Decide the shape of the machine first
A bare metal server is a whole machine with its own cores and local disk, while a virtual instance is a slice of shared hardware. SberCloud sells both, listing virtual instances and bare metal as its server types, so one account can move from a small test box up to dedicated hardware without changing platforms. Aruba's smallest listed plan sits at the virtual end, 1 vCPU, 1 GB RAM, 20 GB storage, which suits staging and branch workloads rather than a latency sensitive database.
Workload class should drive the decision. Steady, predictable load on a single application argues for bare metal with dedicated cores and local storage, because a noisy neighbour cannot take your cycles. Spiky or short-lived load suits hourly virtual instances that scale back down. Whichever shape you pick, confirm the smallest machine is still usable: Aruba's floor is 1 vCPU, 1 GB RAM, 20 GB storage and SberCloud's is 1 vCPU, 1 GB RAM, 30 GB NVMe, and the storage type behind that figure decides how much real work it can take.
Read every price by its billing unit
Entry prices in these two listings sit far apart, and neither means much on its own. Aruba bills monthly, with an entry price of €1.99 on its listed plan. SberCloud bills hourly, with an entry price of RUB 23.75, and its accelerated capacity is charged per minute, with hourly billing models on the GPU line.
Currency matters as much as unit here. Aruba lists in euro and SberCloud in roubles, so convert before drawing any conclusion. Use the entry price as a floor and price only, and remember how wide the spread is: entry prices across the listings in our comparison run €0.04 to €416.16. A cheap first instance says little about the cost of the dedicated machine you will actually run the workload on.
Quotas decide whether the machine fits
Bandwidth allowances separate a machine that serves an audience from one that serves a build pipeline. Aruba allows 2 TB/month on its virtual server line, bundles 40 TB per month with the entry package into the entry package, and bills extra traffic at €0.05 per GB. SberCloud includes 10 TB of outgoing traffic per month and prices additional egress at RUB 1.15 per GB. Both allowances look generous in isolation, so test them against your own peak rather than your average.
Storage and request paths carry their own meters. SberCloud charges RUB 814.68 for storage, RUB 0.0013 for function execution and RUB 14.34 for request volume, with 1,000,000 requests included in the free tier. On a request-heavy service the invocation path, not the server path, sets the bill, so model both before committing to a dedicated host.
Reliability, compliance and who answers
An uptime commitment is the cheapest quality signal on the page. SberCloud publishes an SLA of 99.9% on its compute line. Look past the number as well: SberCloud includes DDoS protection, operates 9 locations, and holds ISO/IEC 27001:2022, PCI DSS 4.0.1 and Uptime Institute Tier III Facility certifications, which is a meaningful signal for regulated workloads.
Aruba's assurance rests on a different list that includes ISO 27001 and ANSI/TIA 942, plus a set of data-centre and environmental standards that speaks to physical hosting rather than software controls. Residency is worth checking early, since SberCloud is headquartered in RU and Aruba in IT. Overnight support reach matters just as much, and SberCloud answers through email, phone, chat, a help centre and a community.
Features that decide accelerator and storage work
If the workload needs accelerators, the accelerator list is your filter. SberCloud offers B300, H100, A100, V100 and A40, with GPU capacity from RUB 240 per hour, and links nodes with Infiniband, NVLink and Direct Connect where the configuration allows. That interconnect detail matters more than the model name for multi-node training, since it decides whether nodes talk at usable speed.
Storage type is the other filter. SberCloud's storage types are object, and the object service is S3-compatible, which pairs cleanly with function-based workloads and with a dedicated node that needs an API rather than a mounted block volume. Check that the storage you want sits alongside the compute you want before you settle, then confirm the object and compute products share a region.
Free tier, credits and the small print
SberCloud has a free tier, and it does not extend to a free control plane for managed Kubernetes. Bonus credits are available to individuals, with a larger grant for legal entities and sole proprietors. That is enough to run a proof of concept and a migration rehearsal, not to carry production traffic once the credits run out.
Aruba's offer is simpler in shape: the entry package carries 40 TB per month with the entry package of included egress, which covers many small sites outright without extra spend. Treat both programmes as evaluation tools, then price the steady state at the rates above, because the comparison that matters is the annual one, not the trial one.
How the shortlist lands
Start from the Dedicated and bare metal servers rankings to see where the category leaders sit, then read the SberCloud review for the hourly, accelerator-heavy side and the Aruba review for the monthly, euro-denominated side with the larger included egress.
Other hosts in the same comparison include Vultr, UCloud, Cloudzy, ProfitServer and RUVDS. Geographic spread is part of the shortlist too, since location counts run 1 to 213 across the listings compared here, so match that spread to your latency targets and residency rules. Whatever you shortlist, the ordering of checks stays the same: machine shape, billing unit, quotas, uptime, then features.