy statement, not a guarantee that every always-on stream will run at any chosen bitrate without intervention. See Contabo’s bandwidth and traffic limits and read the current terms for the product you intend to buy.
Hetzner’s Cloud traffic terms vary by product family and location. The cited documentation lists 20 TB per month of outgoing traffic for CX, CPX and CAX servers in EU locations; it also lists different allowances for other product types and locations. Do not apply the EU figures to a US or Singapore server, or to a different Hetzner product, without checking the current table. The traffic documentation records outgoing traffic and describes overage billing, but it does not predict the quality of a continuous path to YouTube ingest.
A practical comparison therefore begins with your own workload, not a provider slogan. If you need an India-facing operation, consider the available regions, latency to YouTube’s ingest endpoint, taxes, payment and support arrangements, as well as the numbers on the plan page. No documentation reviewed establishes a best region for every Indian channel or content type.
Calculate the stream’s outbound traffic
Use the total configured bitrate, not only the video bitrate. Add the audio bitrate, and allow some headroom for protocol overhead, reconnects and other traffic generated by the machine. Then multiply that rate by the actual hours you expect to broadcast. Because the stream is always on, a modest bitrate becomes a substantial monthly volume.
For a rough conversion, 1 Mbps sustained for 30 days is about 324 GB in decimal units before overhead. That follows from multiplying 1,000,000 bits per second by 2,592,000 seconds and dividing by eight. A continuous 10 Mbps stream would therefore use about 3.24 TB over the same 30-day period before overhead. These are mathematical estimates, not provider measurements or promises about how traffic is counted.
The example can help you see scale, but use your chosen settings in your own estimate. YouTube’s encoder settings guidance publishes recommended bitrate ranges by resolution, frame rate and codec. For example, its current table recommends 14 Mbps for H.264 at 1080p and 30 frames per second, and 10 Mbps for AV1 or H.265 at that resolution and frame rate. At 720p and 30 or 60 frames per second, its recommendations are 8 Mbps for H.264 and 6 Mbps for AV1 or H.265. Treat these as YouTube’s guidance for encoding, not as a guarantee that a particular VPS or internet route will sustain the feed.
If you send video and audio at 10 Mbps combined without interruption, the rough calculation above suggests about 3.24 TB before overhead in a 30-day month. An EU Hetzner CX, CPX or CAX allowance of 20 TB looks larger than that estimate on paper. But the estimate does not resolve fair-use terms, measurement rules, overage risk, network stability or whether your server region is suitable. Likewise, a provider policy that has no default traffic cap does not substitute for estimating volume and checking fair-use exposure.
Do not mistake the inbound file size for the monthly broadcast volume. A small video file can be transmitted continuously at a higher encoded bitrate, and a large file does not necessarily imply high outbound usage if it is encoded efficiently. Your operational figure is the stream’s sustained output rate multiplied by broadcast duration, plus other machine traffic.
Compare the exact plan and region’s port capacity
Port speed and monthly traffic allowance answer different questions. A port-rate ceiling is a limit on the rate available at a moment; an included traffic allowance is a volume over a billing period. A plan can have a port ceiling that is high relative to your bitrate but still have terms or network behaviour that need investigating. Conversely, a generous monthly allowance does not prove packets will arrive steadily enough for the stream.
Contabo’s support page lists VPS and VDS port speeds between 100 Mbps and 1 Gbps. Those figures are plan-related published limits, not a test result for a specific location, and not a statement that your stream will run continuously at the port’s full rate. Check the exact product details when ordering: product generation, region and the account’s current terms can matter.
For Hetzner, look at the specific Cloud Server family and location rather than treating “Hetzner” as one network profile. The traffic table and product pages identify distinct options and allowances. Port capacity may also be shown in product details, but it should not be used to infer end-to-end delivery to YouTube. A stream’s route includes the VPS network, peering and the destination ingest path, which can vary independently of a headline port ceiling.
YouTube advises users to run a speed test, test before going live and monitor stream health. It also recommends RTMPS, which encrypts the path into and through Google’s servers. Use the intended region and destination for your test, not a generic speed-test result alone. A speed test to a nearby endpoint can show that a network is broadly responsive, but does not settle how your broadcast will behave to the selected YouTube ingest endpoint over time.
If you are evaluating a particular plan, record sustained outbound throughput and any interruptions during a trial run using the same encoder settings and destination you plan to use in production. A brief successful test only shows that the setup worked briefly. Longer tests help reveal intermittent reconnects, CPU contention or route instability; they still cannot promise future performance.
Check egress terms and fair-use exposure
Read the traffic terms for the plan, family and location you are actually considering. Hetzner’s documentation lists EU monthly traffic for CX, CPX and CAX at 20 TB, with CCX listed at 20–60 TB depending on plan. It says US and Singapore allowances vary by type and plan, and describes excess Cloud traffic as billed in 100 MB blocks. The cited page gives a last-change date of 2024-05-21, so verify the current terms rather than treating that page’s figures as timeless.
Contabo’s “no default bandwidth limit” wording is not the same as unlimited use without conditions. Its fair-use policy permits throttling for exceptionally high or disruptive usage. A steady stream may look different from a short burst, but do not infer from the policy alone how your specific traffic pattern will be assessed. If your planned use is near a boundary or your channel sends several streams, ask the provider how the current terms apply and keep the response with your purchasing notes.
Compare the estimate with the included traffic, then identify what happens if you exceed it. A monthly allowance can be sufficient for one channel but less comfortable if the server also sends backups, serves downloads or runs additional broadcasts. Other services on the same instance use network capacity and can add traffic. Include these in the estimate rather than allocating the entire allowance to the live feed.
The choice between allowances and fair-use terms is not a simple “metered versus unlimited” verdict. One provider may make a specific allowance easier to calculate, while another may state no default cap but retain discretion under fair use. Decide which uncertainty is easier for your operation to manage. For a small devotional station, a conservative bitrate and a traffic margin may make the calculation straightforward; for multiple high-resolution channels, obtain current written clarification before relying on an assumption.
Compare CPU, public IP and total current price
A VPS is not simply a network pipe if it encodes the programme. Live encoding uses CPU continuously, and a server with shared resources may behave differently under contention from an option with dedicated resources. Hetzner distinguishes shared-resource and dedicated-resource Cloud Server types in its Cloud overview. Check the current plan specifications and do not infer encoding capacity from the monthly traffic allowance or the listed port speed.
For a relay-only workflow, the video is encoded before it reaches the VPS, so the server forwards an already prepared stream. That can reduce the need for encoding compute, but does not eliminate the requirement for a steady connection or reliable reconnect handling. If you are running FFmpeg on the VPS to play and encode a playlist, CPU load depends on what the command is doing, the source format and the output settings. The Telugu playlist FFmpeg guide is a useful example of a software-based workflow, while background music from a VPS illustrates how the programme itself can affect the setup.
Account for public IP charges in the full total. Hetzner’s Cloud overview says public IPs are not included by default and describes adding Primary IPs for internet connectivity. The cited overview lists €0.50 per month excluding VAT for a Primary IPv4 address. That number is volatile and the page’s creation/update date is 2022-06-28, so verify the live price before publishing a budget or placing an order. Do not assume that the displayed server price is the whole bill.
Current price comparison needs the actual configuration and billing location. Include the server, public IPv4 if needed, tax, backups, storage, traffic overage exposure and any dedicated CPU option required by encoding. Compare like with like: an inexpensive shared instance may be appropriate for relaying but not for sustained encoding, while a larger dedicated instance may be unnecessary if the feed arrives already encoded. Since provider prices and product names change, check each vendor’s own ordering page on the day you purchase; do not rely on an old comparison table or a price quoted without a date.
A simple worksheet helps prevent a low headline rate from hiding a cost. List the monthly base plan, any IP, storage or backup additions, applicable tax, and the likely cost if the measured traffic exceeds the allowance. Then compare that against a second plan in the same region or a different region you can actually test. For a wider view of recurring expenses, see how to reduce cloud server costs for a nonstop playlist stream.
Understand availability terms and remedies
An availability commitment is a service term with a defined scope, exclusions and remedy. It is not a promise that viewers will always see your stream, that YouTube ingest will remain available, or that every interruption will be compensated. Read the actual agreement and note what it measures, what it excludes and what you must do to request a remedy.
Hetzner’s Cloud Server service agreement describes a 99.9% monthly availability effort for Cloud Servers. It defines availability in terms of underlying host, hypervisor and instance activity, lists exclusions including customer configuration and certain external network interruptions, and states Cloud Credits as the remedy subject to its process and cap. Those credits are not equivalent to cash compensation for lost viewing time or revenue. The Cloud Server service agreement is the primary source for the commitment and its qualifications; review the current version directly.
Do not project that Cloud Server commitment onto every Hetzner product, and do not treat it as a viewer-facing YouTube uptime figure. Likewise, Contabo’s bandwidth policy is not an availability commitment. The terms reviewed for this comparison do not provide evidence that either service will sustain a specific continuous stream better than the other.
Plan for recovery regardless of provider. Decide how the encoder will reconnect, how you will be alerted if the stream stops, and what you can do if the VPS or YouTube ingest is unavailable. A restart policy can restore a process after a local failure, but it cannot repair a prolonged upstream network issue by itself. The power-cut recovery guide is relevant if your channel depends on a pre-recorded programme and needs a clear restart sequence.
Test the workload before choosing
Before purchase, define a test that resembles the live channel. Use the intended source file, encoder, total bitrate, frame rate, codec and YouTube ingest destination. If the VPS will encode, test the actual encode rather than an idle server or a simple file transfer. If it will relay, test the relay path and reconnect behaviour. YouTube recommends testing before going live and monitoring stream health, so include those checks rather than treating a successful upload as proof.
Log CPU and memory use, outbound throughput, reconnects, dropped frames and YouTube’s stream-health indications. Note the server region, plan, time period and configuration so that a comparison is repeatable. A trace that records the start and end of interruptions is more useful than a vague note that the stream “seemed fine”. If you encounter audio-video drift, isolate whether it appears in the source, the encoder or the relay; the guide to fixing audio and video going out of sync on a VPS stream covers that operational problem.
Run the stream long enough to expose patterns, not only a momentary speed ceiling. You cannot prove future continuity with a short test, but you can reject a plan that already shows frequent reconnects, sustained CPU saturation or a throughput ceiling too close to your configured bitrate. Keep a margin above the stream’s bitrate: protocol overhead and competing tasks do not disappear because the nominal port number is large.
For a fair comparison, test one plan and region at a time under similar conditions. Do not attribute a difference to the provider if the codec, ingest endpoint or test period also changed. Separate facts from observations in your notes: write down the documented allowance and terms, then record your own performance results separately. That distinction prevents a service policy from being mistaken for a benchmark.
Choose the plan that meets your measured workload and cost requirements with acceptable recovery options. If neither test is satisfactory, revise the region, bitrate or encoding arrangement before committing. A lower bitrate may reduce egress and network pressure, but check that the picture remains suitable for the channel. For a system that otherwise depends on leaving a personal computer running, StreamNeo removes that particular operational burden by turning an uploaded video into a YouTube live broadcast that can run with your computer switched off.
Before committing, compare the operating options on the pricing page. When the file and channel are ready, start free — 24-hour trial, no card.
FAQ
Which VPS is better for a 24/7 YouTube livestream?
Neither can be declared universally better from the published terms alone. Compare the exact plan and region against your bitrate, egress estimate, CPU needs, IP costs and measured test results. The best fit depends on whether you encode on the VPS or only relay an existing stream.
How much bandwidth does a 24/7 YouTube stream use?
Use total video and audio bitrate multiplied by broadcast time, then add a margin for overhead and other traffic. As a rough conversion, 1 Mbps running for 30 days is about 324 GB before overhead, so a 10 Mbps total stream is about 3.24 TB. Your provider’s counting rules and any non-streaming traffic still need to be checked.
Can a VPS stream to YouTube continuously?
A VPS can be configured to send a continuous stream, but plan specifications and availability terms do not establish that your particular setup will remain uninterrupted. Test the intended encoder, bitrate, region and YouTube ingest destination, and monitor stream health, resource use and reconnects. Keep a recovery plan for failures outside the VPS as well.
Does a 20 TB allowance guarantee the stream will work?
No. Hetzner’s cited documentation lists 20 TB per month for CX, CPX and CAX Cloud Servers in EU locations, but that is a traffic allowance, not an end-to-end performance guarantee. Check current terms for the exact product and region, and test sustained network behaviour with your actual workload.