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Hetzner vs. DigitalOcean: Which Cloud Fits Your App?

Hetzner vs. DigitalOcean compared on pricing model, EU locations, included traffic, managed services and company seat, so you can pick the right cloud.

EU cloudPublished

Hetzner is usually the better choice if you want inexpensive virtual servers in Europe and can manage the software on top yourself; DigitalOcean is the better choice if you want more managed services from one dashboard and do not mind a US-based provider. Both are developer-friendly clouds with simple pricing, a clean API and hourly billing. The differences lie in company seat, regions, included traffic and how much of the stack you have to run on your own.

The short version

As of October 2026. The provider’s own website is authoritative for products, regions and prices.

Criterion Hetzner DigitalOcean
Headquarters Germany USA
European locations Falkenstein, Nuremberg (DE), Helsinki (FI) Amsterdam, Frankfurt, London (per provider)
Other locations Ashburn and Hillsboro (US), Singapore North America, Asia, Australia
Core product Cloud servers (shared and dedicated vCPU, x86 and Arm), volumes, load balancers, object storage Droplets, managed Kubernetes, managed databases, object storage, App Platform, functions
Billing Hourly with monthly cap Per second or hourly with monthly cap (check current terms)
Best for Cost-sensitive workloads, self-managed stacks Teams that prefer managed building blocks

Pricing model: look beyond the server price

Both providers publish flat monthly prices per server size with hourly billing up to that cap. Headline prices are only half the bill, though. Check three things before you compare:

  • Included traffic. According to Hetzner, cloud servers in its European locations include 20 TB of outbound traffic per month, with lower allowances in the US and Singapore. DigitalOcean includes a transfer allowance with each Droplet that is pooled across your account; additional traffic is billed per GiB. For bandwidth-heavy apps this can decide the comparison.
  • IPv4 addresses. Public IPv4 is scarce and both providers treat it as a line item or part of the server price in different ways. If your app can live behind a load balancer or with IPv6 only, you may save here.
  • Currency and VAT. Hetzner bills in EUR (with USD for some markets), DigitalOcean in USD. Business customers in the EU usually pay net with reverse charge; private customers pay VAT on top. Make sure you compare like with like.

For a rough monthly estimate across several services, the PaaS cost calculator helps you separate compute, database, traffic and admin time.

Managed services

This is where the two diverge most. Hetzner concentrates on infrastructure: servers, block storage volumes, private networks, firewalls, load balancers, snapshots, backups and S3-compatible object storage. Databases, queues and container orchestration are your job, or the job of a tool you install.

DigitalOcean offers a longer list of managed products on top of its Droplets: a managed Kubernetes service, managed PostgreSQL, MySQL and other databases, Spaces object storage, and the DigitalOcean App Platform, a PaaS that builds and runs your code from a Git repository. Each managed service costs more than running the same software on a plain server, but it saves admin time, which is the most expensive resource for small teams.

A popular middle path is to rent a Hetzner server and install a self-hosted PaaS. Our guide to running Coolify on a VPS shows what that involves.

Locations and data residency

Hetzner operates its own data centre parks in Falkenstein and Nuremberg in Germany and in Helsinki in Finland, plus cloud locations in the US and Singapore. If you pick a European location, your servers and volumes stay there.

DigitalOcean offers European regions in Amsterdam and Frankfurt, and London outside the EU. You can keep workloads and data in those regions. The legal entity, however, is a US company. For many projects that is fine with a data processing agreement and standard contractual clauses. For public-sector or regulated workloads, a provider seated in the EU can make the assessment simpler. Our page on GDPR-compliant hosting explains the difference between where data sits and which law applies.

Developer experience

Both providers have a clear web console, a documented REST API, an official CLI (hcloud and doctl) and Terraform providers. DigitalOcean is known for its extensive tutorial library, which helps beginners. Hetzner’s console is spartan but quick, and its API covers everything you need to automate servers, networks and firewalls.

Support differs in style: Hetzner offers ticket-based support included with the account, DigitalOcean offers ticket support with paid tiers for faster response. Neither replaces your own monitoring and backups.

When to choose which

Choose Hetzner if

  • price per vCPU and per TB of traffic is a deciding factor,
  • you want a German company and German or Finnish data centres,
  • you are comfortable running databases, backups and updates yourself or with a self-hosted PaaS.

Choose DigitalOcean if

  • you want managed Kubernetes, managed databases and a PaaS from one provider,
  • your team values tutorials and a gentle learning curve,
  • you need regions outside Europe as well, for example in North America or Asia.

If neither fits, our overview of European cloud providers and the VPS comparison for developers list further options such as Scaleway, OVHcloud and UpCloud.

Sources

Providers in this comparisonAs of: October 2026

Frequently asked questions

Is Hetzner cheaper than DigitalOcean?

For raw compute and traffic, Hetzner's list prices have historically been lower for comparable server sizes, especially in its European locations. The gap shrinks once you add managed services that Hetzner does not offer and you would have to run yourself. Compare current prices on both pricing pages, including VAT and IPv4 charges.

Does DigitalOcean have data centres in the EU?

Yes. According to DigitalOcean, it runs regions in Amsterdam and Frankfurt, plus London. Data can stay in those regions, but the company itself is headquartered in the USA, which matters for some compliance assessments.

Can I run Kubernetes on Hetzner?

You can install Kubernetes yourself on Hetzner Cloud servers with community tooling. Whether Hetzner offers a fully managed Kubernetes product at the time you read this is best checked on its website. DigitalOcean has offered a managed Kubernetes service for years.

Which is better for a side project?

Either works. Hetzner gives you more server for the money; DigitalOcean gives you more ready-made building blocks and a large library of tutorials. If you want a Heroku-like workflow on a cheap server, look at a self-hosted PaaS such as Coolify.

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