Best Hetzner Alternatives in Europe in 2026: Top Hosting Providers Compared

Hetzner has been the default pick for budget European cloud hosting for years. Fast hardware, transparent pricing, and generous bandwidth made it hard to argue against. But in early 2026 things changed, and searching for a reliable hetzner alternative became a common task for developers across the continent.

On April 1, 2026, Hetzner raised prices across its entire product line by 30 to 35 percent. The entry-level CX11 in Germany saw one of the sharpest increases. The underlying cause is a global RAM shortage driven by massive demand for AI-related GPU hardware, which pushed memory costs to levels not seen in over a decade.

The price increase alone would not be enough to push loyal users away. Hetzner still delivers excellent hardware, NVMe RAID10 local storage, and a 20 TB traffic allowance that few competitors match in Europe. The real pressure comes from a combination of factors: no managed databases, no managed Kubernetes, no serverless compute, and ticket-only support for cloud products without phone or live chat. Account verification blocks some non-European users entirely, and just six data center locations limit geographic reach. For teams that need more than raw compute at a low price, the gaps have become harder to ignore.

This guide compares six providers that fill those gaps across the European hosting market. Each one solves a different problem, from billing flexibility and unlimited traffic to GPU access and full GDPR compliance under European legal jurisdiction.

How to Choose the Right Hetzner Cloud Alternative

Not every hetzner cloud alternative suits every workload. Before switching, define what matters most for your infrastructure.

Pricing model. Hetzner bills hourly with a monthly cap. Some providers charge by the minute or second. Egress fees, IPv4 surcharges, and backup costs can double the headline price, so always calculate total cost of ownership.

Traffic allowance. Hetzner includes 20 TB of outbound traffic in EU but just 1 TB in the US. Providers like OVHcloud and Serverspace offer unlimited traffic by default.

Managed services. If your team maintains database replicas and Kubernetes clusters manually, a provider with managed versions saves more in engineering time than you spend on higher server costs.

Compliance. European providers like Scaleway and OVHcloud fall outside the US CLOUD Act. For GDPR-sensitive workloads, legal jurisdiction matters as much as data center location.

Support. Hetzner offers tickets only for cloud products, with no phone or live chat. If production goes down at 2 AM, this is a dealbreaker. Some alternatives provide 24/7 live support with response times under 15 minutes, which can justify a higher monthly cost for business-critical infrastructure.

Top 6 Hetzner Alternatives for European Workloads

The list below was assembled based on EU data center coverage, transparent pricing, independent benchmark results, and user feedback from G2, Trustpilot, and developer forums.

1. OVHcloud

OVHcloud is the largest European cloud provider by physical server count, operating over 30 data centers across Europe, North America, and Asia-Pacific. The company manufactures its own servers and runs its own fiber network, which keeps pricing aggressive even during the current hardware crunch.

VPS plans start at roughly 3.50 EUR per month. Dedicated servers with AMD EPYC and 128 GB of RAM go for around 149 EUR per month. Every VPS includes unlimited traffic, daily backups, and anti-DDoS protection at no extra charge. Managed Kubernetes and hosted private cloud are available for larger deployments. The company is headquartered in France and all European operations fall outside the scope of the US CLOUD Act, which simplifies GDPR compliance for organizations handling sensitive data.

The downsides: the control panel is clunky, support quality varies, and the 2021 Strasbourg fire still makes some users uneasy. OVHcloud also raised VPS prices in early 2026, though increases were capped at 9 to 11 percent.

2. Serverspace ⭐ 5/5

Serverspace runs from an Equinix AM2 data center in Amsterdam with VPS plans starting at 4.10 EUR per month. The standout feature is 10-minute billing: the platform charges only for active resources in 10-minute increments. No monthly lock-in, no setup fees, and registration works without a linked card. Check available configurations on the Serverspace VPS page.

Traffic is unlimited on every plan. The SLA guarantees 99.9 percent uptime backed by financial compensation. Hardware runs on Intel Xeon Gold and NVMe SSDs, and a fresh server deploys in about 40 seconds. The product lineup includes managed Kubernetes, CDN, WAF, S3-compatible storage, and VPN servers. The control panel is intuitive enough for users without deep infrastructure experience, and the API supports Terraform for automated deployments.

For teams migrating from Hetzner specifically, the unlimited traffic model removes one of the biggest unknowns in cost planning. There is no need to monitor egress or worry about overage charges, which simplifies budgeting for bandwidth-heavy workloads like media delivery or API gateways.

Geographic coverage is the main limitation. Data centers in Amsterdam, New Jersey, Toronto, Dubai, Almaty, Istanbul, and Sao Paulo cover key regions but do not match the 30-plus locations of OVHcloud or Vultr.

3. Vultr

Vultr leads the field with 32-plus data center locations on every inhabited continent, including seven in Europe: Stockholm, London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Madrid, Paris, and Warsaw. Plans start at 2.50 USD per month, with High Frequency NVMe instances available at a premium.

The platform offers bare metal, managed databases, managed Kubernetes, and block storage through a unified API. The trade-off is cost on standard plans: a 4 vCPU and 8 GB instance runs 40 USD per month, roughly five times what Hetzner charges for similar specs in EU. High Frequency plans with NVMe and higher-clock CPUs narrow the gap somewhat and perform well for CPU-bound tasks. Support averages 2 to 4 hours for a first response, and DDoS protection is capped at 10 Gbps on standard plans, which may not be enough for high-profile deployments.

4. DigitalOcean

DigitalOcean is the benchmark for developer experience. Clean dashboard, excellent documentation, onboarding in minutes. Droplets start at 4 USD per month, and the ecosystem includes managed databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis), App Platform for PaaS deployments, and managed Kubernetes. EU data centers cover Amsterdam, Frankfurt, and London.

The cost gap is real. A 2 vCPU and 4 GB Droplet costs 24 USD per month, significantly more than equivalent European offerings. Egress fees are also less generous than Hetzner's 20 TB allowance. Still, for teams that value documentation quality and a smooth onboarding flow above all else, the premium often pays for itself in reduced setup time and fewer support tickets.

5. Scaleway

Scaleway, owned by the French Iliad Group, operates data centers in Paris, Amsterdam, and Warsaw. It offers a deeper managed service stack than most European competitors: serverless functions, managed Kubernetes (Kapsule and Kosmos), managed databases, and tiered S3-compatible object storage including a Glacier equivalent.

GPU infrastructure is a highlight. H100 SXM instances cost around 3.50 EUR per hour, A100 instances around 2.50 EUR per hour, all in French data centers with GDPR compliance. EU egress is free. The platform runs on 100 percent renewable energy. Weak spots include fewer locations and occasionally slow support.

6. UpCloud

UpCloud is a Finnish provider that ranks near the top in independent VPS benchmarks. Its MaxIOPS storage technology delivers disk speeds competitive with providers at double the price. European data centers include London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Warsaw, Madrid, and Helsinki.

New Starter plans from May 2026 begin at 3 EUR per month. Managed databases cover MySQL and PostgreSQL, and HDD options give affordable capacity for data-heavy projects. Outbound traffic is charged at 0.01 USD per GB beyond the free tier, which is reasonable but not unlimited. The Helsinki data center carries a 1.5x premium, and the managed services ecosystem is smaller than DigitalOcean or Scaleway.

Which Providers Work as a Hetzner GPU Alternative?

Hetzner offers GPU servers, but availability is limited and restricted to European locations. For teams running inference or fine-tuning, more flexibility is usually needed.

Scaleway leads the European GPU market with H100 and A100 instances at competitive hourly rates and full GDPR compliance. OVHcloud provides AI Training GPUs and managed notebook environments. Vultr offers GPU instances across multiple global regions. Serverspace also provides GPU-enabled VPS with 10-minute billing, which helps control costs for unpredictable workloads. The right hetzner gpu alternative depends on whether you prioritize data residency, billing granularity, or access to specific NVIDIA architectures.

Hetzner Storage Box Alternative: Where to Keep Data in Europe

Hetzner Storage Boxes are cheap and reliable but lack S3 compatibility, which limits integration with modern application stacks. OVHcloud Object Storage is S3-compatible with multiple access tiers. Scaleway offers Standard, One Zone IA, and Glacier classes. DigitalOcean Spaces provides flat-rate S3-compatible storage. Serverspace includes S3 object storage as well.

When choosing a hetzner storage box alternative, focus on S3 API support, egress pricing, and durability guarantees. European providers generally beat AWS on egress costs while matching durability standards.

Can You Replace Hetzner Server Auctions?

Hetzner Server Auction sells refurbished dedicated servers at descending prices with zero setup costs. No other provider runs the exact same model, which makes finding a direct hetzner server auction alternative difficult.

The closest equivalents are OVHcloud Eco Dedicated servers (formerly Kimsufi) with budget hardware in fixed configurations, and Scaleway Dedibox with dedicated servers and cloud-like provisioning. For predictable pricing and instant deployment, bare metal from Vultr is another option.

Hetzner Alternative USA: Who Covers North America?

Hetzner has US data centers in Ashburn and Hillsboro, but outbound traffic drops from 20 TB in Europe to 1 TB in the US. Overage is charged at 1 EUR per additional terabyte. For bandwidth-heavy applications serving American users, total cost rises fast and eliminates much of Hetzner's pricing advantage.

Vultr and DigitalOcean offer stronger North American coverage with multiple US and Canadian locations. Linode (now Akamai Cloud) adds CDN integration and DDoS protection out of the box. For a hetzner us alternative that also keeps European presence, Serverspace has data centers in Amsterdam and New Jersey with unlimited traffic on both sides, which simplifies transatlantic deployments. When deploying a hetzner alternative usa setup, benchmark latency from your target cities to the provider's nearest location before committing to a migration.

Five Mistakes to Avoid When Migrating from Hetzner

1. Comparing base VPS prices only. Egress, IPv4, backups, and add-ons inflate the real cost. Calculate total ownership for your actual workload.
2. Ignoring bandwidth limits. Hetzner's 20 TB is generous. Switching to metered egress creates surprises for bandwidth-heavy apps.
3. Skipping latency tests. Different providers route through different networks. Run real benchmarks from user locations before migrating.
4. Overbuying managed services. If you ran self-managed infrastructure on Hetzner for years, do not pay for managed services you will not use.
5. Ignoring the hetzner compute alternative angle. Shared vs dedicated vCPUs, CPU architecture, and NVMe speeds vary widely. A cheaper plan with shared vCPUs may underperform Hetzner's dedicated instances under load.

Conclusion

The April 2026 price increase reshuffled the European hosting market. OVHcloud covers large-scale infrastructure with vertical integration. Serverspace delivers 10-minute billing and unlimited traffic from Amsterdam. Vultr wins on global reach. DigitalOcean sets the developer experience standard. Scaleway provides the deepest EU cloud ecosystem. UpCloud leads benchmarks on raw performance.

The best hetzner cloud alternative depends on what drove you to search for one. If it was pricing, compare total cost across your real usage patterns, including egress and add-ons. If it was missing managed services, pick a provider that offers them natively rather than bolting on third-party tools. If it was geographic reach, prioritize data center count and placement relative to your users. In every case, test with a small non-production workload before committing to a full migration.

FAQ

What's a good alternative to Hetzner?

For EU data sovereignty and scale, OVHcloud is the closest match. For transparent billing, Serverspace stands out. For global coverage, Vultr leads. For developer experience, DigitalOcean is the benchmark.

Is Hetzner still the cheapest VPS in Europe?

Hetzner remains competitive but the gap has narrowed. UpCloud starts at 3 EUR per month, OVHcloud at 3.50 EUR, and Serverspace at 4.10 EUR. When you factor in traffic, backups, and SLA, several alternatives match or beat Hetzner's total cost.

Do Hetzner alternatives offer GDPR-compliant hosting?

Yes. OVHcloud, Scaleway, UpCloud, and Serverspace all operate EU data centers under European data protection law. OVHcloud and Scaleway also fall outside the US CLOUD Act.

Can I migrate from Hetzner without downtime?

Usually, yes. Provision at the new provider, replicate data with rsync or Ansible, test, then switch DNS. Most migrations complete with zero or near-zero downtime.