DigitalOcean
vs
Hetzner
DigitalOcean offers simplicity and developer-friendly tools, perfect for startups and small businesses. Hetzner provides robust hardware and competitive pricing, appealing to those needing high performance at a lower cost.
What's good about each
- Simple, developer-first cloud
- Predictable pricing & monthly caps
- AI platform powered by Paperspace GPUs
- Vast library of tutorials & 1-click apps
- High performance VPS configurations at affordable prices (shared, high memory, dedicated CPU)
- Easy to use web console & developer tooling (Terraform SDKs, official CLI)
- EU-based company, may simplify GDPR compliance for some
Price comparison
Closest matching configuration on each side, monthly list price in USD.
| Service | DigitalOcean | Hetzner | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small VM | $6.00 /mo 1 vCPU, 1 GiB RAM (Basic) | $6.94 /mo 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM (CX23) | 14% cheaper on DigitalOcean |
| Medium VM | $48.00 /mo 4 vCPU, 8 GiB RAM (Basic) | $10.42 /mo 4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM (CX33) | 4.6x more expensive on DigitalOcean |
| Large VM | $168.00 /mo 8 vCPU, 16 GiB RAM (CPU-Optimized) | $19.12 /mo 8 vCPU, 16 GB RAM (CX43) | 8.8x more expensive on DigitalOcean |
| Block storage | $10.00 /mo 100 GB | $5.10 /mo 100 GB | 49% cheaper on Hetzner |
| Object storage | $20.00 /mo 1 TiB | $7.52 /mo 1 TB | 2.7x more expensive on DigitalOcean |
| PostgreSQL | $60.00 /mo 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 60 GB storage | -- Not listed | |
| Redis | $15.00 /mo 1 vCPU, 1 GB RAM | -- Not listed | |
| Load balancer | $12.00 /mo | $8.68 /mo LB11 | 28% cheaper on Hetzner |
| Serverless | $34.69 /mo 25M invocations, 512 MB RAM, 150 ms duration | -- Not listed | |
| Egress allowance | 100 GB - 10 TB / mo per instance | 1-60 TB / mo per instance | |
| Egress | $10.00 /TB $0.01 / GB | $1.16 /TB €1 / TB | 8.6x more expensive on DigitalOcean |
Heads up: Figures take each provider's closest plan to a common setup, and vary by region and usage. Hover a service for the reference configuration. Verify before provisioning. More on how we price.
GPUs
DigitalOcean offers 10 GPU models, while Hetzner offers 2. Cheapest listed price per GPU per hour; GPUs both providers sell come first.
| GPU | DigitalOcean | Hetzner | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
H100
3 configs
|
$3.26 /GPU/hr Reserved (12 mo) | -- | DigitalOcean only |
|
B300
2 configs
|
$7.94 /GPU/hr Reserved (12 mo) | -- | DigitalOcean only |
|
H200
3 configs
|
$3.40 /GPU/hr Reserved (12 mo) | -- | DigitalOcean only |
MI300X
3 configs
|
$1.91 /GPU/hr Reserved (12 mo) | -- | DigitalOcean only |
|
MI355X
1 config
|
$4.50 /GPU/hr Spot | -- | DigitalOcean only |
|
L40S
1 config
|
$1.57 /GPU/hr On-demand | -- | DigitalOcean only |
|
RTX 6000 Ada
1 config
|
$1.57 /GPU/hr On-demand | -- | DigitalOcean only |
|
MI325X
3 configs
|
$2.88 /GPU/hr Reserved (12 mo) | -- | DigitalOcean only |
|
RTX PRO 6000
1 config
|
-- | $2.23 /GPU/hr On-demand | Hetzner only |
|
RTX 4000 SFF Ada
1 config
|
-- | $0.43 /GPU/hr On-demand | Hetzner only |
DigitalOcean bills on-demand, spot and reserved (12 months); Hetzner bills on-demand. The line under each price names the billing type shown.
Services
Managed services each provider offers.
Company details
| Fact | DigitalOcean | Hetzner |
|---|---|---|
| Founded | 2011 | 1997 |
| Headquarters | USA | Germany |
| Locations | 14 | 6 |
| Example customers | Crisp, ScraperAPI, GHost, and CTO.ai | Outdooractive, Bitdefender, Userlike, Whereby, Autodoc |
| Website | digitalocean.com | hetzner.com |
Alternatives to consider
Compare DigitalOcean and Hetzner against other cloud providers.
Our data for DigitalOcean was last updated on Sept. 12, 2026, and for Hetzner on Aug. 31, 2026.