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Hetzner vs DigitalOcean

Side-by-side comparison generated from our verified pricing database. Every number links back to an official pricing page and shows when it was last checked.

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QUICK VERDICT — WHICH ONE FOR YOUR USE CASE
Verified July 20, 2026

Entry pricing: Hetzner from $7.09/mo (CX23) vs DigitalOcean from $4.00/mo (Basic Droplet 512 MiB).

Tightest budget
DigitalOceanDigitalOcean's cheapest paid plan (Basic Droplet 512 MiB) is $4.00/mo vs $7.09/mo for CX23.
Bandwidth-heavy workloads
HetznerHetzner includes up to 20 TB of traffic on the plans we track, vs up to 4 TB.
EU-based company & data residency
HetznerHetzner is headquartered in the EU (DE) with European data-center locations.
Serving users on multiple continents
DigitalOceanDigitalOcean lists more distinct data-center locations in our dataset (9 vs 6).

Entry plans at a glance

SPEC
Hetzner
DigitalOcean
Entry plan
CX23
Basic Droplet 512 MiB
Price / month
€5.99 / $7.09
$4.00
vCPU
2
1
RAM
4 GB
512 MB
Storage
40 GB SSD
10 GB SSD
Included traffic
20 TB
500 GB
Egress overage
€1.00/TB

Full pricing

Hetzner plans

Prices last verified: July 20, 2026
CX23€5.99 / $7.09
2 vCPU · 4 GB · 40 GB SSD · 20 TB
View deal →
CAX11€6.49 / $7.59
2 vCPU · 4 GB · 40 GB SSD · 20 TB
View deal →
CX33€8.99 / $10.59
4 vCPU · 8 GB · 80 GB SSD · 20 TB
View deal →
CX43€16.49 / $19.09
8 vCPU · 16 GB · 160 GB SSD · 20 TB
View deal →

DigitalOcean plans

Prices last verified: July 20, 2026
Basic Droplet 512 MiB$4.00
1 vCPU · 512 MB · 10 GB SSD · 500 GB
View deal →
Basic Droplet 1 GiB$6.00
1 vCPU · 1 GB · 25 GB SSD · 1 TB
View deal →
Basic Droplet 2 GiB$12.00
1 vCPU · 2 GB · 50 GB SSD · 2 TB
View deal →
Basic Droplet 4 GiB / 2 vCPU$24.00
2 vCPU · 4 GB · 80 GB SSD · 4 TB
View deal →

Pros & cons

Hetzner
Best price/performance ratio in Europe
20 TB included traffic on EU cloud servers
Egress overage at €1/TB is the cheapest in this dataset
Hourly billing with monthly cap
New accounts may face identity verification
US/SG locations cost more and include less traffic
Support is competent but no-frills

The default recommendation for EU-based workloads: nothing else touches its specs-per-euro, and the 20 TB traffic allowance makes egress a non-issue for most projects.

DigitalOcean
Predictable flat pricing with generous included transfer
Excellent documentation and community tutorials
Full platform: managed databases, Kubernetes, App Platform
Per-second billing
Entry Droplets use previous-gen shared CPUs
Pricier than EU budget providers for raw specs
Premium CPU/NVMe variants cost extra

The safe default for developers who want a mature ecosystem, clean UX and predictable bills more than the absolute lowest price per GB of RAM.

Frequently asked questions

Is Hetzner cheaper than DigitalOcean?

DigitalOcean has the cheaper entry plan: $4.00/month vs $7.09/month (CX23 vs Basic Droplet 512 MiB, verified against official pricing pages).

Which includes more bandwidth: Hetzner or DigitalOcean?

Hetzner includes up to 20 TB of traffic on the plans we track; DigitalOcean includes up to 4 TB of traffic on the plans we track.

Where do Hetzner and DigitalOcean have data centers?

Hetzner: Falkenstein, Nuremberg, Helsinki, Ashburn, Hillsboro, Singapore. DigitalOcean: New York, San Francisco, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, London, Toronto, Bangalore, Singapore, Sydney.

How fresh is the pricing data on this page?

Every price is checked against the provider's official pricing page on an automated weekly schedule, and each pricing table shows its "last verified" date. Plans we cannot verify are flagged instead of shown with a stale number.

Try HetznerTry DigitalOcean

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