Hetzner Cloud
Hetzner · 🖥️ VPS & Cloud Servers
Hetzner Cloud offers low-cost virtual servers from Germany, with 2 vCPU and 4 GB RAM from €5.99/month and 20 TB of traffic included in the EU.
Free-tier constraints
- Offer type
- Paid only
- When idle
- Stays active
- Credit card
- Unknown
- Commercial use
- Allowed
- At the limit
- Auto-bills
- Data expiry
- Not published
- Headquarters
- Germany
- EU data residency
- EU regions available
Free-tier compatibility
- ✓Static hosting
- —Serverless
- ✓Long-running processes
- ✓Docker
- ✓WebSockets
- ✓Cron
- ✓Background workers
- ✓Persistent disk
- ✓Custom domains
Overview
Hetzner is a German hosting company, and Hetzner Cloud is its virtual server product. There is no free tier: you pay from the first hour. What you get instead is one of the lowest prices in Europe for an always-on server. The Cost-Optimized CX23 gives you 2 vCPU, 4 GB of RAM and 40 GB of NVMe storage for €5.99 per month excluding VAT, with 20 TB of traffic included in EU locations.
That makes Hetzner the natural next step once a free PaaS starts to hurt. Free tiers sleep, cap hours or expire. A small Hetzner server stays on, runs Docker Compose, keeps a database on local disk and handles cron jobs and workers without extra charges. Billing is hourly with a monthly cap, so a test server you delete after a day costs a few cents.
The trade-off is operations. You manage the operating system, security updates, backups and deploys yourself, or you install a self-hosted PaaS such as Coolify or Dokku on the server. Servers in Germany and Finland keep data inside the EU under a German company, which matters for teams with GDPR or data-sovereignty requirements.
Sources and verification
Checked 2026-11-01Pros
- ✓Very low price per GB of RAM for a European provider
- ✓20 TB of traffic included on EU servers
- ✓German company with data centers in Germany and Finland
- ✓Hourly billing, so short-lived test servers cost cents
Cons
- ✕No free tier; you pay from the first hour
- ✕You manage the operating system, updates and backups yourself
- ✕Plans can show as temporarily unavailable in some locations
- ✕US and Singapore locations include less traffic than EU ones
Best for
- →Developers who outgrew free tiers and want an always-on server for a few euros
- →Docker Compose stacks, self-managed databases and background workers
- →Teams that want EU-hosted infrastructure under a European company
Compare with
Getting started
- 1 Create a Hetzner account and complete identity verification if asked
- 2 Create a project in the Hetzner Console
- 3 Choose a location, an image (for example Ubuntu) and a Cost-Optimized server type
- 4 Add your SSH key and a firewall, then create the server
- 5 Install Docker or your runtime and deploy your app
Related guides
Features
- ✓Hourly billing with a monthly price cap
- ✓Intel/AMD and Arm (Ampere) server types
- ✓20 TB traffic included in EU locations
- ✓Snapshots, backups, volumes and load balancers
- ✓Firewalls and private networks
- ✓API, CLI and Terraform provider
Languages
FAQ
No. Hetzner does not advertise a free tier or trial credit. The cheapest Cost-Optimized server, CX23, costs €5.99 per month excluding VAT, billed hourly.
Hetzner runs cloud servers in Germany and Finland, plus Ashburn and Hillsboro in the USA and Singapore. EU locations include 20 TB of traffic per server.
For always-on apps, yes, if you are comfortable managing a Linux server or a tool like Coolify or Dokku on top. You trade platform convenience for a much lower price and no sleep.
Deploy these projects to Hetzner Cloud
Open-source projects and templates that run on Hetzner Cloud's free tier.