Why are NAT VPS becoming more popular?

vpsgeek3333

There was a time when the only provider of the NAT VPS was Ant @ OLD LES website but now there seem to be uncountable number of hosting providers offering NAT VPS, usually with 20+ ports of shared IPv4 + IPv6.
What do you think are the reasons behind popularity of NAT IPv4 + IPv6 VPS in the recent times?
Scarcity of IPv4 and increasing adoption of IPv6, more affordable pricing, suitability for certain development environments, testing, hobby projects etc might be some of the contributing factors but I would like hear opinion of other members including hosting providers on this. Would also like to hear opinion of one of the pioneers of NAT VPS @AnthonySmith if he wishes to chime in.

Thechan

cheap

qaqdev

Of course it's the price. A NAT VPS is good enough for personal development and test projects.

reikuzan

Supported by more and more project, mature enough and only need old schoold http instead of tcp or some old stuff

EvanP

Back when a VPS with a dedicated IP cost only 7$/year, nobody wanted a NAT VPS. Another reason could be people are more practical, picking what they need instead of hoarding resources for idling.

JimmyMueller

I would prefer it for projects I use for myself but don't want them at home in my homelab. So using a VPN like tailscale / wireguard (or any other VPN) and I could use it fully even when ít's a NAT VPS.

So you get "cheaper" ressources.

qmio

if it meets my needs and it's cheaper, Why not?

friendlyguy12d

its the cheapest way to bypass CGNat for P2P.

host_c

@vpsgeek3333

I sincerity don't get the NAT VPS thing.

At today prices, that 1 IPV4 you would give out to a customer, became the cheapest thing in the mix.

Also, the headache of babysitting that setup is..... no-go in my view.

Furthermore, if one trashes that 1 public IPV4, all customers behind it end up in the dumpster.

At this point, it is more feasible to just give the fella a VPS with /64 IPV6 and he can figure out IPV4 tunneling on he's own, as that became much more easier to implement then 5 years back.

As for why it became so popular, well, my bet is because of the "herd", a few advertised it as being cheap and good, and the rest just followed.

I as an Operator, wish to have simple setups that can be debugged easily ( or well, as easy as possible ) at 3AM when an update or whatever goes sideways, NAT VPS is defenatley not on the easy list , so other the Smoke and Mirrors in Marketing, I really don't see any advantage of NAT VPS.

Cheers!

elliotc

Its going to idle anyway why I need a ip.

zerotrusters

If disregard the issues of self-hosting and data privacy, the possible differences between using only IPv6 and other full-network VPSs would not be significant.

2423750524

I feel that for personal services or small websites, NAT VPS is sufficient and offers a very high cost-performance ratio. Of course, there are indeed risks involved. For example, with so many people sharing one IPv4 address, if one person causes an issue with the IPv4, it will be a shared risk for everyone using the service together. However, in the face of the price, these seem to be insignificant. (Unless, of course, the cost of purchasing a NAT VPS is relatively high.)

OldnoriS

@host_c said:
I sincerity don't get the NAT VPS thing.

Cloudflare is a big part of it I think. Proxy the site through them and the origin can be IPv6 only, IPv4 visitors still get in, so for a small website the shared v4 and the missing 80/443 stop mattering.