Hetzner Review
Hetzner offers absurd value for money ā especially in Europe. An honest look at what you get, where they cut corners, and who should (and shouldn't) use them.
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At a Glance
Pros
- Incredible price-to-spec ratio
- Dedicated server resources at VPS prices
- EU-based (Germany/Finnland), GDPR compliant
- Fast NVMe storage on all plans
- No bandwidth limits on most plans
Cons
- Limited North American presence/latency
- No managed services whatsoever
- Support is ticket-based, not live chat
- Control panel is functional but dated
- Some features require EU ID verification
Best For
Budget-conscious European operations, homelab enthusiasts, and anyone comfortable managing their own infrastructure.
From ā¬3.75/month (CX11), ā¬20-30/month for serious workloads
Overview
Hetzner is a German hosting company that's become legendary in certain circles for offering hardware that seems impossibly cheap. A dedicated server with 4 cores, 16GB RAM, and 2TB NVMe storage for ā¬46/month? That exists at Hetzner. It's not a typo.
The catch: Hetzner doesn't hold your hand. There's no managed database, no one-click app installs, no fancy control plane. You get a server and root access, and what you do with it is your problem. For experienced ops people, this is a feature, not a bug.
Performance
Hetzner uses AMD Ryzen and Intel Xeon processors. Their dedicated servers are exactly that ā dedicated, not oversubscribed. The entry-level CX11 VPS (1 vCPU, 2GB RAM, 20GB NVMe) is a VPS, but their dedicated range gives you physical hardware.
For the price, performance is remarkable. The AX51 dedicated server (Ryzen 5 5600X, 32GB RAM, 2x 1TB NVMe) consistently hits 1.4GB/s disk throughput and 1Gbps sustained network.
# Hetzner AX51 benchmark
fio --name=seq_read --filename=/tmp/test --readwrite=read --bs=1m --size=2g --numjobs=4
# read: IOPS=1350k, BW=1350MiB/s
# CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X @ 4.4GHz
Datacenters
Hetzner operates two datacenters: Falkenstein (Germany) and Helsinki (Finland). Both are EU-based, which simplifies GDPR compliance. There is no US datacenter, and latency from North America is significant (100-150ms+).
If your audience is primarily European, this is fine. If you need US presence for performance, Hetzner isn't your answer.
| Datacenter | Location | Latency from UK | Latency from DE |
|---|
| Falkenstein | Germany | 15-20ms | 5-10ms |
|---|---|---|---|
| Helsinki | Finland | 25-35ms | 20-30ms |
The Good
Value. There's no polite way to say this: Hetzner's price-to-hardware ratio is untouchable. What costs $80/month elsewhere costs ā¬30 here. If you're comfortable with Linux administration, this is free money.
No bandwidth caps. Most Hetzner servers have unlimited bandwidth (fair use applies ā they're not naive about abuse). This is a major cost advantage for bandwidth-heavy applications.
GDPR straightforward. EU datacenters, EU jurisdiction, no extraterritorial US surveillance concerns. If GDPR compliance is a concern, Hetzner is refreshingly simple.
Reliable hardware. Hetzner owns and operates their datacenters. They have in-house hardware procurement and maintenance. The servers are new, the hardware is known.
The Not-So-Good
No managed services. This is intentional. Hetzner sells hardware, not services. There's no managed Kubernetes, no managed databases, no one-click WordPress. If you need managed services, look elsewhere.
Support is slow. Ticket-based only. Response times are reasonable during business hours (CET) but if you have an emergency at 3am UTC, you're waiting. There's no live chat, no phone support.
Dated control panel. Hetzner's Robot panel works, but it looks like 2012. It's functional, not pretty. If you're used to the polished UIs of DigitalOcean or Linode, this is a downgrade.
EU-only. No US datacenters. Limited Asia-Pacific. If you need global presence, Hetzner alone won't provide it.
Pricing Context
| Product | Spec | Storage | Price/mo |
|---|
| CX11 (VPS) | 1 vCPU, 2GB RAM | 20GB NVMe | ā¬3.75 |
|---|---|---|---|
| CX21 (VPS) | 2 vCPU, 4GB RAM | 40GB NVMe | ā¬7.50 |
| AX41-NVMe (Dedicated) | 6c/12t Ryzen, 32GB RAM | 2x 512GB NVMe | ā¬36.90 |
| AX51-NVMe (Dedicated) | 8c/16t Ryzen, 64GB RAM | 2x 1TB NVMe | ā¬54.90 |
All dedicated servers include unlimited bandwidth.
Verdict
Hetzner is the choice when you know what you're doing and you want maximum hardware for minimum money. The lack of managed services means you need to be comfortable with server administration, but the savings are real.
For European workloads where US latency isn't a concern, Hetzner is unbeatable value. For teams needing managed services or US presence, look at Linode or DigitalOcean instead.
Who This Is For
Hetzner is ideal for experienced Linux operators who want maximum hardware for minimum money. European startups, homelab enthusiasts, self-hosted application deployments, and bandwidth-heavy projects all benefit from Hetzner's value proposition.
It's wrong for teams needing managed services, US-based audiences (latency matters), anyone who wants a polished control panel, or projects requiring live-chat or phone support.
Alternatives to Consider
- [OVHcloud Review](/reviews/ovhcloud) ā Similar European infrastructure scale with DDoS protection on all plans. Dedicated server value is competitive.
- [DigitalOcean Review](/reviews/digitalocean) ā Polished platform with managed databases and excellent docs. Costs 3-4x more for equivalent hardware.
- [Time4VPS Review](/reviews/time4vps) ā Budget European VPS with transparent pricing and KVM. Smaller scale, simpler offering.
- [Scaleway Review](/reviews/scaleway) ā Broader European cloud platform with managed databases, object storage, and Kubernetes.
Rating: 4/5 (deducted points for support and control panel, but value rating is exceptional)
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