slotwatch — datacenters

Frankfurt server providers ranked by measured RTT to HelloMoon's FRA RPC endpoint at Equinix FR5

Anchor target: HelloMoon FRA endpoint ash.constellation.hellomoon.io → 198.13.138.246 (AS20326 TeraSwitch) at Equinix FR5, Kleyerstraße 90, Frankfurt (50.111°N, 8.682°E). Same building hosts 117 Solana validators. Goal: intra-DC (<1 ms) or same-metro (<3 ms) RTT from a sniper executor to FR5.

Top picks (measured)

🥇 Best sub-ms VPS

GermanyVPS TITAN

$28/mo

Measured 0.64 ms9950X dedicated

6 vCPU Ryzen 9 9950X · 8 GB DDR5 · 120 GB NVMe · 10 Gbps. Upstream AS48314 IP-Projects (NTT FRA1 / Equinix FR5). Path: ERA-IX FRA → TeraSwitch.

Order: client.host4fun.com · LG: lg.ip-projects.de

🥈 Cheap Zen-5

Hostishere PRO+

€9.99/mo

Measured 1.50 ms9950X dedicated

3 vCPU Ryzen 9 9950X · 4 GB · 80 GB NVMe · 10 Gbps at NTT FRA1. Same AS48314 upstream as TITAN. Single DE-CIX FRA hop to TeraSwitch.

Order: my.hostishere.com · LG: lg.hostishere.com

🥉 Bare-metal value

OVH RISE-S

$77/mo

Solana ToS explicit ✓~1.5-2 ms est

Ryzen 7 9700X 16t · 64 GB DDR5 · NVMe · 500 Mbps unmetered. Compute at LIM1 (Limburg, 65 km N), but OVH dark-fiber backhaul to FR5 PoP measured at 1.37 ms via OVH's own smokeping.

Order: eco.us.ovhcloud.com/rise · LG: smokeping

🏆 Same building

TeraSwitch FR5

$177/mo+

Intra-DC <1 ms

Bare-metal physically inside Equinix FR5 — same room as HelloMoon FRA + 117 Solana validators. Xeon E-2336 entry chip is B-tier for our workload, pay up for AMD options.

Order: teraswitch.com

Distance from Equinix FR5 (map)

HelloMoon anchor In-building or <200 m Backbone peering (compute elsewhere) Same-metro (<8 km) Disqualified / out-of-metro

Full provider table

#	Provider	Type	Facility	Dist	RTT	$/mo	CPU / RAM / NVMe / NIC	Solana ToS	Link
1	GermanyVPS TITAN ★	VPS	NTT FRA1 / Equinix FR5 (via IP-Projects)	~3 km	0.64 ms	$28	6 vCPU Ryzen 9 9950X · 8 GB DDR5 · 120 GB · 10 Gbps	Unverified ToS — ask sales	order
2	TeraSwitch FR5	BM	Equinix FR5 (in-building)	0 km	<1 ms	$177+	Xeon E-2336 6C · 64 GB · 2×1 TB NVMe · 10 Gbps	Likely OK	order
3	Hostishere PRO+ ★	VPS	NTT FRA1 (fac 277)	4 km	1.50 ms	€9.99	3 vCPU Ryzen 9 9950X · 4 GB · 80 GB · 10 Gbps	Unverified — small test plan first	order
4	OVH RISE-S ★	BM	LIM1 (Limburg) + FR5 backbone	65 km*	~1.5-2 ms	$77	Ryzen 7 9700X 16t · 64 GB DDR5 · NVMe · 500 Mbps	Solana explicit ✓	order
5	Hostishere STANDARD+	VPS	NTT FRA1	4 km	~1.5 ms	€4.99	1 vCPU Ryzen 9 9950X · 2 GB · 50 GB · 10 Gbps	Unverified — RTT test box	order
6	EDIS Global	VPS	Equinix FR5 (in-building)	0 km	<1 ms	~$15+	2-4 vCPU · 4 GB max · NVMe	Unverified — RAM-capped	order
7	IONOS	VPS	Equinix FR7 + DRT FRA1-27	1-8 km	1-3 ms	~$20	8 vCPU · 16 GB · 480 GB NVMe	Crypto-mining banned	order
8	DataPacket	BM	Digital Realty FRA7	3.5 km	1-2 ms	$221+	EPYC · 64-128 GB · NVMe · 10 Gbps · 100 TB	Web3 explicit ✓	order
9	Hivelocity	BM	Digital Realty FRA1-27	3.5 km	1-3 ms	$115+	EPYC / Xeon · varies · 10 Gbps DE-CIX	Solana explicit ✓	order
10	HostKey	BM	NTT FRA1 + firstcolo FRA4 (ERA-IX 100G)	4 km	1-2 ms	€130+	Ryzen 7950X / EPYC · NVMe · 1-10 Gbps	Web3 allowed ✓	order
11	Latitude.sh	BM	NTT FRA1 + Iron Mountain FRA-2	3.9 km	1-3 ms	$160+	EPYC / Ryzen · varies · 10 Gbps	Solana common ✓	order
12	Allnodes	BM	NTT FRA1 (Solana-native)	4 km	1-2 ms	$199+	EPYC Turin · 256 GB+ · NVMe · 10 Gbps	Built for Solana ✓	order
13	Cherry Servers	BM	Equinix FR13 (Friesstraße 9)	5.5 km	2-3 ms	$158	Ryzen 7700X · 64 GB · 1 TB NVMe · 10 Gbps · 100 TB	Solana explicit ✓	order
14	Vultr HF	VPS	Digital Realty FRA1-27 (DE-CIX 200G)	7.7 km	2-4 ms	$48	3-6 vCPU 3.8 GHz+ Xeon Silver · 8-16 GB · NVMe · 10 Gbps	Mining banned; nodes likely OK	order
15	DigitalOcean	VPS	FRA1 (Digital Realty)	7.7 km	2-4 ms	$50+	Premium Intel/AMD · 8-16 GB · NVMe	Unrestricted	order
16	Hetzner	BM/VPS	FR5 / FR4 / FR7 / FRA1-27	0-8 km	<3 ms	€30+	varies	❌ Solana BANNED Nov 2022	link
17	RackNerd FRA	VPS	Telehouse Frankfurt (150 m from FR5)	0.15 km	<1 ms	~$11	Ryzen 9 3900X (Zen 2, 2019) · shared vCore	CPU too old (B-tier)	link
18	Contabo	VPS	Lauterbourg, France ("Frankfurt" mislabel)	80 km	5-10 ms	$15	varies shared	Nodes OK; mining banned	link
19	Netcup	VPS	Nuremberg only	200 km	5-8 ms	varies	varies	Not Frankfurt	link

★ = recommended pick. * = compute physically in LIM1 Limburg (65 km north of Frankfurt), but OVH owns dark-fiber + a real PoP router at Equinix FR5 (fra-fr5-pb1-ptx.de.eu); OVH's own smokeping measures LIM1→FR5 backbone at min 1.33 ms / avg 1.37 ms / max 1.45 ms.

Measured RTT verification (HelloMoon FRA = 198.13.138.246)

GermanyVPS / Host4Fun

PING 198.13.138.246 (4 pkts, 0% loss)
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.610 / 0.637 / 0.655 / 0.016 ms
hop 3: peering.era-ix.de        0.33 ms
hop 5: er100a-fra2.teraswitch   0.77 ms
hop 7: 198.13.138.246           0.64 ms

Source: lg.ip-projects.de (upstream behind testfiles.germanyvps.com)

Hostishere

PING 198.13.138.246 (4 pkts, 0% loss)
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 1.341 / 1.503 / 1.628 / 0.126 ms
path: single DE-CIX FRA hop
LG host: 92.119.167.6 @ NTT FRA1
ASN: AS213126 IPv6-only → AS48314 IP-Projects v4

Source: lg.hostishere.com

OVH LIM1 → FR5 backbone

target: OVH.POP_EU.FRA-FR5
       (fra-fr5-pb1-ptx.de.eu, 54.36.50.42)
min/avg/max = 1.330 / 1.373 / 1.454 ms
9 hops, all sub-0.35 ms intra-OVH
+ ~0.1-0.5 ms intra-FR5 cross-connect to TeraSwitch
expected total RTT: ~1.5-2.0 ms

Source: fra1-lim.smokeping.ovh.net

Upstream architecture

Both GermanyVPS and Hostishere share the same IPv4 upstream — AS48314 IP-Projects GmbH in Frankfurt. The 0.86 ms delta is the difference between the IP-Projects ERA-IX path (used by their LG, sub-1 ms) and the customer-facing DE-CIX path (~1.5 ms). Real customer RTT may sit closer to 1 ms on either provider — confirm with mtr on day 1.

AS48314 IP-Projects (transit)

AS213126 Hostishere (IPv6 only)

AS20326 TeraSwitch (HelloMoon)

CPU tier for sniper hot path

Workload: parse Geyser protobuf → decode Anchor account → build Solana tx → SHA-256 digest → Ed25519 sign → bs58 → JSON sendTransaction. Per-opportunity, single-thread, latency-tail-sensitive. Single-thread clock × IPC × SHA-NI wins. 3D V-Cache irrelevant (working set fits in L1/L2).

Ryzen 9 9950X · Zen 5 GB6 ST ≈ 3,400 · S

EPYC 4585PX · Zen 4 + 3D-VC GB6 ST ≈ 3,413 · S

Ryzen 7 9700X · Zen 5 (OVH RISE-S) GB6 ST ≈ 3,312 · S

EPYC Turin · Zen 5 (Allnodes) GB6 ST ≈ 3,000-3,300 · S

Ryzen 9 7950X · Zen 4 (HostKey) GB6 ST ≈ 2,950 · A

Ryzen 7 7700X · Zen 4 (Cherry) GB6 ST ≈ 2,900 · A

Xeon E-2388G · Rocket Lake GB6 ST ≈ 2,367 · A

Ryzen 9 5950X · Zen 3 GB6 ST ≈ 2,350 · A

Xeon E-2336 · Rocket Lake (TeraSwitch base) GB6 ST ≈ 1,900 · B

Ryzen 9 3900X · Zen 2 (RackNerd FRA) GB6 ST ≈ 1,950 · B

Vultr HF · Xeon Silver shared GB6 ST ≈ 1,300-1,500 shared · B

OVH VPS-3 / GreenCloudVPS · EPYC shared GB6 ST ≈ 1,200-1,500 shared · C

Tier policy: S = recommended · A = good · B = acceptable but materially slower (~35-40% per-thread vs S) · C = avoid (shared vCPU noisy-neighbor variance destroys p99 sub-300 µs targets). Dedicated 9700X bare-metal beats shared 9950X VPS for our use case.

Decision framework

Cheapest functional proof of latency lift → Hostishere STANDARD+ €4.99/mo. Use as a one-month RTT probe box; sub-2 ms to HelloMoon FRA measured, dedicated Zen-5 core, no commitment.

Best $30/mo executor → GermanyVPS TITAN $28. 0.64 ms measured, Zen-5 9950X (S-tier), 8 GB DDR5, 10 Gbps. Confirm Solana ToS with sales before scaling.

First serious bare-metal → OVH RISE-S $77. Explicit Solana ToS removes legal/ops risk, Zen-5 9700X dedicated, 64 GB DDR5, ~1.5-2 ms RTT via OVH backbone. Verify day-1 with mtr.

Every microsecond justified → TeraSwitch Equinix FR5 $177+. Same building as HelloMoon + 117 validators. Pay extra for AMD instead of E-2336 if you do this.

Solana-native managed → Allnodes $199+. Lowest config friction; overkill for an executor.

Caveats before paying

GermanyVPS / Host4Fun runs TWO "Germany" nodes — Frankfurt at IP-Projects (0.64 ms) AND legacy Düsseldorf at myLoc AS24961 (~5-8 ms). Ask sales to confirm TITAN provisions Frankfurt before paying.
GermanyVPS marketing claims "Gutleutstraße 310 / Equinix FR7." IP-Projects' actual published facilities per PeeringDB are NTT FRA1 + Interxion + Equinix FR5 — not FR7. Latency is still sub-1 ms either way; the FR7 claim is suspect but not material.
Hostishere LG runs on IP-Projects mgmt subnet (92.119.167.x). Customer VPS prefixes may have slightly different routing — buy the €4.99 STANDARD+ for a one-month test before scaling to PRO+.
Both GermanyVPS and Hostishere share the same IPv4 upstream (AS48314 IP-Projects). Underlying network is identical; only the VM's specific DC + sub-allocation varies.
OVH RISE-S compute physically sits 65 km north in LIM1 Limburg. The 1.5-2 ms estimate assumes the path stays on OVH backbone via the FR5 PoP. A bad route via Paris/SBG would jump to 15+ ms — confirm with mtr 198.13.138.246 from the provisioned box on day 1.
Hetzner has racks inside Equinix FR5 + FR4 + FR7 + FRA1-27 — physically perfect — but they banned Solana validator/RPC workloads in Nov 2022 and enforce via AUP scans. Do not deploy.
RackNerd FRA at Telehouse Frankfurt (150 m from FR5) is the closest budget option physically, but their FRA VPS only ships Ryzen 9 3900X (Zen 2, 2019) — ~35-40% per-thread slower than 7700X. Skip unless price is the only criterion.

Suggested next step

One-month bake-off

Provision Hostishere STANDARD+ (€4.99) and GermanyVPS TITAN ($28) in parallel. Run mtr to 198.13.138.246 for 24h from each. Confirm sub-2 ms reliably. Decide between them on (a) measured p99 stability, (b) Solana ToS response from sales, (c) noisy-neighbor variance. Promote winner to OVH RISE-S or TeraSwitch FR5 only once sniper signal is proven net-positive on the cheap tier.

Sources: 4 parallel research agents (budget VPS · bare-metal · proximity verification · CPU shootout) + 2 measurement agents (GermanyVPS LG ping · Hostishere LG ping · OVH smokeping). HelloMoon FRA anchor confirmed via DNS + AS20326 reverse lookup. Facility coordinates from PeeringDB. ToS positions from each provider's published AUP. Generated 2026-06-28.