| What it is | Apps on microVMs | VPS (Droplets) | VPS (Servers) | Persistent computer for agents |
| You manage | App and Machine config | OS, firewall, TLS | OS, firewall, TLS | Nothing |
| Boot time | Sub-second | Minutes to a ready server | Minutes to a ready server | Sub-second |
| Click / type / screenshot | Build it yourself | Build it yourself | Build it yourself | Built in |
| Interface | CLI, REST, SSH | SSH | SSH | HTTP API, CLI |
| Public inbound | Anycast IPs and proxy | Reserved IPs, DNS, firewalls | Primary and floating IPs | Authenticated proxy |
| Persistence | Volumes (opt-in) | Droplet disk | Server disk | Persistent by default |
| Best for | General apps and services, multi-region | General self-managed servers | Low-cost general servers | Agents driving a computer or browser, and a 24/7 home for CLI agents (Hermes, OpenClaw, Claude Code) |