Hetzner Cloud is a German provider with three server families, an API and low entry prices. Teams leave it when they need locations beyond Germany, Finland, Singapore and the US, a provider that manages the server for them, per-second billing, or capacity that is actually orderable. We list European and non-European VPS providers that cover those gaps.
Short answer: Looking for a replacement for Hetzner Cloud? Contabo, Scaleway and OVHcloud VPS come first in our VPS hosting providers ranking. Smaller vendors fill the top three places where the category offers them, and the household names start at place 4. Start with Contabo if you want more cores and memory per euro and accept a long term. All 11 alternatives below are ranked products from Best VPS Hosting Providers in 2026, and each says where it differs from Hetzner Cloud.
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Pricing: Published monthly prices excluding VAT per server type; Primary IPv4 address charged separately
Established in: Germany
Built for: Developers and small teams who run their own servers and want low prices
Not for: Buyers who need the vendor to administer the operating system for them
01
Why buyers look past Hetzner Cloud
01
The cheapest family may be unavailable
The cloud page lists Cost-Optimized from EUR 5.99 a month but marks it as currently not available. Regular Performance starts at EUR 6.49 on shared vCPUs, and General Purpose with dedicated vCPUs starts at EUR 43.49. The jump between those two is what pushes many buyers to compare.
02
Add-ons are priced apart
Prices exclude VAT and the Primary IPv4 address is charged separately. Daily backups hold seven slots, snapshots are manual, and neither covers attached volumes. A server that looks cheap on the list needs its address, backup and storage lines added before comparing.
03
You run it yourself
The page promotes self-hosting through one-click apps such as Coolify, Docker CE, Nextcloud, GitLab CE and WireGuard, with a REST API, CLI, Terraform and Ansible. Nothing on the page we read offers a managed service, and the locations are Falkenstein, Nuremberg, Helsinki, Singapore, Hillsboro and Ashburn only.
per-second billing across many regions is the draw
#7
03
What each one does differently
1
Contabo
Germany · Published
Contabo, also German, quotes Cloud VPS 4 to 18 with more cores and memory than rivals at a similar monthly figure. That figure is the effective rate on a 24-month subscription, with a one-month minimum initial contract. Incoming traffic is unmetered, outgoing falls under fair usage, and snapshots are capped at one to three per plan.
Switch from Hetzner Cloud if you want more cores and memory per euro and accept a long term.
Scaleway, in France, groups Virtual Instances into Development, General Purpose, Compute Optimized and Memory Optimized ranges. Egress is free and IPv6 is routed. Billing is pay as you go, with Savings Plans up to 25 percent. Regions are Paris, Amsterdam and Warsaw, and the instances page showed no server price, so use the calculator.
Switch from Hetzner Cloud if you want free egress and French-run regions.
OVHcloud, based in France, sells VPS-1 to VPS-4 starting at 2 vCores and 4 GB, with anti-DDoS protection and a daily backup kept on a rolling seven-day basis. Snapshots and premium backups cost extra. The page shows from-prices only and states no trial or guarantee.
Switch from Hetzner Cloud if anti-DDoS protection and included daily backups come first.
Hostinger, from Lithuania, offers KVM 1 to KVM 8 on AMD EPYC and NVMe, with a firewall, a Docker manager, weekly backups and an AI web terminal. All plans are paid upfront and renewal is higher: KVM 1 shows $6.49 now and $11.99 on renewal. A 30-day money-back guarantee applies.
Switch from Hetzner Cloud if a Lithuanian provider with upfront terms and a refund window suits you.
IONOS offers five sizes, S+ to XXL+, with unlimited traffic up to 1 Gbit/s and root access, in the UK, Germany, Spain or the US. The low price lasts three months, a 10 pound setup fee is added, and Plesk costs extra. A 30-day free trial is listed. The vendor names different legal entities by site.
Switch from Hetzner Cloud if you want a free trial and a Spanish or UK location.
Kamatera lets you choose the specification yourself, billed by the hour in one-minute steps or prepaid monthly with no long contract. It lists 21 data centres, offers Windows Server, and gives a 30-day trial on one server. Extra traffic costs 0.01 dollars a GB. Its backup and managed-service prices are not on the page.
Switch from Hetzner Cloud if you need a custom size, Windows, or many locations.
ScalaHosting sells managed cloud VPS where its team handles setup, monitoring, software installation and maintenance, with SPanel and daily offsite backups bundled and root access kept. Renewal is a multiple of the promotion: Build #1 shows $22.46 against $54.95. The page gives slider labels, not vCPU or RAM numbers.
Switch from Hetzner Cloud if you want someone else to run the server and accept higher renewals.
Cloudways, Maltese, is a managed layer on DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS or Google Compute Engine, billed hourly in arrears each month. Backups, firewall, patching and monitoring are included and SSH is listed. The trial lasts three days, offsite backup space costs extra, and root access is not mentioned.
Switch from Hetzner Cloud if you want managed web hosting on a choice of five clouds.
Hostwinds lists ten Linux VPS sizes from 1 vCPU and 1 GB to 16 vCPU and 96 GB, with full management and root access included. Choosing the unmanaged route is said to save up to 50 percent. Backups cost 1 dollar a month plus 0.03 dollars a GB, and cPanel/WHM needs its own licence.
Switch from Hetzner Cloud if you want a wide size ladder with management included.
Liquid Web lets you run a VPS yourself or have it fully managed, and managed plans add monitoring, patching, automated backups and hardening. It states a 99.99 percent uptime guarantee. The headline starts at 5 dollars but the featured plans start at 17, and promotions go to new accounts only.
Switch from Hetzner Cloud if a stated uptime guarantee and a managed option matter.
DigitalOcean bills Droplets per second with a 60-second minimum and caps each bundled plan at its monthly price, across 12 locations. Backups add 20 or 30 percent of Droplet cost and snapshots cost 0.06 dollars per GB. The core Droplet is unmanaged, and credits are promotional, not a standing trial.
Switch from Hetzner Cloud if per-second billing across many regions is the draw.
ScalaHosting: Its team handles setup, monitoring and maintenance, with SPanel and daily offsite backups bundled.
02
You need Windows Server or an unusual size
Kamatera: You choose the specification, billed by the minute, across 21 data centres, with a 30-day trial.
03
You want free outbound traffic in French regions
Scaleway: Egress is free, and instances run in Paris, Amsterdam and Warsaw with Savings Plans up to 25 percent.
04
You want the most cores for a long commitment
Contabo: Cloud VPS 4 to 18 list high core and memory counts at a 24-month effective rate.
05
You want per-second billing with a monthly cap
DigitalOcean: Droplets bill per second with a 60-second minimum, capped at each plan's monthly price.
04
When Hetzner Cloud is still the right choice
Hetzner Cloud publishes a plain price list in euros with three server families, shared or dedicated vCPUs and a full API, CLI, Terraform and Ansible toolchain. If you are comfortable administering Linux yourself, want Falkenstein, Nuremberg or Helsinki, and can add the IPv4 and backup lines to the sum, little here needs replacing.
05
What moving off Hetzner Cloud involves
01
Inventory the add-ons first
List each server's IPv4 address, backup slots, snapshots and attached volumes. Volumes sit outside Hetzner's backups and snapshots, so copy their data separately before you cut over.
02
Rebuild from code where you can
If you provision through Terraform or Ansible, check the target provider has an equivalent. Scaleway, DigitalOcean and others publish APIs, but their resource names differ, so plan the rewrite.
03
Lower DNS lifetimes, then cut over
Reduce record TTLs a day ahead, bring the new server up beside the old one, then switch addresses. A new address from another provider means updating allow-lists and mail records too.
06
Questions about replacing Hetzner Cloud
6 answers
Which alternatives are also based in Germany or the EU?
Contabo is German, Scaleway and OVHcloud French, Hostinger Lithuanian and Cloudways Maltese. IONOS lists German hosting but names different entities by site.
Who manages the server for me?
ScalaHosting, Cloudways, Hostwinds and Liquid Web include or sell management. Hetzner's page that we read describes self-service servers.
Do any of these offer a free trial?
Kamatera gives 30 days on one server, IONOS a 30-day free trial, Cloudways three days, and Hostinger a 30-day money-back guarantee. OVHcloud's VPS page states none.
Where can I get hourly billing?
Kamatera bills by the minute, DigitalOcean per second, and Cloudways hourly with monthly invoices. Liquid Web lists hourly prices as well.
Are renewal prices higher than shown?
At Hostinger, ScalaHosting and IONOS they are, or the introductory rate ends after three months. Read the renewal line, not the first figure.
Do backups cost extra elsewhere?
Yes on most. DigitalOcean adds 20 or 30 percent, Hostwinds 1 dollar plus 0.03 per GB, while OVHcloud and ScalaHosting include a daily copy.
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Sources
Checked 7 November 2026
Hetzner Cloud: Server families and starting prices, unavailable Cost-Optimized, locations, one-click apps.
Founder of The Knowledge Engineers and of 2 Steps Ahead, an AI search visibility agency. Editorially responsible for every page on this site; research and drafting are AI-assisted.
Written, edited and fact-checked by Sebastiaan Smits. Last reviewed 7 November 2026. How we review.
