Comparison — from the record, read 2026-09-07
DigitalOcean vs Hetzner
Both ladders below were read from the vendors’ own pricing pages, in this market, on the dates shown. Nothing is converted: what you see is what each page showed a reader here.
What each one is
DigitalOceansite ↗pricing ↗
Cloud infrastructure aimed at developers and small teams, priced simply against the larger clouds. Paid plans start at $4/mo (Droplets); a free plan exists. The ladder we hold runs 7 paid tiers, topping out at $15/mo (Managed Databases).
Hetznersite ↗pricing ↗
A German hosting company selling dedicated and cloud servers, known for the amount of hardware per euro. Paid plans start at €5.99/mo (Cost-Optimized); no free plan is published. The ladder we hold runs 3 paid tiers, topping out at €43.49/mo (General Purpose).
The two ladders
DigitalOceansite ↗pricing ↗
read 2026-09-06 · USD
| Plan | Price | What the page says |
|---|---|---|
| Droplets | $4/mo | 'Starting at $4 /month'. Per-second billing with a 60-second minimum, 'or $0.01, whichever is higher'. |
| Kubernetes | $12/mo | 'Starting at $12 /month'. Managed Kubernetes. |
| App Platform | Free | 'Starting at $0 /month'. Fully-managed infrastructure. |
| Functions | Free | 'Starting at $0 /month'. Serverless computing. |
| Managed Databases | $15/mo | 'Starting at $15 /month'. |
| Cloudways Managed Hosting | $11/mo | 'Starting at $11 /month'. |
| Spaces (object storage) | $5/mo | 'Starting at $5 /month'. |
| Volumes (block storage) | $10/mo | 'Starting at $10 /month'. |
| Network File Storage | Custom | 'Starting at $0.15 /per GiB/month'. |
| Load Balancers | $12/mo | 'Starting at $12 /month'. |
| Container Registry | Free | 'Starting at $0 /month'. |
| Virtual Private Cloud | Free | 'Starting at $0 /month'. |
| Uptime monitoring | Free | 'Starting at $0 /month'. |
| Support Plans | Free | 'Starting at $0 /month'. Unlimited tickets on the free tier. |
| GPU Droplets | Custom | 'Starting at $1.91 /GPU/hour* — based on multi-month contractual commitment. On-demand pricing from $0.76 /GPU/hour.' |
| AI/ML Inference | Custom | 'Starting at $0.05 /M tokens'. |
Hetznersite ↗pricing ↗
read 2026-09-07 · EUR
| Plan | Price | What the page says |
|---|---|---|
| Cost-Optimized | €5.99/mo | 'starting from € 5.99 max/mo.' Shared Arm64 entry tier — 'Extremely cost-effective, low CPU usage, medium traffic applications'. ⚠️ The card carries a 'Currently not available' badge (read 2026-09-07). The headline is server + primary IPv4: Hetzner prices this slot as product key CLOUD_132+CLOUD_21, and the site's own IP price is € 0.50/mo. |
| Regular Performance | €11.99/mo | 'starting from € 11.99 max/mo.' Shared x86 (CPX family) — 'inexpensive due to shared resources, low to medium CPU usage'. Product key CLOUD_122+CLOUD_21 = the CPX12 server (€ 11.49 at NBG1/FSN1 in Hetzner's own cloud_data.json) plus the € 0.50 IPv4. |
| General Purpose | €43.49/mo | 'starting from € 43.49 max/mo.' Dedicated vCPUs (CCX family) — 'constantly high CPU usage, high-traffic applications'. Product key CLOUD_115+CLOUD_21 = the CCX13 server (€ 42.99 at NBG1/HEL1) plus the € 0.50 IPv4. Ladder at NBG1, EUR/mo. net: CCX13 42.99 · CCX23 85.99 · CCX33 138.49 · CCX43 275.99 · CCX53 533.49 · CCX63 853.49. |
Where they differ
- Cheapest way in: DigitalOcean at $4/mo, against Hetzner at €5.99/mo. That is the entry price in this market on the dates shown, not a judgement about which suits you.
- Free plans: only DigitalOcean publishes one — a plan priced at zero, not a trial.
- How far each ladder goes: DigitalOcean tops out at $15/mo, Hetzner at €43.49/mo. A deeper ladder is not a worse deal — it is a bill that keeps climbing if you keep growing.
How to choose in this category
- Match the tier to the sites and storage you actually use — the levels here divide on resources, not features.
- Introductory terms in this set run one to four years; a lower monthly figure often buys a longer lock-in.
- Every row links the host’s own pricing page. Open it and read the renewal line before you commit to a term.
Both ladders were read from the vendors’ own pricing pages as shown to a eurozone reader (read from Germany), on the dates beside each table. Nothing here is converted from another market and nothing is ordered by commission. Some links are affiliate links; they earn us a commission and change no number.
The method →