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VPS and cloud servers

Hetzner Cloud vs DigitalOcean Droplets

Hetzner Cloud sells unmanaged servers from €5.49 a month with 20 TB of EU traffic; DigitalOcean Droplets start at $4 in 13 regions, with managed databases and Kubernetes on the same bill.

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The short answer

Hetzner’s appeal is resources and traffic per euro. The CX23 lists €5.49 a month for 2 vCPU, 4 GB and 40 GB, excluding VAT and IPv4, and EU servers include at least 20 TB of outbound traffic. The catch: the cheapest CX and CAX plans were shown as not available when checked, and the 15 June 2026 change roughly doubled CPX and CCX prices for new orders, so the CPX22 now lists €19.49.

DigitalOcean’s $4 Basic Droplet has 512 MiB, 10 GiB and 500 GiB of transfer; $24 buys 2 vCPU and 4 GiB. Transfer pools across a team, with overage at $0.01/GiB. What you pay for is the platform around the servers: managed PostgreSQL, MySQL and MongoDB, Kubernetes, load balancers and App Platform. Hetzner has no managed databases and supports by email.

Hetzner has six locations, three of them in Germany and Finland; DigitalOcean has 13 regions. Both bill in small steps capped at the monthly price: Hetzner hourly, DigitalOcean per second.

Choose Hetzner Cloud if

  • Your project needs data kept in the EU with a German provider
  • Your site pushes a lot of traffic and 20 TB per EU server avoids egress fees
  • You run your own databases and want the most RAM per euro

Choose DigitalOcean Droplets if

  • You want managed databases, Kubernetes or App Platform on the same bill
  • You need a region in India or Australia
  • A $4 server with 512 MiB is enough for your side project
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Side by side

Hetzner Cloud DigitalOcean Droplets
Stages HobbyIndieStartupScale-upEnterprise HobbyIndieStartupScale-upEnterprise
What it is Cloud VPS Cloud VPS
From From €5.49/mo (CX23, excl. IPv4 and VAT) From $4/mo
Free tier None None
Cheapest plan 2 vCPU, 4 GB, 40 GB: €5.49/mo (CX23, often sold out) 1 vCPU, 512 MiB, 10 GiB SSD: $4/mo
Regions 6: Falkenstein, Nuremberg, Helsinki, Ashburn, Hillsboro, Singapore 13 regions, 16 data centers
Transfer 20 TB in EU, 1 TB+ in US/Singapore; overage per TB 500 GiB to 11,000 GiB pooled; $0.01/GiB over
Billing Hourly, capped at the monthly price Per second (60 s minimum), monthly cap
Open source No No
Self-hostable No No
EU data residency Available Available
Compliance ISO 27001, BSI C5, GDPR DPA Not stated
Checked 28 Sept 2026 28 Sept 2026
Strengths
  • 20 TB of included traffic per EU server is far above hyperscaler and most VPS allowances.
  • German company with ISO 27001-certified data centers and BSI C5 attestation, which helps GDPR-driven projects.
  • Hourly billing with a monthly cap makes short-lived test servers cheap.
  • Free private networks and firewalls, plus Arm servers for ARM-native workloads.
  • Clear published prices with transfer included and a low $0.01/GiB overage rate.
  • 13 regions across North America, Europe, India, Singapore and Australia.
  • Managed databases, Kubernetes and App Platform let a project grow without changing provider.
  • Well-known documentation and tutorials, with API, CLI and Terraform support.
Limitations
  • The 15 June 2026 price change raised CPX and CCX plans by roughly 2x to 2.7x for new orders and resizes.
  • The cheapest Cost-Optimized plans were listed as not available when checked, and Hetzner says their number is limited.
  • US and Singapore servers include only 1 TB or more of traffic, not 20 TB.
  • Servers are billed while powered off; only deleting them stops charges.
  • Basic plans give less RAM per dollar than budget hosts such as Hetzner, netcup or Contabo.
  • The $4 plan has only 512 MiB RAM and 10 GiB of disk.
  • Backups are extra, at 20% to 30% of the Droplet price.
  • Some newer data centers (Atlanta, Richmond, Kansas City) have limited availability for Basic plans.

Sources: Hetzner Cloud pricing, DigitalOcean Droplets pricing. Full plans on each tool's page.

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Plans

Hetzner Cloud

CX23 (Cost-Optimized)
2 shared vCPU (Intel/AMD), 4 GB RAM, 40 GB disk; shown as not available when read		 €5.49/mo
CX33 (Cost-Optimized)
4 shared vCPU, 8 GB RAM		 €8.49/mo
CAX11 (Arm)
2 Ampere Arm vCPU, 4 GB RAM		 €5.99/mo
CPX22 (Regular Performance)
2 shared AMD vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 20 TB traffic in the EU		 €19.49/mo
CPX32 (Regular Performance)
4 shared AMD vCPU, 8 GB RAM		 €35.49/mo
CCX13 (Dedicated vCPU)
2 dedicated AMD vCPU, 8 GB RAM		 €42.99/mo

DigitalOcean Droplets

Basic 512 MiB
1 vCPU, 512 MiB RAM, 10 GiB SSD, 500 GiB transfer		 $4/mo
Basic 1 GiB
1 vCPU, 1 GiB RAM, 25 GiB SSD, 1,000 GiB transfer		 $6/mo
Basic 2 GiB
1 vCPU, 2 GiB RAM, 50 GiB SSD, 2,000 GiB transfer		 $12/mo
Basic 4 GiB
2 vCPU, 4 GiB RAM, 80 GiB SSD, 4,000 GiB transfer		 $24/mo
CPU-Optimized 4 GiB
2 dedicated vCPU, 4 GiB RAM, 25 GiB SSD		 $42/mo
General Purpose 8 GiB
2 dedicated vCPU, 8 GiB RAM, 25 GiB SSD		 $63/mo

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