Hetzner The European alternative to AWS / Google Cloud

Hetzner Online GmbH is a German hosting provider headquartered in Gunzenhausen (Bavaria), founded in 1997. The company operates data centers in Germany (Falkenstein, Nuremberg) and Finland (Helsinki), as well as locations in the USA and Singapore. Offerings include cloud servers, dedicated servers (EX, AX, RX, SX, GPU lines), object storage (S3-compatible), Storage Box, Storage Share (Nextcloud-based), and domains. Hetzner is known for its transparent flat-rate pricing without egress fees.

Hetzner operates its own data centers in Falkenstein and Nuremberg (Germany) as well as Helsinki (Finland). The German data centers are operated with 100 percent renewable energy. Hetzner is BSI C5 Type 2 certified and GDPR-compliant. The EU data centers are fully subject to GDPR and not bound by the US CLOUD Act. Hetzner owns and operates all hardware itself and is not a reseller of AWS or Google Cloud. Additional locations in the USA (Ashburn, Hillsboro) and Singapore are optionally available.

Hetzner offers transparent flat-rate prices without hidden costs or egress fees, while AWS charges usage-based with data egress pricing. The hardware (AMD Ryzen, EPYC, Intel Xeon) is high-quality, with prices for comparable performance often significantly cheaper than AWS. However, AWS has a much broader service portfolio (managed services, AI, databases, over 200 services). Hetzner specializes in infrastructure as a service and targets developers who manage their own infrastructure.