One lesson I've learned while building DeployOS is that most startups don't need bigger servers they need more customers.

I see a lot of founders launching an MVP and immediately reaching for managed platforms and infrastructure that costs $30–$100/month before they've earned their first dollar.

For many projects, that's unnecessary.

A small VPS can comfortably run multiple apps, APIs, databases, and background workers for a long time if it's configured properly.

The problem isn't starting small.

The problem is what happens when you eventually need to scale.

That's one of the reasons I built DeployOS.

Instead of locking you into a specific provider, it lets you deploy to your own servers over SSH. You can host on Hetzner today, move to DigitalOcean later, or migrate to AWS when your business needs it.

• No vendor lock-in.

• No rebuilding your deployment pipeline.

• Just move your applications when the time is right.

• I think founders should optimize for survival first.

• Keep infrastructure costs low.

• Validate your idea.

• Get paying customers.

• Scale when the business demands it not because your platform does.

  I'm curious what's the cheapest server you've successfully run production workloads on, and how long did it last before you had to scale?