+1 airalo; esimdb.com is a great comparison engine for eSim vendors

be weary of the cheaper eSim providers, as they may not be using the best networks in a given country. Many do not disclose country specific network carriers, and others are hidden deep in documentation. Airalo is among the most transparent and has different vendors for their Global, EU, and country specific plans, with country specific packages usually having the best national carrier support.

I've spent a bit of time researching this in this past as Airalo wasn't usually the cheapest.

https://prepaid-data-sim-card.fandom.com/wiki/ is the best resource I have discovered to compare country specific network coverage

or Dent Wireless. I buy their 1GB for $9/yr as an emergency backup for when my main carrier has issues.

https://www.dentwireless.com

I bought 40GB of data for $8.50. Airalo 10GB is $22 for the country I visited.

That doesn't invalidate the point that services exist that allow you to buy e-sims all over the world if you're travelling. And if you're travelling a lot the price difference is miniscule compared to the cost of travel and accomodation.

I was referring to cheap part. It is 5 times more expensive than local sim, it is data only, doesn't have phone number I needed for local services. I am not sure hotspot is not blocked or not. The website doesn't say.

Hotspot isn't blocked. I'm using it right now. The reason it probably doesn't offer phone services is due to KYC stuff. Most governments love ID cards, address proofs and what not before they let you make phone calls. The data only esim bypasses all that. In fact, even the data is not locally terminated although you are using the local network. It terminates in their network (hosted by OVH in the EU at the moment). So it also effectively acts as a vpn. This is also great because most governments around the world have arbitrary censorship. Overall, I would say that it's a good product although the prices can be lower.