Underpricing VPS DB Incidents Distorts Managed DBaaS TCO
That “cheap” self-hosted database can feel like a win—right up until a random VPS issue turns into a late-night recovery nightmare. The monthly price gap looks small at first, but downtime, backups, and emergency fixes can quietly blow up the real cost.
A $40/month VPS can look irresistible. However, a failed upgrade, corrupt volume, or missed backup can still cause an outage customers notice.
For PostgreSQL and MySQL, compare matching architectures and likely failure modes. Also compare who is accountable when recovery targets fail.
Database as a Service versus a self-hosted DB on VPS is a trade-off. You trade outsourced operational risk for lower-cost control.
The right model depends on DBA capacity, RPO, RTO, availability needs, extension support, and incident costs. The monthly invoice alone is not enough.
Decide by RPO, RTO, and accountable staff
RPO is the most recent data you can lose. RTO is the longest outage you can accept.
A managed service is often safer when you need an RPO under 15 minutes. It also helps when you need an RTO under one hour.
This is especially true when no named database owner is on call. Think of RPO as how far back a receipt book can go.
Put recovery targets before monthly price
A single VPS with nightly off-site backups often has a 12-to-24-hour RPO. Its RTO often ranges from 2 to 12 hours.
Database size and restore speed shape those times. A large restore can take far longer than expected.
A primary VPS with streaming replication can reach a 5-to-15-minute RPO. Continuous archive logs are also required.
That result only counts when you test replication and restores. A backup you never restored is only a theory.
Assign one owner for each failure
And the most expensive database bill might be the one that never shows up on your invoice...
Those looking to go deeper will find underpricing vps db incidents distorts managed a useful reference.
