Observability VPS — Metrics + Logs + Traces

Observability VPS — Metrics, Logs & Traces
on Cloud VPS

Run the three pillars of observability on one VPS — Prometheus metrics, Loki logs, and Tempo distributed traces — all unified in Grafana. 80% cheaper than Datadog with unlimited data.

Deploy Now — From $5/mo View All Plans
3 Pillars
Unified in Grafana
$0
Per-Series Cost
Unlimited
Data Retention
$7
Starting /mo
AMD Ryzen CPU
DDR5 RAM
NVMe SSD Storage
10 Gbps Network
DDoS Protected
35+ Locations

Why Self-Host Observability on VPS?

Datadog charges $15+/host/month. New Relic $25+/user. Grafana Cloud charges per metric series and log GB. Self-hosted observability on a VPS covers unlimited hosts and unlimited data at flat monthly cost.

Prometheus — No Per-Series Cost

Scrape unlimited metric series from unlimited hosts. No Grafana Cloud $8/10k series billing. Configure retention, alerting, and federation exactly as needed.

Loki — Cheap Log Storage

Label-indexed log storage — 10x cheaper than Elasticsearch for logs. LogQL queries alongside metrics in Grafana. Promtail ships logs from all servers.

Tempo — Distributed Traces

Grafana Tempo stores OpenTelemetry traces. Identify latency bottlenecks across microservices. Correlate traces with logs and metrics in single Grafana view.

Grafana — Unified Observability

Single Grafana instance queries Prometheus, Loki, and Tempo simultaneously. Click from metric spike to correlated logs to distributed trace — true root cause analysis.

The Full Stack

Everything you need — installed and configured on your VPS in minutes.

Prometheus 2.xMetrics + alerting
Grafana OSSDashboards
Loki + PromtailLogs
Tempo / JaegerDistributed traces
AlertManagerAlert routing
Uptime KumaService uptime
Docker ComposeStack deployment
OpenTelemetryInstrumentation standard

Deploy in Minutes

SSH in and follow these commands. Your stack will be live in under 10 minutes.

root@vps:~
# Deploy full observability stack
[root@vps ~]# curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com | sh
[root@vps ~]# docker compose up -d prometheus grafana loki promtail tempo alertmanager
[OK] Prometheus:9090 | Grafana:3000 | Loki:3100 | Tempo:3200

# Add Uptime Kuma for service monitoring
[root@vps ~]# docker run -d --name uptime-kuma -p 3001:3001 louislam/uptime-kuma:1
[OK] All 3 observability pillars running

# Add Prometheus data source in Grafana, then Loki, then Tempo
# Import Node Exporter Full dashboard: ID 1860
[OK] Full observability stack in Grafana — unified view
[root@vps ~]#

Why Host4Fun VPS?

AMD Ryzen CPUs, DDR5 RAM, NVMe SSD, and 10 Gbps network — the infrastructure your workload deserves.

Prometheus — Unlimited Metrics

Unlimited metric series, unlimited hosts, configurable retention — no per-series billing. PromQL for powerful metric queries and alert rules. AlertManager for smart alert routing.

Loki — Cheap Log Aggregation

Label-indexed storage means Loki is far cheaper than Elasticsearch for logs. LogQL queries alongside Prometheus metrics in Grafana. Promtail agent ships logs from every server.

Distributed Tracing

Grafana Tempo stores OpenTelemetry traces from instrumented services. Identify slow DB queries and external API calls. Correlate traces with logs and metrics in one Grafana panel.

Grafana Correlated View

Click from a Prometheus metric anomaly to correlated Loki logs to the Tempo distributed trace. Full root cause analysis from a single Grafana instance.

AlertManager Smart Routing

Route alerts to Slack, PagerDuty, email, Telegram by severity and team. Deduplication, grouping, and silences prevent alert storms.

80% Cheaper Than SaaS

Datadog: $15+/host. New Relic: $25+/user. Grafana Cloud: metered. Self-hosted on $7/mo VPS: unlimited everything for a fraction of the cost.

How We Compare

See how Host4Fun Cloud VPS stacks up against the alternatives.

FeatureHost4Fun VPSDatadogNew RelicGrafana Cloud
Metrics Unlimited $15+/host $25+/user per series
Logs Loki $0.10+/GB metered 50GB free
Traces Tempo metered metered metered
Monthly Cost$7–$14/mo$15+/host$25+/user$8+/10k series

Use Cases

What developers and teams are building.

Infrastructure Monitoring

Monitor all servers, Docker containers, and databases from one Grafana instance — CPU, memory, disk, network correlated in unified dashboards.

Application Observability

OpenTelemetry-instrumented microservices send traces to Tempo, logs to Loki, metrics to Prometheus — complete application observability.

Team Observability Platform

Unlimited users, unlimited dashboards, role-based access — without Datadog's per-host billing that scales unpredictably.

SRE Learning

Learn all three observability pillars hands-on. Real Prometheus, Loki, and Tempo deployment for SRE certification prep.

Security Monitoring

Collect authentication logs and access events. Kibana-style log search with LogQL. Alert on suspicious authentication patterns.

IoT & Edge Monitoring

Collect metrics and logs from distributed IoT devices. Prometheus remote_write from edge nodes. Centralized observability for distributed deployments.

Simple Pricing

All plans include AMD Ryzen CPU, DDR5 RAM, NVMe SSD, DDoS protection, and free SSL. No hidden fees.

Monthly
Yearly Save up to 40%

Starter

$5/mo
  • 1 vCPU
  • 1 GB DDR5
  • 15 GB NVMe NVMe SSD
  • 1 TB Bandwidth
Get Starter

Basic

$7/mo
  • 2 vCPU
  • 2 GB DDR5
  • 30 GB NVMe NVMe SSD
  • 4 TB Bandwidth
Get Basic

Professional ★

Recommended for Observability
$14/mo
4 GB for full 3-pillar stack
  • 4 vCPU
  • 4 GB DDR5
  • 60 GB NVMe NVMe SSD
  • 8 TB Bandwidth
Get Professional

Business

$28/mo
  • 6 vCPU
  • 8 GB DDR5
  • 120 GB NVMe NVMe SSD
  • 16 TB Bandwidth
Get Business

35+ Global Locations

Deploy close to your users for the lowest possible latency.

USA & Canada (15)

Atlanta • New York • Los Angeles • Miami • Dallas • Chicago • Seattle • San Jose • Ashburn • Phoenix • Las Vegas • North Carolina • Oregon • Utah • Canada

Europe (10)

Frankfurt • London • Paris • Amsterdam • Warsaw • Oslo • Helsinki • Madrid • Milan • Bucharest

Asia-Pacific (4)

Singapore • Tokyo • Johor (Malaysia) • Sydney

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the three observability pillars?

Metrics (what is happening — rates, errors, latency from Prometheus), Logs (what happened — from Loki), and Traces (why — distributed request path from Tempo). Grafana connects all three for correlated root cause analysis.

Can all three run on one VPS?

Yes — Professional plan ($14/mo, 4 GB DDR5) runs Prometheus + Grafana + Loki + Tempo via Docker Compose. Basic ($7/mo, 2 GB) handles metrics + logs only.

What is OpenTelemetry?

CNCF standard for instrumentation. Auto-instrument Node.js, Python, Java, Go services to emit metrics, logs, and traces. Configure OTel Collector to route to your self-hosted Prometheus, Loki, and Tempo.

Loki vs Elasticsearch for logs?

Loki indexes only labels — much cheaper storage than Elasticsearch. Query with LogQL in Grafana. Choose Elasticsearch when you need full-text search across log content. For observability, Loki is the better choice.

What is Grafana Tempo?

Open-source distributed tracing backend compatible with Jaeger, Zipkin, and OpenTelemetry. Stores traces on local disk or object storage. Grafana connects Tempo traces to Loki logs and Prometheus metrics.

How to instrument for tracing?

Use OpenTelemetry SDK for your language. Auto-instrumentation packages exist for Node.js, Python, Java, Go. Configure OTLP exporter to your Tempo endpoint. Traces appear in Grafana immediately.

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Deploy Your Observability VPS Today

Metrics + Logs + Traces. Unified Grafana. Unlimited data. 80% cheaper than Datadog. From $7/mo.

Deploy Now — From $5/mo