DigitalOcean vs Hetzner Cloud (2026)

DigitalOcean versus Hetzner is the US developer cloud against the EU value cloud. Spec for spec, Hetzner often looks cheaper. Experience for experience, DigitalOcean often feels faster to learn. Use Hetzner when budget and EU residency dominate. Use DigitalOcean when time, tutorials, and US latency dominate. Many portfolios run both: Hetzner for batch or EU apps, DigitalOcean for the public US-facing service.

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DigitalOcean

Best for: People who want predictable droplet pricing, excellent documentation, and a smooth first-VPS experience with one-click apps and App Platform nearby.

Watch out: Not always the cheapest at scale. Bandwidth overages can add up on high-traffic workloads. Raw $/GB may favor Hetzner, Contabo, or Vultr for heavy transfer.

Check DigitalOcean pricing

Hetzner Cloud

Best for: EU workloads where euro list price and RAM-per-dollar matter more than US tutorial polish.

Watch out: Thin US footprint. Support is email-first and assumes you know Linux. Latency to North America hurts if Falkenstein is your only region.

Check Hetzner pricing

Spec snapshot

Comparable entry-tier plans from each provider.

Field	DigitalOcean	Hetzner Cloud
Plan	Basic Droplet 1GB	CX22
vCPU	1	2
RAM	1 GB	4 GB
Disk	25 GB ssd	40 GB ssd
Bandwidth	1.0 TB	20.0 TB
List price	$6.00/mo	$4.49/mo

All tracked plans

Every plan we currently track for both providers.

Provider	Plan	vCPU	RAM	Disk	$/mo
DigitalOcean	Basic Droplet 1GB	1	1 GB	25 GB	$6.00
DigitalOcean	Basic Droplet 2GB	1	2 GB	50 GB	$12.00
DigitalOcean	Basic Droplet 4GB	2	4 GB	80 GB	$24.00
DigitalOcean	CPU-Optimized 4GB	2	4 GB	25 GB	$42.00
Hetzner Cloud	CX22	2	4 GB	40 GB	$4.49
Hetzner Cloud	CX32	4	8 GB	80 GB	$8.49
Hetzner Cloud	CPX21	3	4 GB	80 GB	$9.49
Hetzner Cloud	CPX31	4	8 GB	160 GB	$16.49