Hetzner Cloud

Hetzner Cloud's entry shared-vCPU instance runs €5.49/mo (about $6.49) plus VAT in EU regions per our July 2026 pass, with a spec sheet (2 vCPU-class shared compute, 20 TB of included traffic in EU regions) that embarrasses US-hyperscaler pricing. ARM-based instances push price-performance further down. A public IPv4 address bills separately — going IPv6-only shaves the price if your users can reach you that way.

The catch that reshaped our recommendation in 2026: US-region pricing diverged sharply — entry US instances ran about $20.49/mo excluding tax at our last verification, roughly 3× the EU rate. Hetzner is a European bargain, not a global one.

Flat pricing, no intro games — Hetzner sits in the 1× group of our renewal tracker. The 'renewal math' here is regional instead: the same workload costs roughly 3× more in Hetzner's US regions than in Germany or Finland per published July 2026 pricing. If your audience is European (or latency-tolerant), nothing we track touches the price-performance; if you need US-East/West, run the numbers against DigitalOcean and Vultr first.

Renewal figures come from our Hosting Renewal Price Index — intro vs renewal pricing for every provider we cover, verified on vendor sites and dated.

Standard self-managed VPS rules: you move your own bits. Snapshots ease Hetzner-to-Hetzner moves; leaving means restoring your own backups elsewhere. One planning note: with EU data residency as a feature, moving a compliance-sensitive workload out of Hetzner's EU regions may carry legal homework beyond the technical migration.

Support is functional, not consultative — expect competent ticket responses, not architecture advice. New accounts frequently face identity verification before servers activate (a widely-reported community experience, not something we've tested first-hand). Region selection is small compared to DO or Vultr, and prices are quoted ex-VAT in the EU, so the checkout number depends on your country.