Straight answers about ranking methodology, pricing and choosing the right plan.
There is no single winner. Sort this ranking by rating, then apply RAM, location and budget. A $5 Linode Nanode, a €6 Hetzner CX23 and a 24-month Hostinger KVM are different products.
Sub-$5 plans (Namecheap Spark, UpCloud Starter, OVH VPS-1) are fine for staging, bots and small sites. Production APIs usually want 2–4 GB RAM, NVMe and a 1 Gbps-class port — see the full VPS table, not only Cheap VPS.
No. Order is overall rating, then number of reviews, then featured flag. Affiliate Visit links do not change the score. The method page explains the scale.
The catalog stores the monthly figure the provider puts on the pricing page. Hostinger and Contabo teaser rates are long-term averages — read the company page for renewal. Hourly clouds (DigitalOcean, Linode, Hetzner) use a monthly cap.