Hetzner vs DigitalOcean (2026): Prices, Egress Math and Alternatives

Check first: can you order a Hetzner server right now?

On October 15, 2026, Hetzner's public Cloud product pages showed a disabled Create button, "This product is currently unavailable", on every plan we opened in the CX, CPX and CCX lines. Hetzner's status page has carried an open notice since June 26, 2026, "Limited availability of cloud instances", which says Hetzner is restricting the creation of new cloud servers for new customers and for some existing customers, chosen at random. We did not try to place an order, so we can't say which sizes or locations your own account can create. Check the Hetzner Console before you plan around any Hetzner price on this page, and keep a second provider on your shortlist.

How this was checked

The figures come from Hetzner's price-adjustment page, its traffic documentation and the price data its cloud pages load, and from DigitalOcean's Droplet pricing page and its bandwidth and tax documentation. All were read on October 15, 2026 through a US-egress fetch. The egress numbers below are our arithmetic on those published rates. No server was benchmarked for this page, so nothing here says which one is faster. The publisher runs a production app on a Hetzner Cloud server in Helsinki; its measured numbers are on the real hosting performance numbers page and cover one site. Back to the VPS hosting overview for other providers.

Hetzner and DigitalOcean side by side

Sources, read October 15, 2026: Hetzner price adjustment, Hetzner traffic docs, Hetzner billing FAQ, Hetzner locations, DigitalOcean Droplet pricing (Basic, Regular CPU tab), DigitalOcean bandwidth billing, DigitalOcean regional availability. The per-TB figure for DigitalOcean is $0.01 times 931.32 GiB, our arithmetic. Hetzner's extra-traffic rates are in the price data its product pages load (product CLOUD_66), because the pages themselves show the figure only in the browser. Hetzner's Singapore page quotes $8.49 per TB for the same item. Hetzner's CPX traffic range is from its traffic docs; the exact allowance of each US plan isn't stated in the text we read.

Worked egress calculation: one 4 GB server, four traffic levels

Outbound traffic is the line that separates these two. Both providers let incoming traffic in for free and bill what leaves the server. Take one 4 GB server and ask what it costs a month at different outbound volumes. All figures are in USD, excluding VAT and sales tax.

The 8 TB case, step by step. Eight terabytes (10^12 bytes each) is about 7,451 GiB. DigitalOcean's 4 GiB Droplet includes 4,000 GiB, so 3,451 GiB is overage. At $0.01 per GiB that adds $34.51 to the $24 plan, for $58.51. Hetzner's CX23 includes 20 TB, so 8 TB adds nothing. The bill is the $6.49 plan plus $0.60 for IPv4, or $7.09.

Germany or Finland

Hetzner: $6.49 plan + $0.60 IPv4, 20 TB included, then $1.20 per TB on a USD account (in euros: €5.49 + €0.50, then €1.00 per TB). DigitalOcean: $24 plan, 4,000 GiB included, then $0.01 per GiB. Hetzner doesn't say in the pages read whether its TB is decimal or binary; at these volumes the choice moves a bill by cents or a few dollars. Figures count only traffic that leaves the server. Anything a CDN serves from its cache never reaches that count.

Ashburn or Hillsboro (US)

The US is where the June repricing matters. Hetzner's 4 GB plan there is the CPX21 at $37.49, with an allowance Hetzner documents as 1 to 5 TB depending on plan. Without the exact figure for the CPX21, the table shows both ends of the range.

Hetzner: $37.49 plan + $0.60 IPv4, then $1.20 per TB over the allowance. DigitalOcean as above. Checked October 15, 2026.

DigitalOcean is cheaper below about 6 TB a month: the lines cross near 5.9 TB if the CPX21 includes 5 TB and near 6.5 TB if it includes 1 TB. Above that, DigitalOcean's $9.31 per extra TB against Hetzner's $1.20 per TB takes over quickly, and at 25 TB the gap is about $150 a month. Before the repricing the CPX21 cost $13.99 on a USD account, which would have beaten DigitalOcean at every volume in this table.

Singapore follows the same shape with a steeper Hetzner rate. The 4 GB CPX22 there is $30.99 plus $0.60 for IPv4, with a 0.5 to 5 TB allowance and $8.30 per extra TB in Hetzner's price data, against DigitalOcean's $24 and $9.31. If the plan includes 5 TB, Hetzner pulls ahead near 6 TB a month; with a smaller allowance the crossover is far higher.

What the June 15, 2026 repricing changed in this comparison

Hetzner's price adjustment took effect for new orders and rescales on June 15, 2026. The shared CX plans rose roughly a third, so the European case above survives. Dedicated and AMD plans moved far more, and that changes the comparison for anyone who needs guaranteed CPU:

Hetzner prices excl. VAT and IPv4 from the price-adjustment page; DigitalOcean from its pricing page, both read October 15, 2026. DigitalOcean's General Purpose plan has 25 GiB of disk against 80 GB on the CCX13, and the shares are our arithmetic. The full before-and-after list is on the VPS overview.

Who should pick which

Two numbers settle most cases: where your visitors are and how many terabytes leave the server each month. If you don't know the second one, check the provider dashboard of your current host, or assume 1 TB for every 500,000 page views at about 2 MB each. That ratio is Hetzner's own illustration on its Singapore page, not a measurement of your site.

One caveat about the European rows: a server in Germany or Finland adds round-trip latency for visitors in other continents. The traffic math says Hetzner, and the geography may still say otherwise. This page measured no latency, so test from where your visitors are if it matters to the product.

If you're leaving DigitalOcean: alternatives by reason

Vultr from its public plans API, Contabo from contabo.com/en/vps (read from outside the US), Hostinger from hostinger.com/vps-hosting and Cloudways from cloudways.com/en/pricing.php, all read October 15, 2026. Hostinger and Cloudways are affiliate partners (disclosure); Hetzner, DigitalOcean, Contabo and Vultr pay us nothing. More options are in the VPS overview.

Skip this comparison if

• You run one WordPress site and don't want to administer a server. Managed hosting is the better fit; see best WordPress hosting or Cloudways alternatives.
• Your workload is bound to a hyperscaler or a compliance regime. See Hetzner vs Azure instead.
• You need Windows or RDP. See Windows VPS.

Hetzner vs DigitalOcean FAQ

Is Hetzner cheaper than DigitalOcean?

In Germany and Finland, yes by a wide margin: a 4 GB Hetzner CX23 is €5.49 ($6.49) a month against $24 for DigitalOcean's 4 GiB Droplet. In Ashburn or Hillsboro, Hetzner's 4 GB CPX21 is $37.49, which is more than DigitalOcean until outbound traffic reaches about 6 TB a month. Prices checked October 15, 2026.

How much does extra bandwidth cost on Hetzner and DigitalOcean?

Hetzner's price data lists €1.00 ($1.20) per extra TB for every location except Singapore, where it is €7.40 ($8.30) per TB, and only outgoing traffic counts. DigitalOcean charges $0.01 per GiB over the allowance, about $9.31 per TB, in every region, and the allowance is pooled across all Droplets on a team.

Does Hetzner have managed databases like DigitalOcean?

Not on the cloud pages checked October 15, 2026. Hetzner's cloud page lists servers, networks, firewalls, load balancers and one-click apps. DigitalOcean's regional availability page lists managed PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, OpenSearch, Kafka and Valkey, and the site also sells Kubernetes and App Platform.

Does Hetzner have locations outside Europe?

Yes. Besides Falkenstein, Nuremberg and Helsinki, Hetzner Cloud has Ashburn and Hillsboro in the US and Singapore. Included traffic drops sharply outside Europe: 1 to 5 TB for CPX plans in the US and 0.5 to 5 TB in Singapore, against 20 TB in Europe.

Do Hetzner and DigitalOcean charge for IPv4 addresses?

Hetzner bills a Primary IPv4 separately at €0.50 ($0.60) a month, excluding VAT, and says IPv6 is free. DigitalOcean's Droplet pricing page shows no separate IPv4 line, so the figure used here for DigitalOcean is the plan price alone.

Bottom line

Choose Hetzner when your visitors are in Europe or your traffic is large, because the included allowance and the $1.20 overage rate dominate the bill. Choose DigitalOcean when your visitors are in the US or Asia-Pacific and traffic is modest, or when you want managed databases and a platform layer. Open Hetzner Cloud or DigitalOcean's Droplet pricing directly; both links are plain links that pay us nothing.