VPSMaxxing – Migrate Your Codex, Claude Code and Other Agents to a VPS

A developer released VPSMaxxing, an open-source tool that turns a cheap cloud VPS into a dedicated 24/7 workbench for AI coding agents like Claude Code and OpenAI Codex, enabling users to run agents in parallel without expensive hardware. The tool provisions the VPS, installs agents, sets up private networking via Tailscale, and syncs skills and history between the laptop and server.

rent the cores · keep the cash · run your agents anywhere Turn a ~$5/mo cloud VPS into a dedicated, always-on workbench for Claude Code + Codex — set up by an agent, for your agents. your laptop --tailscale-- VPS · agents in tmux · docker · builds · 24/7 I couldn't find anything that would justPoint your Claude Code or Codex at this and it'll stand up your own cloud VPS as a dedicated AI-agent workbench: install the agents, network it privately, bring over your skills / memory / history / logins, and keep it all synced — so you can run agents 24/7, in parallel, from anything —set this upfor me — so I spent hours figuring it out, and then turned the whole thing into a skill so you don't have to.without dropping thousands on a maxed-out MacBook Pro. A rented Linux box with 8 cores and 32 GB costs a few dollars a month or a few cents an hour . Your laptop becomes a thin cockpit; the VPS does the heavy lifting. Provisions a fresh Linux VPS: git, Node + pnpm, Docker + compose, tmux OS-aware: Amazon Linux 2023 / Ubuntu / Debian . Installs + logs in Claude Code and OpenAI Codex. Makes the box self-aware — hostname, MOTD, an agent launcher, and CLAUDE.md / AGENTS.md that tell every agent it's a dedicated, headless AI host and how to behave right package manager, expose ports via tunnels, don't nuke other sessions . Networks it with Tailscale — SSH with zero public ports , stable address, works behind any firewall/NAT. Adds "maxxing" launchers — claudevps / codexvps : one command from your laptop drops you into a persistent tmux session running the top model at max reasoning. cmux cockpit macOS to drive many agents in parallel; plain tmux elsewhere. Reverse access so the VPS can read/write your laptop's files — including a no-admin path for managed/work laptops — with a one-command kill switch. Migrates your existing skills, memory, conversation history, and logins GitHub gh , git, MCP servers . Auto-syncs skills/memory/history between laptop and VPS, automatically. Every step here was actually run during a real setup. The hard-won gotchas live in references/troubleshooting.md /Kuberwastaken/VPSmaxxing/blob/main/references/troubleshooting.md — that file alone is worth the repo. With Claude Code recommended : git clone https://github.com/Kuberwastaken/VPSmaxxing.git ~/Personal-Projects/VPSmaxxing bash ~/Personal-Projects/VPSmaxxing/scripts/install-skill.sh installs into ~/.claude/skills copy; --link to symlink Then in Claude Code just say: "set up a VPS for my AI agents" or run /vpsmaxxing . The skill interviews you first — what you have, which agents, auth method, Tailscale, reverse access, migration, sync — then does it, step by step. Manual no skill : run the scripts in order on/against your VPS — scripts/provision-vps.sh → authenticate → scripts/setup-agent-env.sh → then the references for Tailscale, sync, etc. | Phase | What | Reference | |---|---|---| | Provision | base + Node/pnpm + Docker + tmux | 01 | 02 agent /self-briefing 03 04 claudevps / codexvps , top model + reasoning 05 06 localhost:PORT testing via tunnel 07 08 09 10 Architecture & mental model: references/00-architecture.md /Kuberwastaken/VPSmaxxing/blob/main/references/00-architecture.md . Researched June 2026; prices change — every figure links to its source. Pick by how you'll use it: Cheapest always-on: Contabo Cloud VPS 30 — 8 vCPU / 24 GB / 200 GB NVMe for ~$16/mo flat , unlimited traffic. Best performance/$ if your stack is ARM-clean : Hetzner CAX41 — 16 vCPU / 32 GB ARM for ~$47/mo . Free, if you can get capacity: Oracle Cloud "Always Free" Ampere A1 — up to 4 vCPU / 24 GB, $0 forever ARM; fight for stock . Simplest managed: DigitalOcean / Vultr great UI/API . Bursty/occasional: an AWS/GCP/Azure hourly box that you stop when idle pay only for disk while stopped . The 24/7 trap:hourly clouds look cheap per-hour but an always-on AWS m6a.2xlarge 8 vCPU/32 GB is ≈$252/month. Either go flat-rate, or stop-when-idle. Flat-rate VPS keep billing even powered off — snapshot+destroy to truly stop paying. Pricing captured June 2026. EUR figures converted at≈ €1 = $1.14 ECB/Trading Economics, 30 Jun 2026 ; USD is approximate and region/VAT-dependent.Hetzner raised CPX/CCX cloud prices ~110–175% on 15 June 2026 Hetzner price-adjustment notice , which reshuffles the value ranking below. | Provider | Plan | vCPU / RAM | Disk | ~USD/mo | Regions | Link | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---| Hetzner Cloud | CPX42 AMD, shared | 8 / 16 GB | 320 GB NVMe | ~$79 €69.49 | DE, FI, US, SG | | Hetzner Auction ~$51 ≈€45 hetzner.com/sb https://www.hetzner.com/sb/ Contabo ~$16 €14.00 contabo.com/vps-server https://contabo.com/en/vps-server/ Netcup ~$18 net €16.18 ex-VAT netcup.com/server/vps https://www.netcup.com/en/server/vps OVHcloud ~$23 $23.37 ovhcloud.com/vps https://us.ovhcloud.com/vps/ Hostinger ~$26 promo / ~$50 renew hostinger.com/vps-hosting https://www.hostinger.com/vps-hosting Scaleway ~$93 €81.90 + storage/IPv4 scaleway.com/pricing/virtual-instances https://www.scaleway.com/en/pricing/virtual-instances/ Bandwidth at a glance: Contabo 600 Mbit/s unlimited traffic; OVH 1.5 Gbps unmetered ; Netcup unmetered; Hetzner CPX42 1 Gbit/s + 20 TB /mo included overage billed ; Hostinger KVM 8 32 TB ; Scaleway billed PAYG with egress included in list price. Standout pros / cons Hetzner — Pros: best-in-class hardware, fast NVMe, hourly billing, real EU/US DCs. Cons: the June-2026 hike made x86 CPX/CCX pricey CPX42 ~$79; dedicated CCX33 8 vCPU/32 GB ~$158, costgoat Jun 2026 https://costgoat.com/pricing/hetzner . The ARM CAX41 16 vCPU / 32 GB, €40.99 ≈ $47 survived as a value monster if your toolchain is ARM64-clean — most agent CLIs and Docker images are. The Server Auction is the cheap path to a real dedicated box no noisy neighbors, unlimited traffic , but stock/specs fluctuate Server Radar https://radar.iodev.org/ helps . Contabo — Pros: rock-bottom flat pricing, generous RAM/disk, no setup fee, unlimited traffic, global DCs. Cons: oversubscribed shared cores and 600 Mbit/s port mean weaker single-thread/IO than Hetzner/Netcup; cheapest rate wants a 12-month term. Netcup — Pros: DDR5 ECC RAM + huge 512 GB NVMe at a low price, snapshots, hasn't hiked in 2026. Cons: EU-centric, prices quoted incl. 19% VAT non-EU/business pay the ~€16.18 net , 1- or 12-month terms. OVHcloud — Pros: predictable flat pricing, unmetered 1.5 Gbps, anti-DDoS + daily backups included, wide DC footprint. Cons: support reputation is hit-or-miss; mid-tiers are middling on raw CPU. Hostinger — Pros: cheap promo , 32 GB RAM + 32 TB traffic, beginner-friendly panel, AMD EPYC. Cons: renewal nearly doubles ~$50 and the headline price needs a long up-front term. Scaleway — Pros: genuine cloud API, snapshots, EU data sovereignty , true hourly PAYG. Cons: far pricier for sustained 24/7 use and block storage + IPv4 are billed separately — not a budget pick. Best value pick: Contabo Cloud VPS 30 — 8 vCPU / 24 GB / 200 GB NVMe for ~$16/mo flat, unlimited traffic contabo.com https://contabo.com/en/vps-server/ is the cheapest way to keep Claude Code + Codex agents running 24/7; step up to Hetzner's ARM CAX41 16 vCPU / 32 GB ≈ $47 for the best raw performance-per-dollar if your stack is ARM64-friendly, or Netcup VPS 2000 G12 ~$18, DDR5 ECC for the best price/quality balance on x86. These are the big, well-supported clouds for running a Linux box with Claude Code + OpenAI Codex on it. Pricing verified June 2026; every figure links to its source. Target tier: ~4–8 vCPU / 16–32 GB RAM. | Provider | Instance plan | vCPU / RAM | Disk | ~USD/mo | ~USD/hr | Link | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---| DigitalOcean | General Purpose Droplet | 8 / 32 GB | 100 GB SSD | $252 | $0.375 | | Vultr $160 pricing https://www.vultr.com/pricing/ Akamai Linode $192 pricing https://www.akamai.com/cloud/pricing AWS Lightsail $164 pricing https://aws.amazon.com/lightsail/pricing/ AWS EC2 on-demand ~$252 if 24/7 pricing https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/on-demand/ · m6a.2xlarge https://instances.vantage.sh/aws/ec2/m6a.2xlarge Hetzner Cloud ~$150 ³ €138.49 price notice https://docs.hetzner.com/general/infrastructure-and-availability/price-adjustment/ Google Cloud ~$196 if 24/7 GCE pricing https://cloud.google.com/products/compute/pricing/general-purpose Microsoft Azure ~$252 if 24/7 D8as v5 https://instances.vantage.sh/azure/vm/d8as-v5 ¹ Lightsail bills hourly but is capped at the flat monthly price. ² EC2 m6a.2xlarge has no local disk — add EBS 100 GB gp3 ≈ $8/mo . ³ Hetzner bills EUR; USD approx at €1≈$1.08. ⁴ GCE/Azure prices are compute only — disk + egress billed separately. Notes & gotchas DigitalOcean — simplest managed experience, great docs/UI/API, per-second billing with a monthly cap. A CPU-Optimized 8 vCPU / 16 GB is $168/mo if 32 GB is overkill. Con: dearer than budget VPS; bandwidth overage extra. src https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets Vultr — best mainstream value at this tier, 32+ regions. High Performance NVMe 8 vCPU / 16 GB = $96/mo . Con: a powered-off instance still bills resources reserved . src https://www.vultr.com/pricing/ Akamai Linode — clean predictable pricing, generous transfer; Shared 16 GB = 6 vCPU / 16 GB / $96/mo . Dedicated-CPU plans cost more but kill noisy-neighbor jitter. src https://www.akamai.com/cloud/pricing AWS Lightsail — flat AWS-flavored VPS, 7 TB bundled transfer. Con: fixed bundles, lower ceiling than EC2 — "set and forget," not bursty scaling. src https://aws.amazon.com/lightsail/pricing/ Hetzner Cloud — historically the price/perf champ, but a 15 Jun 2026 hike raised CCX ~+120% / CPX ~+209% . Still good NVMe + EU residency, fewer regions DE/FI/US/SG . src https://docs.hetzner.com/general/infrastructure-and-availability/price-adjustment/ Google Cloud — e2-standard-8 is the value pick ~$196/mo ; newer c4-standard-8 is faster but ~$294/mo. Sustained/committed-use discounts help. src https://cloud.google.com/products/compute/pricing/general-purpose Microsoft Azure — D8as v5 AMD $0.344/hr; best if you're already in Microsoft/Entra; reserved instances cut cost a lot. src https://instances.vantage.sh/azure/vm/d8as-v5 The 24/7-cost trap. Hourly clouds AWS EC2, GCE, Azure look cheap per-hour but get expensive run around the clock: AWS m6a.2xlarge 8 vCPU/32 GB = $0.3456/hr ≈ $252/mo if always on Vantage https://instances.vantage.sh/aws/ec2/m6a.2xlarge ; GCE e2-standard-8 ~$196/mo, Azure D8as v5 ~$252/mo behave the same. Stop-when-idle the money-saver . On EC2/GCE/Azure you can stop the instance when not coding — while stopped you pay only for the attached disk EBS/PD/managed-disk, ~$8–12/mo for 100 GB , not compute. An agent box used ~3 hrs/day can cost $30–40/mo instead of $250+ . Caveats: a static/Elastic IP may bill while stopped, and flat-rate VPS providers DO, Vultr, Linode, Lightsail, Hetzner keep charging when powered off — to stop paying there you snapshot + destroy, then rebuild. Best for managed/scalable: AWS EC2 m6a.2xlarge + stop-when-idle for max flexibility and pay-for-what-you-use, or DigitalOcean for the simplest predictable flat-rate managed VPS. Running Claude Code or OpenAI Codex on a VPS is cheap because the heavy lifting the model runs on Anthropic's/OpenAI's servers — your box is mostly a thin shell for git , package installs, builds, and the agent process. That means you can get away with very little, and there are a few genuinely-free ways to do it. | Option | Specs | Cost | Caveat | Link | |---|---|---|---|---| Oracle Cloud "Always Free" Ampere A1, ARM | Up to 4 OCPU / 24 GB RAM + 200 GB block storage + 10 TB/mo egress | $0 forever | ARM, not x86. Frequent "Out of host capacity" in popular esp. US regions — EU/APAC provision faster. As of June 2026 the headline was trimmed to 2 OCPU / 12 GB for new free-tier signups PAYG-upgraded accounts may still keep 4/24; enforcement is inconsistent . Idle instances can be reclaimed. | | 1 GB RAM each — too small for real builds; useful only as a control node. OCI free breakdown https://fullmetalbrackets.com/blog/oci-free-tier-breakdown GCP "Always Free" e2-micro 1 GB RAM / 30 GB disk us-west1 / us-central1 / us-east1 only. 1 GB RAM OOMs on npm install /docker — needs swap. New accounts also get a $300 / 90-day trial credit on top. cloud.google.com/free https://cloud.google.com/free AWS Free Tier new accounts $200 total New model = ~6 months , expires when credits run out accounts created after 15 Jul 2025 . Not "always free." AWS Free Tier https://aws.amazon.com/free/ · announcement https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/aws-free-tier-update-new-customers-can-get-started-and-explore-aws-with-up-to-200-in-credits/ 1 GB + 30 GB EBS 12 months before 15 Jul 2025 ; 12-month clock then bills at PAYG. 1 GB RAM is tight. Free Tier FAQ https://aws.amazon.com/free/free-tier-faqs/ Azure free account B1S 1 vCPU / 1 GB Linux $200 credit expires in 30 days. B1S is 1 GB. Disks/public IP/logs can bill even on "free" VMs. Azure free account https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/purchase-options/azure-account · free services https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/free-services fly.io 2 VM-hrs or 7 days ; cheapest always-on ~$2/mo No real free tier in 2026 old Hobby allowances are legacy-only . A realistic small always-on box lands at ~$8–25/mo once egress is counted. fly.io/pricing https://fly.io/pricing/ Hetzner CAX11 ARM 2 vCPU / 4 GB / 40 GB / 20 TB traffic ~~€3.79/mo ~~$4.50 ARM Ampere — watch x86-only Docker images/binaries. ARM available in DE/FI only. Prices rose mid-2026. hetzner.com/cloud https://www.hetzner.com/cloud/ · price change https://docs.hetzner.com/general/infrastructure-and-availability/price-adjustment/ Hetzner CX22 x86 ~~€4.49/mo ~~$5 hetzner.com/cloud https://www.hetzner.com/cloud/ RackNerd annual ~~$1.49–2/mo billed yearly ~~$18/yr renewal price is higher than promo ; quality varies by deal. racknerd.com https://www.racknerd.com/ Bottom line on "free": Oracle's Ampere A1 is the only free tier that's actually big enough to be comfortable — but you have to fight for capacity and accept ARM. Every other free tier GCP/AWS/Azure micro is 1 GB RAM , which will OOM on real package installs and Docker builds unless you add swap and keep it to one light session. If free is fragile, Hetzner CAX11 at ~$4.50/mo is the dependable floor. Both agents run fine on ARM: OpenAI Codex ships an aarch64-unknown-linux-musl build and Claude Code installs on ARM64 Linux — so the tools themselves aren't the ARM problem; your project's toolchain some Docker images, prebuilt binaries, ML wheels is. Codex releases https://github.com/openai/codex , Claude Code on Arm https://learn.arm.com/install-guides/claude-code/ Claude Code and Codex are network-bound to the model API , not CPU-bound. The model does the thinking remotely; your VPS only does the "developer machine" work — cloning repos, npm/pip/cargo installs, Docker builds, running tests/linters, language servers, and holding several agent sessions open at once. So size for builds and parallelism , not for inference. Minimum single session, light projects : ~2 vCPU / 4–8 GB RAM, 40 GB disk. Handles one agent, normal git/package work, and small test runs. Avoid 1 GB tiers — npm install and Docker will OOM. If you're stuck on a 1 GB free tier, add 2–4 GB swap as a crutch. Fits: Oracle A1 2/12 , Hetzner CAX11/CX22. Comfortable parallel agents, Docker, big repos : ~4–8 vCPU / 16–32 GB RAM, 80 GB+ disk. Run multiple agent sessions, Docker builds, language servers, and heavier test suites without thrashing. Fits: Oracle A1 4/24 , a Hetzner CCX/CPX, or a hyperscaler box you stop when idle. Region & latency. Two different latencies matter, and the one you feel is your terminal/SSH round-trip — so put the box near you. Latency to the model API matters less: the agent streams tokens , so sustained throughput dominates over first-token RTT, and Anthropic/OpenAI endpoints are globally edge-routed. A US region shaves a little off first-token time, but "near me" wins for the interactive feel. Default: closest region to you; US is a fine tiebreaker. Money-saving tactics. Always-on dev box → flat-rate provider. Hetzner/RackNerd-style fixed monthly pricing is far cheaper and more predictable than hyperscaler hourly rates no egress surprises . The right default for a personal agent box you SSH into daily. Bursty/occasional use → hourly cloud + stop-when-idle. AWS/GCP/Azure only beat flat-rate if you actually shut the instance down when not coding a cron/script that stops it saves ~70% vs 24/7 . Leave one running overnight and the math flips against you. Go ARM for cost. Ampere/Graviton are ~20–40% cheaper per unit of performance and run the agents + most Node/Python/Go/Rust fine. Only avoid ARM if your project pulls x86-only Docker images or prebuilt binaries . Spot/preemptible: skip for interactive work. 60–90% off, but the provider can kill the VM mid-session — fine for checkpointed batch jobs, painful for a live agent. Storage ≥ 40–80 GB. node modules , Docker layer caches, and multiple repo clones balloon fast; 20–30 GB free-tier disks fill within a couple of projects. On hyperscalers, watch block-storage and egress billing separately from the VM. LAPTOP cockpit VPS workbench cmux/tmux · editor · browser ── Tailscale ──▶ agents in tmux · docker · builds localhost:5173 ◀── ssh tunnel ────────────────── dev server :5173 files ◀──────── reverse ssh ──────────────────── ssh mac clone/copy/rm Laptop drives; VPS works; everything's on a private Tailscale mesh; agent state syncs both ways. Full rationale in references/00-architecture.md /Kuberwastaken/VPSmaxxing/blob/main/references/00-architecture.md . - The box runs agents in YOLO mode on purpose — it's a disposable, isolated workbench. Keep real work in git. Reverse access re-couples the blast radius to your laptop a runaway agent could delete laptop files . Scope it to a shared folder if unsure, and keep revoke-vps-access handy. Never paste secrets into a chat. The skill pipes credentials device-to-device and never prints them; if a key leaks, rotate it.- Tailscale means you can keep port 22 closed to the world entirely. SKILL.md the Claude Code skill interview + orchestration references/00..10 step-by-step guides, OS-aware, generalized references/troubleshooting.md every trap that cost hours scripts/ runnable: provision, setup-agent-env, agent-sync, mac-user-sshd no-admin reverse access , install-skill Built by generalizing a real, end-to-end setup AWS Amazon Linux 2023 + a managed macOS laptop into something anyone can re-run. PRs welcome — especially provider price updates and more OS branches. Made because renting 8 cores should be easier than affording 8 cores. MIT /Kuberwastaken/VPSmaxxing/blob/main/LICENSE © 2026 Kuber Mehta. Use it, fork it, share it — then go set up your VPS.