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Demand for VPS in Europe until 2026 will be shaped by two main factors: the need for compliance with regulatory requirements and the need to ensure high performance for new types of workloads, such as AI and Edge computing. These factors determine the key technical configurations that will become the market standard.
Service Evolution: extended support and managed VPS as a guarantee of peace of mind and compliance
By 2026, the segment of Managed VPS and services with extended support will not just maintain, but strengthen its dominant position. This is sustainable growth, driven by a strategic decision of B2B clients: to delegate routine and responsibility to competent executors.
24/7 Support: delegation as resource savings
Enterprises, especially small and medium-sized businesses, are increasingly delegating IT infrastructure support tasks to third-party organizations, driving demand for managed services or extended support. It is therefore not surprising that this option is starting to appear in the VPS offerings of hosting providers:
Automatic OS and software updates;
Proactive monitoring and bottleneck elimination;
Robust security configurations and automated backup;
24/7 technical support capable of troubleshooting and restoring service.
For clients without deep technical knowledge, delegating server management to the provider is a key mechanism for reducing operational and legal liability. By managing the configuration, the provider automatically ensures compliance with multiple requirements for security and data integrity, including adherence to standards such as ISO 27000. Thus, the pricing of Managed VPS and extended support is shifting towards including a premium for guaranteed compliance with regulatory norms.
Price vs. Value: aggressive inclusion of services
Competition forces providers to include high-end, previously optional features in their basic packages. The market is moving away from a price battle over raw resources (GB RAM, vCores) and transitioning to competition based on the quality and volume of included services.
In modern VPS product lines, key features have become standard: guaranteed bandwidth, NVMe storage, daily automated backup, and automatic DDoS protection. This shift shows that business clients are seeking reliability and comprehensive protection. Deployment in European strategic hubs (Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Paris) with multilingual support is also becoming a standard for ensuring pan-European coverage.
NVMe VPS: your new mandatory speed minimum
We are approaching a time when NVMe VPS will be the mandatory minimum for business-grade hosting. This technological leap is crucial for handling high-traffic e-commerce sites, complex databases, and resource-intensive applications, directly impacting customer experience and operational efficiency.
Readiness for AI and Edge Computing: the evolution of typical configurations
The critical factor determining VPS performance is the final transition to NVMe technology. NVMe uses PCIe lanes for direct communication with the CPU, bypassing the bottlenecks of the outdated AHCI protocol. This ensures a latency of ~30 microseconds, which significantly outperforms SATA SSDs with figures over ~80 - 100 microseconds. For high-load applications such as databases, financial systems, and e-commerce, which require stable and minimal response time, NVMe becomes the mandatory minimum. And hosting providers are rapidly completing the transition to NVMe as the standard for all recommended VPS plans by the end of 2025. In addition to low latency, this type of storage guarantees significantly higher read/write speeds.
Demand for computing resources is also growing. Typical configurations are expanding, starting from 2 vCores/4 GB RAM and reaching 32 vCores/128 GB RAM for resource-intensive projects. Network infrastructure requirements are also increasing: guaranteed bandwidth in the range of 200 Mbps to 2Gbps is becoming basic for supporting high-traffic and streaming services.
TCO and Sovereignty: why Linux VPS and Open Source dominate in Europe
The Linux VPS segment continues to dominate the virtual server market in Europe. This is driven by two key advantages: lower Total Cost of Ownership, as there is no need for expensive licensing, and a high reputation for security, which is critically important for European businesses. According to research by Cognitive Market Research, the European Linux OS market is projected to demonstrate a Compound Annual Growth Rate of 19.9% between 2024 and 2031.
In the context of digital sovereignty, the role of Linux and other open-source solutions is strengthening. The EU's desire to reduce dependence on non-European platforms and avoid "vendor lock-in" supports migration to Open Source solutions.
KVM + Kubernetes: from VM to the hybrid infrastructure of the future
KVM remains a key technology for ensuring the hardware isolation necessary for VPS. However, the strategic planning of most organizations includes not only traditional Virtual Machines but also modern containerization and orchestration technologies, as well as deployment on Edge infrastructure and the use of Generative AI.
There is a clear trend towards hybridization. Companies not ready for a full transition to containers are looking for solutions that unify management. Open platforms such as Apache CloudStack, Proxmox VE, OpenNebula, and KVM allow managing both traditional VMs and containers using a single platform. This approach provides the necessary flexibility, prevents vendor lock-in, and prepares the infrastructure for future innovations.
With high-performance configurations available, VPS becomes an ideal, cost-effective testing environment for development and even for deploying small production environments.
Key Configuration Trends for 2026
The EU's "Green" Mandate: from marketing to a strict regulatory requirement
Sustainability and environmental friendliness have become not just a marketing advantage but a mandatory regulatory requirement in Europe. The European Commission has set an ambitious goal of achieving carbon neutrality for data centers by 2030. Given the information from the International Energy Agency that data centers will exceed the 600 TWh electricity consumption mark in 2026, the EU is actively implementing mechanisms to increase the energy efficiency of data centers and cloud computing.
Key control instruments include the Ecodesign Regulation, the Code of Conduct for Data Centre Energy Efficiency, and the Taxonomy Regulation, which defines criteria for qualifying investments as environmentally sustainable. For VPS providers, this means that demonstrating the use of renewable energy sources, as well as measures for waste heat utilization, becomes critically important. And for clients of hosting providers, choosing services from non-environmentally friendly data centers becomes a costly reputational misstep that contradicts the values of responsible business and alienates modern consumers.
Consumer demand is high: according to Gartner research, half of organizations plan to implement infrastructure sustainability monitoring and possible transition to "green" hosting by 2026. Moreover, EU requirements for "green" public procurement and overall corporate goals in sustainability and social responsibility mean that providers without a transparent and confirmed sustainability strategy will be excluded from major B2B tenders. Thus, in 2026, certification according to sustainability standards (Environmental, Social, Governance - ESG) and transparent reporting will become a mandatory competitive requirement, especially in mature markets such as Germany, France, and the UK.
Time to Act - choose your new VPS meeting modern requirements
2026 is not just a technical update; it's a strategic turning point in the European market. Current cloud infrastructure must solve two key tasks simultaneously: ensure hyper-performance for new workloads and comply with the EU's "Green" mandate. Without transitioning to NVMe, you risk losing on speed, and without transparent ESG reporting, you may be excluded from major tenders and public procurement.
Don't wait until competitors pass this "green" filter. Your reliable hosting partner has already integrated these standards: we offer NVMe-based VPS with KVM flexibility, running on infrastructure with a confirmed ESG strategy. Provide your business with the necessary competitive advantage, regulatory security, and better speed today.
Contact us to select a configuration ready for the challenges of 2026.
