Hetzner vs DigitalOcean (2026)

Updated 2026-09-29 · Independent affiliate site (disclosure)

Head-to-head comparison

Hetzner's figures were re-checked on Hetzner's own price-adjustment table on 2026-09-29; DigitalOcean's come from its published pricing and are due for a re-check. This is a desk comparison and we ran no benchmarks. The "Winner" column is per-row only, the right overall pick depends on your use case (see below).

How we compared them

This is a desk comparison of published specs and price lists. We did not run load tests, latency probes or uptime monitors for this page, and we do not reprint either company's marketing benchmarks.

• Specs and prices: read from each provider's own pricing and documentation pages, at the closest-matching plan for each RAM tier.
• Disk: storage type compared from each provider's published specs (NVMe on Hetzner's shared plans, SSD on DigitalOcean's Basic tier).
• Latency and reliability: we describe datacenter footprint only. Each provider publishes its own incident history on a public status page.
• Hidden-cost audit: bandwidth overage, IPv4 charges, snapshot and backup pricing. The headline price is rarely the real price.

Where Hetzner wins

Hetzner is a German cloud host that has become the price-performance leader over the past few years. On a pure cost-per-GB-of-RAM and cost-per-TB-of-bandwidth basis, nothing in DigitalOcean's catalog comes close.

What the published data shows for Hetzner

• Storage: local NVMe on every shared plan, per Hetzner's spec sheet.
• Datacenters: EU and US regions, no APAC location.
• Effective price per GB of RAM: roughly EUR 1.37 at the CX23 tier (EUR 5.49 for 4 GB), versus $6 per GB on DigitalOcean's Basic tier.

The bandwidth math is the headline

The CX23 includes 20 TB of outbound traffic and charges around EUR 1 per extra TB in the EU. DigitalOcean's entry Droplet includes 1 TB in a pooled allowance and charges $0.01 per GB over the pool, which works out to $10 per TB. For a site that serves images, downloads, or video, that gap dominates the bill. A workload pushing 5 TB a month sits comfortably inside Hetzner's included allowance while costing $40 a month in DigitalOcean overage on top of the Droplet.

When Hetzner is the right call

• You are comfortable opening a terminal and running apt commands.
• Your audience is mostly EU and US (or you front the origin with a CDN like Cloudflare).
• You want the most RAM, NVMe, and bandwidth per euro, and you do not need first-party managed databases.

Where DigitalOcean wins

DigitalOcean is not trying to win on price. It sells a developer platform: a clean control panel, a marketplace of one-click images, managed data services, and a documentation library that is genuinely the best in the business.

What the published data shows for DigitalOcean

• Storage: SSD on the Basic tier; NVMe is reserved for the pricier Premium AMD and Premium Intel tiers.
• Datacenters: regions across North America, Europe and Asia, including Singapore, Bangalore and Sydney, so users there are closer to an origin than with Hetzner.

The platform advantages

• More datacenters. DigitalOcean spans more continents than Hetzner, so far-away users get lower latency from a nearby region without you running a multi-region setup.
• Managed databases. Managed PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, and MongoDB mean you do not have to run, patch, or back up your own database server.
• Managed Kubernetes (DOKS), Spaces, and App Platform. A real PaaS layer for teams that want to ship without server administration.
• Documentation. The tutorial library is a learning asset on its own. For people new to Linux, that lowers the time to a working stack.
• $200 trial credit. New accounts get a 60-day credit, useful for evaluating before you commit.

When to pick DigitalOcean over Hetzner

We earn nothing on Hetzner or DigitalOcean. Choose DigitalOcean in these cases, because it is the honest answer:

• Your users are concentrated in Asia or Australia. A Singapore, Bangalore, or Sydney Droplet beats a distant Hetzner origin for uncacheable, latency-sensitive traffic.
• You want managed databases without running them. Hetzner gives you the server; DigitalOcean gives you a managed Postgres or Redis with backups and failover handled for you.
• You are new to servers and learn from tutorials. DigitalOcean's docs and one-click marketplace flatten the learning curve.
• You want a PaaS, not a VPS. App Platform deploys from a Git repo with no server to manage. Hetzner has no equivalent first-party product.
• You want to test on free credit first. The $200 / 60-day trial lets you prove out an architecture before paying.

Our recommendation by use case

A common winning pattern: run the origin on a cheap Hetzner CX23 and put Cloudflare in front of it. The CDN caches static assets at edge locations worldwide, which removes most of DigitalOcean's geographic advantage for cacheable content while keeping Hetzner's price and bandwidth allowance. Only truly dynamic, far-from-Europe requests still favor a nearby DigitalOcean region.

Honesty disclosures

Hetzner has discontinued its referral-credit program, per its official FAQ. Our Hetzner Cloud link is unpaid; we earn nothing if you sign up.

We do not earn a commission on DigitalOcean. Any link to digitalocean.com on this page is a plain link with no tracking parameters. If you decide DigitalOcean is the right fit, sign up on their main site, we earn nothing either way, and we would rather you pick the host that fits your workload than the one we get paid on.

FAQ

Is Hetzner cheaper than DigitalOcean?

Yes, by a wide margin, even after Hetzner's June 2026 price increase. Hetzner CX23 is EUR 5.49/mo (about $6) for 4 GB RAM, 2 shared vCPU, 40 GB NVMe, and 20 TB of traffic. The nearest DigitalOcean plan with 4 GB RAM is the Basic 4GB Droplet at $24/mo with only 4 TB of transfer, roughly 4 times more expensive for one fifth of the bandwidth. DigitalOcean's entry Droplet is $6/mo for 1 GB / 1 vCPU / 25 GB SSD / 1 TB transfer.

Is DigitalOcean faster than Hetzner?

Not on raw disk or CPU at matched tiers. Hetzner's shared plans ship local NVMe while DigitalOcean's Basic Droplets are SSD-backed (NVMe is reserved for the pricier Premium tiers), so storage is a spec-sheet advantage for Hetzner. Where DigitalOcean wins is geographic latency: it runs more datacenters across more continents, so a user in Bangalore, Sydney, or Singapore gets lower TTFB from a nearby DO region than from Hetzner's EU or US sites.

What is the difference in bandwidth pricing between Hetzner and DigitalOcean?

Hetzner includes 20 TB of outbound traffic on the CX23 and charges roughly EUR 1 per extra TB in the EU. DigitalOcean pools transfer across Droplets, starts at 1 TB on the $6 plan, and charges $0.01 per GB over the pool, which is $10 per extra TB. For bandwidth-heavy workloads, Hetzner is dramatically cheaper.

Does DigitalOcean have managed databases and Hetzner does not?

Yes. DigitalOcean sells managed PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, MongoDB, Kubernetes (DOKS), Spaces object storage, and App Platform PaaS. Hetzner Cloud offers core primitives (servers, volumes, load balancers, networks, snapshots) and S3-compatible object storage, but no first-party managed database. If you want managed data services without running them yourself, DigitalOcean has the broader catalog.

Which should I pick for a WordPress site?

If you are comfortable with a Linux terminal, Hetzner CX23 at EUR 5.49/mo gives you far more RAM and bandwidth for the money and handles a WordPress site to roughly 30,000 monthly visitors with caching. If you want the largest tutorial library and a marketplace one-click WordPress image, DigitalOcean is friendlier for first-timers but costs more per GB of RAM.

Do both charge for IPv4 addresses?

Yes. Hetzner adds about EUR 0.50/mo per dedicated IPv4. DigitalOcean includes one public IPv4 in the Droplet price but charges for reserved (floating) IPs that are not attached to a running Droplet. Both offer free IPv6. Budget a small monthly add-on for IPv4 on Hetzner.

Can I use Cloudflare in front of Hetzner to fix its limited datacenter coverage?

Yes, and we recommend it. Putting Cloudflare (or any CDN) in front of a Hetzner origin caches static assets at edge locations worldwide, which neutralizes most of DigitalOcean's geographic advantage for cacheable content. Dynamic, uncacheable requests still hit the Hetzner origin, so latency-sensitive APIs for far-away users may still prefer a nearby DigitalOcean region.

Related Guides

• Best Cheap VPS Hosting (2026), the full ranked list with Hetzner, Cloudways, Hostinger, and more.
• Best DigitalOcean Alternatives, cheaper and faster options when DO's pricing does not fit.
• Contabo vs Hetzner, the other budget-EU matchup, cores-per-dollar vs disk speed.
• Hetzner vs Azure: Real Prices and Egress Math, head-to-head with charts.