Compare Hetzner, DigitalOcean, Vultr, and Linode VPS pricing. Select CPU and RAM requirements — see cheapest provider instantly. Free, no signup.
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Entry-level and mid-range plans, per month.
| Provider | 2 vCPU / 4 GB | 4 vCPU / 8 GB | Egress free | Locations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HetznerCHEAPEST EU | €4.50/mo | €8.50/mo | 20 TB/mo | DE, FI, US, SG |
| Linode / Akamai | $18/mo | $36/mo | 1 TB/mo | 11 regions |
| DigitalOcean | $18/mo | $36/mo | 2 TB/mo | 15 regions |
| Vultr | $24/mo | $48/mo | 3 TB/mo | 32 regions |
Hetzner includes 20 TB/month free egress. DigitalOcean charges $0.01/GB after 2TB. At 10TB/month: Hetzner $0 extra, DigitalOcean $80 extra. Factor this into total cost.
| Use case | Best choice | Why |
|---|---|---|
| EU SaaS (GDPR) | Hetzner | Cheapest + EU data residency + GDPR compliant |
| Global reach | Vultr | 32 locations across 6 continents |
| Managed databases | DigitalOcean | Managed Postgres, Redis, Kafka |
| Budget dev server | Hetzner | CX22 at €4.50 = best $/resource ratio |
| TR audience (latency) | Hetzner / DO | Frankfurt or Amsterdam closest to Istanbul |
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A SaaS backend with 3 app servers (4 vCPU/8GB) + 1 database server (8 vCPU/16GB): Hetzner total ≈ €25.50 + €17/mo = ~€43/month. Equivalent on DigitalOcean: $144 + $96 = $240/month. Same workload, ~5× cost difference. Saved $197/month = $2,364/year.
How we source and calculate VPS pricing.
Sources: All VPS prices are sourced from each provider's official pricing page — Hetzner's Cloud pricing page, Vultr's Cloud Compute pricing, DigitalOcean's Droplets pricing, and Linode/Akamai's compute pricing. These are on-demand, hourly rates converted to monthly (730 hours/month).
Spec matching methodology: We match the closest available configuration at each provider to the requested spec. Not all providers offer identical options — for example, Hetzner's CX22 (2 vCPU/4GB) doesn't have an exact DigitalOcean equivalent (DO's closest is 2 vCPU/4GB Droplet at $18/mo). The comparison selects the closest match at each provider and flags when exact specs differ.
What is excluded: Managed database costs, load balancer costs ($5–15/mo additional), block storage costs ($0.10/GB/mo), Kubernetes cluster management fees, and CDN costs. The calculator shows raw compute costs only. For full infrastructure cost planning, add these services based on your architecture.
Bandwidth methodology: Free bandwidth allowances are noted in the comparison table. Overages are not included in the calculator (most workloads stay within free tiers) but are documented. The recommendation table accounts for egress pricing in the use-case guidance.
Currency: Hetzner prices are in EUR and converted at the approximate current exchange rate for display. Actual billing is in EUR if your account is EU-based.
Yes — consistently 3–5× cheaper for EU-based specs. Hetzner CX22 (2 vCPU/4GB RAM) is €4.50/month; DigitalOcean's closest Droplet (2 vCPU/4GB) is $18/month. The primary trade-off is location coverage: Hetzner has 5 EU + 1 US region vs DigitalOcean's 15 global locations. For EU-audience applications, GDPR compliance is also simpler with Hetzner data centers in Germany and Finland.
Hetzner for EU-primary audience: unbeatable price/performance ratio, included 20TB bandwidth, GDPR-friendly. Vultr for global reach with 32 locations and $300 new account credit. DigitalOcean if you need managed Postgres, Redis, or Kubernetes alongside compute — their managed services ecosystem is more mature. For a typical bootstrap SaaS, start on Hetzner and add providers as your user geography expands.
Entry-level (1 vCPU/1GB): $5–6/month. Mid-range (2 vCPU/4GB): €4.50 Hetzner to $18–24 elsewhere. Production (4 vCPU/8GB): €8.50 Hetzner to $36–48 elsewhere. Large (8 vCPU/16GB): €17 Hetzner to $72–96 elsewhere. Add 20–40% for managed databases, load balancers, and storage depending on your architecture.
Egress is outbound bandwidth — data sent from your server to users. Hetzner includes 20TB/month free per server (essentially unlimited for most apps). DigitalOcean includes 2TB free then $0.01/GB. Vultr includes 1–3TB depending on plan. For a media app or file download service serving 10TB/month: Hetzner adds $0, DigitalOcean adds $80, AWS EC2 adds $900. Egress pricing is the hidden cost that can make AWS 10–50× more expensive than alternatives.
Vultr has more locations (32 vs 15), a $300 new-user credit, and slightly lower base prices. DigitalOcean has a more polished managed services portfolio — Managed Kubernetes, Managed PostgreSQL, Redis, App Platform (PaaS-like). For pure compute, Vultr wins on price and reach. For teams that want managed databases alongside compute in a single billing dashboard, DigitalOcean is more convenient despite the higher cost.
Small models (7B parameters quantized to 4-bit) can run on 8GB RAM CPU-only servers but are extremely slow for real-time inference (30–60 seconds per response). GPU VPS instances are needed for practical self-hosted LLM performance — Hetzner GPU servers start at €69/month for an NVIDIA A30, Vultr and DO offer similar GPU instances at $90–120/month. For most teams, LLM APIs at $0.20–3/M tokens are cheaper than self-hosting unless you're running millions of requests per month.
A VPS (Virtual Private Server) shares physical hardware with other customers using hypervisor virtualization. A dedicated server is a physical machine rented exclusively for your use. VPS instances have guaranteed CPU/RAM allocations but may experience "noisy neighbor" effects under extreme load. Dedicated servers offer consistent performance but cost significantly more — typically $60–200/month for entry-level vs $4–18 for a comparable VPS. For most web applications, VPS performance is sufficient and the cost difference is hard to justify.