What is the best no-setup AI assistant host?

For comparison, the cheapest VPS (Contabo Cloud VPS S) is $6.25/mo versus $29.00/mo for the cheapest managed host. The gap is what you pay to skip setup.

• Choose managed if you do not want to configure or maintain a server and would rather pay a bit more.
• Choose a VPS if you want the lowest cost and the most control, and do not mind some setup.
• Either way, model usage is billed separately on top of the host fee.

• Compute: where it runs: a cloud host, a rented GPU, or hardware you own.
• Model usage: how much it reads and writes, and how often it runs.
• Runner: the software that serves the model, or runs the agent loop and its tools.
• Capabilities: browser automation, web search, memory, or scheduled work.
• Required extras: security, delivery, monitoring, or managed-host fees.
• Freshness: whether each price is verified, aging, stale, or disputed.

AIStackPicker prices the managed hosts the same way it prices a bare VPS, from each provider's verified rate with the date attached, so the convenience premium is a number you can see, not a guess.

• What is the difference between self-hosted and managed?
• Do I need a VPS for an AI assistant?

• Cost to run an LLM
• Cost to run an AI agent
• Local LLM vs cloud API
• Run a local LLM
• GPU hosting vs model API
• Browse parts
• Read the FAQ