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Do I really need a droplet with 1GB of RAM for OpenVPN?

Posted on January 20, 2016

I’ve joined DigitalOcean so I could setup a droplet with OpenVPN to secure my internet connections, both at home (on the router) and on-the-go (on my phone/laptop). For that, I’m following this guide: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/3-ways-to-securely-browse-the-internet-with-openvpn-on-debian-8

But do I really need a machine with 1GB, won’t 512MB suffice? I think it’s kinda of expensive to pay $10/month for just this use case, I’d rather go with the cheapest option, but I’m afraid that 512MB won’t be enough.

Is it possible to just configure everything on the 512MB option and later on - if I find it’s not enough to accommodate my browsing needs (how will I know that?) - upgrade to a higher spec droplet?



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Hey there! A Droplet with 512MB of RAM should be more than enough to handle OpenVPN depending on how many simultaneous connections you intend to run. Unless you are needing to handle 500+ connections, I wouldn’t worry at all about using the smallest Droplet size. :)

Hi rfgamaral,

OpenVPN does not require 1GB RAM per se and will happily serve you on a 512MB droplet. The reason original tutorial recommends 1GB RAM is HAVP/ClamAv antivirus scanner. You can try setting up a 512M droplet AND configure swap space on it. Depending on your browsing habits this might be adequate for you.

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