Who is this page for?
Developers and small teams who want one or a few Linux servers in London, are happy running the operating system themselves, and care about short round trips to UK users. If you would rather never touch apt or dnf, or you need several regions today, read the "not for" section first.
How do I check a UK VPS is really in London?
Do not take the marketing page's word for it. Order the smallest plan, then measure from at least two UK home or office connections on different ISPs. A London server should show single-digit millisecond pings from most of England and a traceroute whose last hops stay in the UK.
ping -c 20 203.0.113.10
mtr -rwc 50 203.0.113.10
traceroute 203.0.113.10Look at the hop names and the jump in latency between them. A sudden 70 ms step usually means a trip abroad. Our latency measurement guide covers reading mtr output properly. FastNode runs in one region only: London.
What else should a developer check?
Seven things matter more than benchmark charts: real root access, a current image list, an API you can script, snapshots before risky changes, the mail port policy, what network extras are missing, and the currency you will actually be charged in. Each takes a minute to verify on the provider's own pages.
- Root. You should get full root over SSH with your own key, not a control-panel user. Every FastNode plan includes root and SSH key management in the portal.
- Images. Check the LTS versions you deploy on. FastNode offers Ubuntu 22.04 and 24.04, Debian 12 and 13, AlmaLinux 9, Rocky Linux 9 and Windows Server 2025. See the image list.
- API keys and webhooks. Scoped keys that are shown once are a good sign. FastNode issues account API keys and account webhooks; details on the API page.
- Snapshots. You want one click before a kernel upgrade or schema migration. Snapshots are in the portal. If backups are enabled on your server, check the portal for the schedule rather than assuming one exists.
- Port 25. Most hosts block outbound SMTP by default. Ours is blocked until you request an unblock in the portal. Transactional mail through a provider on port 587 works without it.
- Network extras. FastNode gives you a 1 Gbps port, unmetered traffic and one dedicated IPv4. There is no IPv6, no private networking and no DDoS protection.
- Billing currency. Prices on this site are in dollars because checkout charges dollars. Your bank converts to sterling, and some cards add a fee for that. We don't issue GBP invoices yet.
Which FastNode plan fits which developer job?
Size by the heaviest thing the box does, not the average. A side project idles most of the day; a CI runner pegs every core during a build. Use the table as a starting point, run real work for a week, then ask support to move you if the CPU or memory graphs say so.
| Job | Plan | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Side project, bot, personal site | Spark, $5/mo | 1 vCPU and 2 GB run one small app plus nginx comfortably |
| Small API or webhook receiver | Boost, $8/mo | 2 vCPU leaves room for a worker next to the web process |
| CI runner with Docker builds | Turbo, $13/mo | 4 vCPU and 80 GB for layer and dependency caches |
| Staging copy of production | Turbo or Nitro | Match production's shape closely enough to catch memory problems |
| Postgres for a growing app | Nitro, $15/mo | 12 GB lets shared_buffers and the page cache hold a decent working set |
| App, database and workers on one box | Warp or Hyper | 6 to 8 vCPU and 16 to 32 GB before you split services |
Annual billing is ten times the monthly price, so a Turbo year is $130. There are no setup fees. Full specs are on pricing, and the CI runners, staging and databases pages go further on each job.
What does a first deploy look like?
Most developers go from order to a running app in under an hour. Add your SSH key, harden login, open only the ports you need with the portal firewall, install Docker or your runtime, and wire up a deploy. Take a snapshot once it works, so a bad change later is a quick rollback.
ssh root@203.0.113.10
apt update && apt full-upgrade -y
adduser deploy && usermod -aG sudo deployThen follow the first-hour checklist, SSH hardening and either installing Docker or git push deploys.
Who is FastNode not for?
Be honest with yourself here, because migrating later costs more than choosing well now. FastNode is a single-region, unmanaged VPS service. It is the wrong choice if any of the following is a hard requirement for your product this year, not a nice-to-have.
- You need IPv6. Servers get IPv4 only.
- You need multi-region. London is the only location. Failover to another country or continent is not possible within FastNode.
- You want a managed database. You run Postgres or MySQL yourself, including upgrades, replication and backups.
- Your finance team needs GBP invoices. We bill in dollars for now.
- You expect volumetric attacks. There is no DDoS protection, so a public game server or a politically exposed site needs a filtering service in front.
- You need private networking or load balancers. Neither is offered; servers talk over their public addresses, so encrypt with something like WireGuard.
If none of those bite, a London VPS with root and flat pricing is a sensible place to start. If you are weighing it against a platform that runs the OS for you, read VPS vs PaaS.