Hetzner
The German family company that sets the price floor for European cloud: 2 vCPU, 4 GB and 80 GB with 20 TB of transfer for €19.99 a month, backups at 20%, overage at €1 a terabyte, ISO 27001 and BSI C5, and the trade-offs of no UK data centre, no managed databases or Kubernetes, identity checks at signup and a cloud line that has been on limited availability since June.
How we testHetzner Online GmbH (Gunzenhausen, Bavaria, founded 1997, privately held, contracting with every customer under German law from Germany) is the company the rest of Europe's cloud is priced against. Its cloud runs from data centres in Falkenstein, Nuremberg and Helsinki, plus Ashburn, Hillsboro and Singapore; there is no UK location, and no GBP, so a UK customer pays in euros or dollars. Prices in EUR, ex VAT, read 8 September 2026. The cheapest listed plan is the CX23, 2 vCPU, 4 GB and 40 GB NVMe with 20 TB of transfer for €5.99 a month, but Hetzner's own status page has listed "limited instance availability" for cloud servers since 26 June 2026 and the whole Cost-Optimized line showed as unavailable when we looked; the cheapest plan you could actually order was the CPX12 at €11.99. The reference CPX22, 2 vCPU AMD, 4 GB, 80 GB NVMe, 20 TB of transfer, primary IPv4 included, is €19.99 a month (€0.032 an hour, capped at the monthly price). Hetzner's billing FAQ states backups cost 20% of the server price, so the real monthly cost of the reference server is €23.99. Snapshots are €0.0143 per GB a month, a floating IP €1 a month, and traffic beyond 20 TB is €1 per TB, the lowest overage rate in this comparison by an order of magnitude. Two cautions on the price list: the same plan names cost more and include far less transfer in the US regions (a 3 vCPU, 4 GB CPX21 is €32.49 with 2 TB in Ashburn), and the dedicated-vCPU CCX line starts at €43.49.
Hetzner's compliance story is the strongest of any provider here bar OVHcloud's sovereign line: ISO/IEC 27001:2022 across all hosting services and data centres, BSI C5 Type 2 for the cloud, PCI DSS, and classification as critical infrastructure under Germany's KRITIS and NIS-2 rules; it explicitly does not hold SOC 2, which it calls a US-centric standard. Its privacy policy says data stays in the EU except for named vendors, and there is no CLOUD Act statement because, as a German company with no US parent, there is nothing to address. The one-click apps (Coolify, Docker, GitLab CE, Nextcloud, WordPress and more) are open-source projects Hetzner maintains itself and installs with cloud-init. The gaps are in managed services: there is no managed database and no managed Kubernetes, only the official cloud controller manager and CSI driver for running your own; there is object storage, block storage, load balancers, private networks and free stateful firewalls, an API, a CLI and a Terraform provider, and no MCP server.
The other trade is the account experience. Hetzner verifies identity at signup through iDenfy, and Trustpilot (3.0 on 2,951 unprompted reviews, 50% five-star and 39% one-star, Hetzner replying to 97% of negatives) is dominated on the low end by accounts closed during or after verification, slow support replies and cancellation friction. Support is email, now 24/7, with restricted phone support; the SLA is 99.9%. For a technical team that does not need a UK data centre or managed services, nothing here delivers more server for the money.
Not yet tested by Saaskly: assessed on published pricing, documentation and third-party reviews.
Pros
- +The lowest price for a real server in Europe: €19.99 for 2 vCPU, 4 GB, 80 GB and 20 TB, €23.99 with backups, overage at €1 a terabyte
- +German-owned under German law; ISO 27001 and BSI C5; data stays in the EU; open-source apps Hetzner maintains itself
- +Free firewalls and private networks, object and block storage, official Terraform provider and CLI
Cons
- −No UK data centre and no GBP; three EU locations, all German or Finnish
- −No managed databases, no managed Kubernetes, no MCP server
- −Identity checks at signup and a Trustpilot 3.0 split between delighted and suspended customers; cloud servers on limited availability since June 2026
Pricing
Minimum commitment: €5.99 (€5.99/mo × 1 seat × 1 month (no commitment)). The least you can spend before walking away; excludes numbers, minutes and add-ons.
CX23
€5.99/mo · no commitment
Same price on any term
- ✓2 vCPU / 4 GB / 40 GB NVMe, 20 TB transfer, €0.0096/hr, IPv4 included, ex VAT, eu-central only. Listed as limited availability since 26 Jun 2026; cheapest orderable plan when read was CPX12 (1 vCPU / 2 GB / 40 GB) at €11.99.
CPX22
€19.99/mo · no commitment
Same price on any term
- ✓2 vCPU AMD / 4 GB / 80 GB NVMe, 20 TB transfer, €0.032/hr, IPv4 included. Backups 20% (€4.00), snapshots €0.0143/GB/mo, overage €1/TB. Real monthly cost with backups: €23.99. US regions: different specs, higher prices, 1 to 5 TB transfer.
Specifications
| Rating | 4.2 |
| Smallest instance | €5.99/mo (2 vCPU / 4 GB / 40 GB NVMe (CX23, limited availability)) |
| Reference instance | €19.99/mo (2 vCPU / 4 GB / 80 GB NVMe (CPX22)) |
| Real monthly cost* | €23.99/mo |
| Hourly billing | ✓ |
| Transfer included | 20 TB |
| Egress overage | €0.001/GB |
| Public IPv4 | Included |
| Backups | 20% of the instance price |
| UK location | No |
| EU locations | 3 |
| Locations | 6 |
| Owned in** | EU-owned |
| Sovereign offering | None |
| Owner | Independent |
| Vendor-maintained images | ✓ |
| Managed databases | No |
| Kubernetes | No |
| Object storage | ✓ |
| API | ✓ |
| Terraform | ✓ |
| MCP server | No |
| Uptime SLA (%) | 99.90 |
| Trustpilot (reviews) | 3.0 (2,951) |
| Snapshots (per GB/mo) | €0.014 |
| Free credit | None advertised |
| HQ | Germany |
| Publicly listed | No |
| ISO 27001 | ✓ |
| SOC 2 | No |
| Block storage | ✓ |
| Load balancers | ✓ |
| Bare metal | ✓ |
| GPU instances | No |
| ARM instances | ✓ |
| Image marketplace | ✓ |
| DDoS protection included | ✓ |
| Private networking | ✓ |
| CLI | ✓ |
| 2FA | ✓ |
| Phone support | No |
| Support channels | Email 24/7, Phone (restricted) |
*Real monthly cost: the reference instance (the nearest to 2 vCPU / 4 GB / 80 GB) with automatic backups switched on and a public IPv4 address, per month at the monthly or capped-hourly rate, in the currency the vendor shows a UK visitor on the research date; see each profile for the VAT basis, the backup rule and the egress bill on top.
**Owned in: where the company that owns the provider answers to. A US-owned provider is subject to US law (including the CLOUD Act) wherever the data centre is; a local data centre is not the same thing as local jurisdiction. "Sovereign offering" records what the vendor offers beyond a local data centre.
Researched and drafted with AI assistance; reviewed and approved by Tim Meredith. How we use AI
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