Exoscale vs Hetzner Cloud
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Exoscale and Hetzner Cloud.
Quick Verdict
3.8/5
Exoscale
0 reviews
4.4/5
Hetzner Cloud
0 reviews
Hetzner Cloud is rated higher (4.4 vs 3.8). European cloud provider (Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Croatia) offering virtual servers, managed databases, Kubernetes and object storage, with servers from about EUR 9/month. German cloud provider offering the best price-to-performance ratio in the market. CX22 (2 vCPU, 4GB RAM, 40GB NVMe) costs €4.35/month. Loved by European developers for fast NVMe, generous bandwidth, a
Exoscale Swiss cloud built for compliance-heavy workloads | Hetzner Cloud Affordable VPS hosting with fast deployment and transparent pricing | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 3.8 (0 reviews) | 4.4 (0 reviews)✓ |
| Pricing model | paid | paid |
| Starting price | From $5.32/mo✓ | From $5.99/mo |
| Best for | European enterprises, fintech, health and public-sector teams needing Swiss/EU data residency, managed Kubernetes and databases, and auditable compliance certifications | Developers and small teams who want unmanaged Linux infrastructure at the lowest cost per unit of compute, especially for European workloads with data-residency requirements, dev/test environments, CI runners, and price-sensitive production web apps. |
| Specifications (entry plan) | ||
| CPU cores | 1 vCPU | 2 vCPU✓ |
| RAM | 1 GB | 4 GB✓ |
| Storage | 10 GB | 40 GB✓ |
| Bandwidth | — | 20 TB/mo |
| SLA uptime | 99.95%✓ | 99.9% |
| Data-center count | 8✓ | 6 |
| €/vCPU/mo | €5.32 | €3.00✓ |
| €/GB RAM/mo | €5.32 | €1.50✓ |
| Performance | ||
| CPU score (sysbench) | — | 4,820 |
| Disk read (fio) | — | 2,100 MB/s |
| Disk IOPS (4K random) | — | 42,000 |
| Network out | — | 1 Gbps |
| Latency (TTFB) | — | 18 ms |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ||
| DDoS protection | ✓ | |
| Automated backups | ||
| Snapshots | ||
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ||
| Free tier | ||
| Data-center locations | ||
| Regions | Zurich, Geneva, Frankfurt, Munich, Vienna (x2), Sofia, Zagreb (8 live zones; Madrid upcoming) | GermanyFinlandUnited StatesSingapore |
| Tags | ||
| Tags | hourly billingnvme storageipv6ddos protectionbackups includedmanaged options3 compatibleeu datacentergdpr compliantapi accesskubernetes support | hourly billingnvme storageipv6ddos protectionbackups includedsnapshotseu datacenterus datacentergdpr compliantterraform providerapi access |
| Visit Exoscale → | Visit Hetzner Cloud → | |
Exoscale
Pros
- + Swiss/EU data sovereignty: GDPR, Swiss FDPA, ISO 27001/27018, SOC 2, BSI C5 — data outside US Cloud Act reach
- + Per-second billing with flat rates across all eight zones and no long-term commitment
- + Managed Kubernetes (SKS) with a genuinely free Starter tier and a 99.95% SLA Pro tier
- + S3-compatible object storage, block storage, GPU servers and a broad managed database catalog
- + Excellent public documentation, Terraform/API/CLI support, and a changelog showing steady platform shipping
Cons
- - Per-hour rates run well above European budget hosts for equivalent specs; local storage billed on top of instance price
- - Snapshots, backups and outbound traffic are metered separately — the instance line is not the full bill
- - Mid-size ecosystem: thinner third-party tooling, tutorials and hiring pool than the hyperscalers
- - GPU availability and some features are zone-dependent; storage-optimized instances cannot take snapshots
- - No bare metal; support tiers must be budgeted separately for round-the-clock coverage
Hetzner Cloud
Pros
- + Best CPU-per-euro in our 2026-04-01 benchmark run: the CX22 outperformed plans costing up to six times as much
- + Strong NVMe throughput: 2,100-2,400 MB/s sequential reads and 42,000-48,000 random 4K IOPS in our tests
- + Transparent hourly billing with a monthly price cap and no setup fees or contracts
- + Six cloud locations with owned, ISO 27001-certified EU data centers and GDPR-compliant processing
- + At least 20 TB included transfer at EU locations, plus free DDoS mitigation for all customers
- + Mature automation: REST API, Terraform provider, official Go/Python libraries, cloud firewalls and private networks
Cons
- - Backups and snapshots are paid add-ons rather than plan inclusions, which erodes the headline price advantage
- - Email-only support with no phone option and no managed tier for cloud customers
- - Entry plans use shared vCPUs and Hetzner offers no bandwidth guarantee (typical 300-500 Mbit/s stated by Hetzner)
- - No supported Windows installs and a smaller managed-ecosystem than larger providers
- - Default resource limits on new accounts require a support ticket to raise; cost-optimized stock is periodically unavailable
- - Object storage only available in the three European locations
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