Hostim.dev vs sota.io: The Dedicated CPU Price Isn't on the Pricing Page

Hostim.dev is a real, working Docker PaaS, run out of Germany, and it makes the same "hosted in the EU" pitch sota.io does. If you're comparing the two, the CLOUD Act angle that dominates most of sota.io's competitor comparisons doesn't apply here — Hostim.dev is a German company running bare-metal servers in Germany, same as sota.io. The actual story is what happens between Hostim's marketing page and its docs: the price you see first isn't the price most apps end up paying.

What Hostim.dev actually is

Hostim.dev is a Docker-first hosting platform: you deploy from a Docker image, a Git repository, or a docker-compose.yml file, and it runs the container on Hostim's own bare-metal servers rather than a hyperscaler. Each project gets managed PostgreSQL, MySQL, and Redis as add-ons, plus persistent volumes. Per Hostim's own homepage, it's explicitly positioned at "freelancers, agencies, and students" — the per-project billing and isolation model is built around handing a finished project off to a client cleanly, not around running one growing production app for years.

The legal entity behind it, per Hostim's own imprint: HOSTIM.DEV UG (haftungsbeschränkt), registered at Amtsgericht Wuppertal (HRB 36069), based in Solingen, Germany, founded 17.09.2025. A UG is Germany's minimum-capital company form — no fixed minimum beyond €1, versus €25,000 for a GmbH. For context, sota.io's operator, mamarx GmbH, is registered as a full GmbH at Amtsgericht Charlottenburg (Berlin), HRB 213877 B. Neither fact tells you anything about product quality, but if vendor-entity maturity is part of your due diligence, it's worth knowing before you sign up, not after.

The pricing page shows three plans. The real pricing table is somewhere else.

Go to hostim.dev/pricing and you'll see three named tiers with no vCPU or RAM numbers attached to any of them:

All three are explicitly "Shared Instance" — there is no dedicated-CPU option anywhere on the marketing pricing page. The actual resource specs, and the dedicated-CPU tier, only show up in Hostim's docs:

That's the whole story in one comparison: Hostim's cheapest 2-vCPU option (sa-2-2, €4.50/mo) is genuinely cheaper than sota.io — but it's a shared vCPU, meaning your app's compute is time-sliced with other tenants on the same core. The closest dedicated-CPU match (da-2-4, 2 vCPU / 4 GB, €26/mo) is roughly 2.9x sota.io's flat €9/month, which includes 2 dedicated vCPU and a managed PostgreSQL instance. Managed databases on Hostim are priced separately on top of either tier (MySQL/PostgreSQL scale from €0 to €100/mo depending on storage; Redis €0-€20/mo) — so the all-in cost of a dedicated app plus a real database climbs well past the headline number in either direction.

None of this makes Hostim's shared tier a bad deal for what it is — €4.50/month for a shared 2-vCPU container with a free 256 MB Postgres instance is a legitimately good price for a side project. But "starting at €2.50" and "dedicated CPU costs €26" are two different products, and only one of them is on the page most visitors see first.

Where sota.io fits

• One price, dedicated CPU, no separate database bill to add on. €9/month gets you 2 dedicated vCPU and a managed PostgreSQL instance included — not a shared-core starting price with the dedicated tier and database costs layered on separately in the docs.
• Deploy from git push, the CLI, the API, or an AI agent — not limited to Docker image/Compose/Git-repo upload.
• gVisor container isolation built into the platform, not something you configure per project.
• EU-incorporated (Germany), running on Hetzner infrastructure — same non-CLOUD-Act-exposed jurisdiction as Hostim.dev, so this genuinely isn't the differentiator here; it's parity worth stating rather than implying an advantage that doesn't exist.
• Currently invite-only / early access; Enterprise onboarding on dedicated EU capacity, with a DPA and compliance documentation, is open now via info@sota.io.

Where sota.io doesn't fit

Being equally straightforward the other way: Hostim.dev offers managed MySQL and Redis as first-class add-ons alongside PostgreSQL — sota.io currently ships managed PostgreSQL only. Hostim's per-project isolation model, mix-and-match custom plans, and a genuinely cheap €2.50 entry point (with a 5-day no-card trial) are well suited to a freelancer or agency running a dozen small client projects that each need clean, separate billing and a fast handover. sota.io isn't built for that workflow — it's built for a team shipping one product they intend to keep running and scaling, not for spinning up and handing off many small isolated apps.

Neither company publishes an independent security certification (ISO 27001, SOC 2) on its site as of this writing — that's stated plainly here rather than implied as a sota.io advantage it hasn't earned either.

Side-by-side

See Also

• Coolify Alternative 2026: What Changes When Nobody Has to Patch the Server — another EU-incorporated comparison where CLOUD Act isn't the differentiator
• Bunnyshell Alternative 2026: What Changes When You Don't Bring Your Own Kubernetes — for readers comparing sota.io against a BYOC orchestrator rather than a hosted PaaS
• Render Pro Is $85/Month. sota.io Is €9. Both Give You 2 vCPU. — the same dedicated-vCPU price comparison against a US-based platform
• Best European PaaS Providers 2026: GDPR, DORA, and Real EU Jurisdiction Compared — full jurisdiction comparison across Clever Cloud, Scalingo, Sliplane, Northflank, and sota.io