If hosting your stream inside India matters, Contabo is the clearer place to start: its official locations page lists an India data centre. Hetzner may still be worth testing from Singapore or another available region, but the traffic documentation cited here does not establish an India location.
Neither a traffic allowance nor a port-speed label tells you whether a particular server will sustain your chosen bitrate to YouTube ingest. Compare the exact plan’s traffic terms and compute, then test the route from your own ISP and run the stream for an extended period before relying on it.
Start with the job the server must do
A useful comparison begins with the workload, not the provider name. A cloud server might encode a video file into a live feed, or it might simply relay a feed that has already been encoded elsewhere. The first job can consume significant CPU or require suitable hardware acceleration; the second is more about network behaviour and keeping the sending process alive.
Write down what will run on the server. For example, a devotional channel might loop a prepared video and use FFmpeg to encode it, while a local news operator might have an encoder elsewhere and need a VPS only to forward the feed. Those are different resource and failure profiles. Do not buy a larger plan just because a continuous stream sounds demanding; first establish whether the server is encoding or relaying.
Also define the output. YouTube’s encoder guidance covers resolution, frame rate, bitrate, keyframe interval and protocol. Its recommended live encoder settings call for RTMPS, constant bitrate and a two-second keyframe interval, not exceeding four seconds. Choose a bitrate suited to your output and content, including audio, and leave some network headroom rather than treating the recommendation as proof that a server can deliver it.
If you are still preparing a looped file, the guide to making video files smaller for a YouTube 24/7 stream can help reduce the amount of source material you need to manage. Smaller source files do not automatically reduce live output bitrate; encoding settings determine that. The distinction matters when estimating both CPU and monthly outbound traffic.
The location question for an India-based operator
Distance and routing can affect latency and the path a stream takes, but a location label alone cannot tell you the quality of the actual connection to YouTube’s ingest point. Your Indian ISP, the server’s network, routing changes and the selected YouTube ingest endpoint all contribute. A nearby data centre is a sensible candidate to test, not a guarantee of fewer reconnects or a stable stream.
Contabo’s official locations page lists India and says the location serves major cities across the subcontinent. That makes it the more direct starting point when the requirement is a server hosted in India. Confirm that India is selectable for the particular product and configuration you intend to buy; a country appearing on a general location page does not establish that every product or plan is available there.
Hetzner’s documented traffic options include Singapore, alongside other regions, but the cited documentation does not establish an India region. Singapore is therefore a possible comparison point, not a presumed better or worse route. If it is available for the Cloud plan you want, test it from the connection and YouTube channel you will actually use.
This is a practical distinction rather than a verdict. If an India-hosted server is a firm operational requirement, begin with Contabo’s listing and verify the product. If compute, plan terms or measured route make another region attractive, include it in your test. The same approach applies to a business channel in Mumbai and a study stream run from a smaller town: test from the operator’s real ISP, not from a generic map or a distant benchmark.
Where each provider lists data centres
Provider locations and product availability can change. Check the current configurator before committing, especially when comparing a specific VPS or Cloud Server rather than the provider’s full catalogue.
Contabo’s locations page lists India. Its description presents the location as serving major cities across the subcontinent, but you should still check the selected product at checkout. Hetzner’s traffic documentation provides traffic details for product families and locations including Singapore; it is not, by itself, a complete current list of every available region. Review Hetzner’s live Cloud selection for the particular plan and region.
| Question | Contabo | Hetzner Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| Does the cited official information establish an India location? | Yes. Its locations page lists India; verify product availability. | The cited traffic documentation does not establish an India location. |
| Is Singapore a region to consider? | Check its current location and product selection. | Singapore is included in the cited traffic documentation; confirm the plan is selectable. |
| What does the location tell you about the stream route? | It identifies a hosting location, not the measured path to YouTube. | The same limitation applies; test the actual route. |
Use this as a shortlist, not as an availability promise. The route can vary by ISP and destination. If you have access to more than one internet connection, test the connection that will normally operate the channel and, if useful, a backup connection as well. Do not infer that the server with the closest listed location will necessarily give you the better stream health.
Compare outbound capacity and traffic terms
A 24/7 stream sends data continuously. For a rough planning estimate, multiply the video bitrate in megabits per second by 10.8 to get decimal gigabytes per day, before protocol overhead. At 6 Mbps, that is about 64.8 GB each day, or roughly 1.94 TB over 30 days. This is arithmetic from the chosen bitrate, not a provider estimate. Add headroom for overhead, restarts, other outbound traffic and any additional outputs.
The key is to separate three different concepts: included traffic, port speed, and sustained throughput. An included allowance tells you how much data a plan permits or bundles under its terms. A port-speed figure describes a connection’s nominal capacity. Neither, by itself, establishes the sustained upload rate your specific instance will deliver to YouTube for a month.
Contabo says that no default bandwidth limit applies, subject to its fair usage policy. Its support information lists VPS/VDS port speeds from 100 Mbps to 1 Gbps and describes possible throttling in exceptional or disruptive cases. The provider’s homepage describes default unlimited traffic at an average 100 Mbit/s. Its legal terms also caution that bandwidth for an individual server is not guaranteed unless expressly agreed. These statements need to be read together: “unlimited” does not mean a specified per-instance throughput commitment.
Hetzner’s traffic documentation lists allowances by product and region. It gives 20 TB for several EU Cloud product families, with plan-dependent lower ranges for US and Singapore locations. The page was last changed in May 2024, so verify the current allowance, included traffic and overage billing for the exact Cloud plan and region before you decide. An included traffic amount is not a route-quality test, nor does it specify a sustained upload rate to YouTube.
Do not compare “unlimited” with a terabyte allowance as if those labels answer the same question. Work out your expected monthly transfer, check how overage or throttling is handled, and find out whether the provider publishes any capacity terms for the chosen product. Then test sustained sending at your intended bitrate. For a deeper setup example, see how to configure FFmpeg to stream 1080p video to YouTube from a VPS; use its configuration as a starting point, not as evidence that a provider’s route will perform identically.
Check CPU resources for your encoding workload
If the server will encode video, the CPU has to process frames in real time while the stream remains active. Resolution, frame rate, codec, preset and source complexity all affect the work. A static image with music and a high-motion video are not equivalent tests. Likewise, a plan’s vCPU count is not a direct benchmark for a particular encoder configuration.
Run the actual encoder on the plan you are considering with representative content. Watch whether it keeps pace with the video timeline and whether CPU use leaves room for audio processing, file handling and recovery tasks. If it cannot sustain the target settings in a test, reduce the workload or select a plan that performs better under that specific trial. Avoid choosing a size based only on someone else’s settings or a generic claim about cores.
If the VPS only relays an already encoded stream, the CPU needs are different. You may not need to pay for encoding capacity that your workflow does not use. You still need a process that can reconnect cleanly and enough network capacity for the feed, but route stability and supervision will likely matter more than raw encoding performance.
For a recorded-video workflow, also decide how the source will loop and what happens if the file ends or the process exits. A guide to keeping recorded lessons streaming continuously without leaving a computer on covers the continuity side of that problem. The provider comparison cannot tell you which instance is sufficient for your particular encoding workload; a trial with your source file can.
Test the route from your ISP to YouTube ingest
A ping test is not a stream test. It may show round-trip latency to a host, but it does not prove that a sustained RTMPS session to YouTube ingest will remain healthy. The route may differ by destination, and the path can change. No head-to-head test from your ISP to YouTube ingest is established by the published provider information discussed here.
Use the same ISP, server region, YouTube channel and representative bitrate you intend to use. Configure the encoder according to YouTube’s current recommendations, including RTMPS and constant bitrate, and make a private or otherwise appropriate test broadcast if your channel workflow allows it. YouTube advises testing with representative audio and motion and monitoring stream health. See its live encoder settings and troubleshooting guidance rather than relying on a traffic label or a single ping result.
During the test, observe dropped frames, reconnects, encoder overload and YouTube’s stream-health status. Keep notes on the time and the plan/region tested so you can compare candidates on the same terms. If the stream drops, distinguish between encoder overload, a local ISP issue, a server-side interruption and YouTube ingest behaviour where the available diagnostics permit; do not assume every interruption originates with the VPS provider.
If route quality is uncertain, test at different times and, if practical, from a second connection. A result from a single short session is only a snapshot. Compare consistent measurements rather than looking for a provider label that promises the answer. If your OBS setup uses scheduled scenes or content changes, plan those changes before running a 24/7 stream, then include the transitions in your test so they do not introduce a separate failure mode.
Read availability terms as terms, not a stream promise
Availability commitments have definitions, time windows, exclusions and remedies. They are not interchangeable, and they do not promise that your encoder, your ISP or YouTube ingest will remain uninterrupted. Hetzner’s Cloud and vServer Service Agreement describes commercially reasonable efforts to ensure 99.9% monthly availability for Cloud Servers, subject to its definition and exceptions. Contabo’s terms describe 99.9% annual average connectivity for listed services, also subject to scope and exclusions. These are different measures and should not be presented as a direct head-to-head comparison.
Read the current agreement for the service you intend to use. Check what is measured, which interruptions are excluded, what remedy applies, and whether your specific product is in scope. The figures are contractual policy language, not a prediction of how a particular 24/7 YouTube stream will behave. Neither provider’s commitment covers every link in the chain between your encoder and the viewer.
Plan recovery separately. Use a process supervisor or a restart method that can restore the encoder after a failure, and keep the source file and stream configuration available. If an interruption has meaningful consequences, consider a backup route or a second prepared sending setup, while recognising that a backup also needs testing. The article on keeping a church YouTube stream running when the internet drops offers relevant continuity planning ideas; adapt them to the cloud workflow rather than assuming the same failure points.
For operators whose main concern is leaving a home computer running overnight, StreamNeo removes that particular burden by taking an uploaded video and running it as a 24/7 YouTube stream, so the operator’s own computer can be switched off. It does not change the need to check YouTube’s settings and the fit of the chosen workflow.
Run an extended stream test before committing
A short connection check cannot expose problems that appear only after hours of continuous operation. Before moving a channel’s main schedule, run an extended test with the actual file, audio, bitrate, encoder process and region. The purpose is not to prove that the stream can never fail; it is to find issues that a brief setup test might miss and to understand how recovery behaves.
Keep a simple log: start and stop times, the selected plan and region, bitrate, dropped frames, reconnects, any CPU saturation, and YouTube’s reported stream health. Check whether the server maintains the intended output through file loops, scene changes or scheduled transitions. If a test fails, change one variable at a time where possible. That makes it easier to see whether the issue follows the compute load, the network route, the encoder settings or a separate part of the workflow.
Repeat tests on the candidate that best fits your requirements. A Contabo India location is a reasonable first test where in-country hosting is important; Hetzner Singapore remains a candidate if it is available and its plan, compute and measured route fit your needs. Do not assume one is better simply from geography or a traffic description. Your ISP and workload determine what evidence is useful.
Before paying for a longer commitment, check the provider’s current product selection, traffic terms, overage charges, and service agreement. Any figures or plan conditions can change; the relevant provider page and checkout terms should be treated as the current source. If you are testing on a monthly basis, account for the stream’s full outbound volume rather than only the amount transferred during setup.
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
Is Contabo the better choice for streaming from India?
It is the clearer starting point if hosting in India is a priority, because its official locations page lists India. That does not establish better route quality or uninterrupted streaming for your connection. Confirm that the exact product is selectable, then test it against any alternative you are considering.
Does “unlimited traffic” mean Contabo guarantees enough upload speed?
No. Contabo’s traffic and bandwidth statements are qualified by its fair usage and legal terms, and its published average speed should not be treated as a per-server guaranteed sustained rate. Check the exact plan terms and run a sustained test at your intended bitrate.
Is Hetzner Singapore a reasonable option from India?
It is a region worth evaluating if it is available for the Cloud plan you want. Published traffic allowances do not tell you whether its route to YouTube ingest will be stable from your ISP. Test the actual stream and compare its health with the India-hosted candidate.
Should I choose a larger server for a 24/7 stream?
Only if the workload needs more compute. Encoding on the VPS may need more CPU than relaying an already encoded feed, but the required size depends on your codec, settings and content. Trial the real workload and observe whether the encoder keeps pace before selecting a plan.