Head-to-head
DigitalOcean vs Hetzner
The two favorite clouds of independent developers: the friendly American platform with the famous tutorials against the German price-performance champion.
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Full control
DigitalOceanDigitalOcean
DigitalOcean
The friendliest cloud for developers.
Our pick
Full control
HetznerHetzner Online GmbH
Hetzner
The best price-to-performance in cloud hosting.
DigitalOceanHetzner
Our score4.4 / 54.5 / 5
PriceFrom $4/moFrom $4.59/mo
Free planNoNo
Best forDevelopersPrice-to-performance
CategoryCloud & developersCloud & developers
ProviderDigitalOceanHetzner Online GmbH
Our verdict
Hetzner wins on raw value: per dollar you get two to three times the performance, with excellent hardware and a no-nonsense interface. DigitalOcean wins on ecosystem: the tutorials, the managed databases and app platform, and the larger choice of US regions. If you mainly need a fast, cheap server and know your way around Linux, take Hetzner. If you lean on documentation and managed add-ons, DigitalOcean earns its premium.
“Your own server is running within a minute and the documentation is among the best on the internet. With per-second billing, experimenting is cheaper than ever.”Editorial team, on DigitalOcean
“Two to three times cheaper per unit of performance than the big clouds, with solid German engineering. The sharpest deal going for anyone comfortable managing a server.”Editorial team, on Hetzner