Hetzner Alternative 2026: Pricing, Performance & Features

Hetzner built its reputation on being the cheapest credible cloud in Europe, and for years it was. That has changed. After the current pricing round, Raff Technologies is cheaper than Hetzner Cloud at every matched shared-vCPU shape — including five where the cores, memory and disk are identical. Hetzner Regular Performance CPX22 is €19.99/month for 2 vCPU, 4 GB and 80 GB; the identical Raff plan is $17.99.

Hetzner VPS and Raff at a glance

Hetzner Cloud sells three tiers, and the names are misleading if you read them quickly:

• Cost-Optimized (CX) — shared, and currently marked "Currently not available" on Hetzner's own site
• Regular Performance (CPX) — shared vCPU on AMD, from €11.99/month
• General Purpose (CCX) — dedicated vCPU, from €43.49/month

That third name is the trap. Hetzner's "General Purpose" is its dedicated line, while Raff's General Purpose is shared. Matching the two by name would compare Raff's shared vCPU against Hetzner's dedicated vCPU and get the answer badly wrong. The like-for-like pairing is Raff General Purpose against Hetzner Regular Performance, and Raff CPU-Optimized against Hetzner General Purpose.

Hetzner runs from eu-central (Falkenstein, Nuremberg, Helsinki), us-east (Ashburn), us-west (Hillsboro) and ap-southeast (Singapore). Prices are quoted excluding VAT, so a US buyer pays the listed figure. Hetzner Cloud Backups cost 20% of the server's monthly price and provide seven backup slots.

Raff Technologies runs 15,000+ VMs for 3,000+ customers from us-east, with a 99.90% monthly uptime SLA backed by service credits, rated 4.5/5 on Trustpilot and 4.6/5 on G2. VMs run AMD EPYC with DDR5 ECC memory and NVMe storage in two lines: General Purpose with shared vCPU from $4.99/month, and CPU-Optimized with dedicated vCPU from $15.99/month, scaling to 16 vCPU and 32 GB. Every plan includes a 3 Gbps port with unmetered transfer, automated Daily or Weekly backup schedules, uncapped snapshots, firewall controls, private networking and full root access.

Raff's catalog covers managed PostgreSQL, MySQL, Valkey, ClickHouse and Kafka from $7.99/month, S3-compatible object storage at $7/month for 100 GB with 1 TB of egress, managed Kubernetes with a free control plane and workers from $9.99/month, Functions with a free monthly tier, block volumes at $0.08/GiB-month, and Raff Apps from $3/month.

Hetzner VPS pricing vs Raff pricing

Raff General Purpose against Hetzner Regular Performance — both shared vCPU on AMD.

Hetzner prices read 2026-08-20 from the Regular Performance page, excluding VAT, converted at €1 = $1.1593 (ECB, 2026-08-17). Hetzner lists us-east (Ashburn) and us-west (Hillsboro) among available locations; confirm regional pricing at checkout.

Five of those rows are identical on cores, memory and disk — 80 GB, 160 GB, 320 GB, 480 GB and 640 GB. Raff is 6% to 22% cheaper across them, and at the entry shape gives 50 GB against 40 GB for about a third less.

This is the finding that matters on this page. Hetzner's reputation is built on being the cheapest option that still works properly, and against Raff that is no longer the case at any shape in the shared line.

If you are on the old CPX line, change plans before changing providers

Hetzner still lists a previous CPX generation, and it is now priced well above the current one for the same or worse hardware:

CPX51 costs €238.49 for 16 vCPU, 32 GB and 360 GB. CPX62 gives the same cores and memory with 640 GB for €130.49 — 45% less money for 78% more disk. If you are running on the older line, the first thing to do is not switch providers, it is switch plans. That advice costs Raff a sale and is still the right advice.

Dedicated vCPU

Hetzner's dedicated line, confusingly named General Purpose, starts at €43.49/month (about $50.42). Raff CPU-Optimized starts at $15.99/month for 1 vCPU, 1 GB and 25 GB, and runs $36.99 at 2 vCPU / 4 GB / 80 GB.

The full Hetzner CCX ladder is not reproduced here because the per-plan figures were not verified in this session — compare the specific shape you need directly rather than relying on entry prices.

Automated backups

Hetzner Cloud Backups cost 20% of the server's monthly price and provide seven backup slots. On a CPX42 at €69.99, that is roughly €14/month for backups alone.

Raff includes a free backup and snapshot storage pool — 50 GB per account plus 10–15% of each VM's disk — with Daily and Weekly schedules you configure, retention from 1 to 365 days, and uncapped snapshots. Storage above the pool is $0.06/GB-month.

Hetzner VPS performance vs Raff

Methodology

The available head-to-head data is from May 2026 — older than 90 days and no longer a current performance claim. It compared a Raff 2 vCPU / 4 GB benchmark VM against a Hetzner CPX test VM. The iperf3 rows measured different endpoints (NYC against Amsterdam) and are not comparable at all.

Historical results — May 2026

What the results tell us

In that window Raff led CPU by roughly 1.23x single-core and 1.75x multi-core, and 4K random read by 1.22x. Hetzner led both sequential disk measurements, by 11% at 64K and 11% at 1M.

Two reasons to treat this as context rather than a claim: the data is past the 90-day freshness window, and Hetzner has since revised its plan lineup, so the tested configuration may no longer exist under the same name. If performance is your deciding factor, benchmark the specific CPX*2 plan you are considering against the matching Raff plan.

Hetzner vs Raff: features and reliability

Compute

Hetzner Regular Performance runs from 1 to 16 shared vCPU and 2 to 32 GB on AMD, with the dedicated General Purpose line above it. Raff covers the same shared range and stops at 16 vCPU and 32 GB, with CPU-Optimized alongside. Raff resizes on demand: stop the VM, switch plan, restart, with the difference settled to the account balance and a resize API endpoint for CPU, RAM and disk.

Networking

Raff includes a 3 Gbps port with unmetered transfer, private networking, VPC, firewall controls and site-to-site VPN gateways. Hetzner includes private networks, stateful firewalls at no extra cost, load balancers and a generous traffic allowance per server, with charges beyond it — confirm the current allowance and overage rate for your region, as these have changed alongside the plan revision.

Storage

Hetzner attaches local NVMe to the host and sells Volumes separately. Raff separates storage into VM disk, block volumes at $0.08/GiB-month that resize independently, and S3-compatible object storage at $7/month for 100 GB with 1 TB of egress. On the matched shapes above, Raff includes the same disk as Hetzner at every tier except the entry plan, where it includes more.

Support

Raff provides 24/7 human support through live chat, with a first response typically under 10 minutes. No bots triaging you first, and no support tier to buy: a single $4.99 VM reaches the same engineers as a hundred production machines. Hetzner's support runs on tickets and is well regarded for competence rather than speed.

Platform

Hetzner sells infrastructure: servers, storage boxes, load balancers, networks, and dedicated hardware — with a strong reputation for reliability and an active community. It does not sell managed databases, serverless functions or a PaaS layer.

Raff adds those on the same account: managed PostgreSQL, MySQL, Valkey, ClickHouse and Kafka from $7.99/month, object storage at $7/month, Functions with a free tier of 100,000 GB-seconds and 10,000 vCPU-seconds and runs up to 24 hours, Raff Apps from $3/month, and managed Kubernetes with a free control plane — connected over private networking, on one API and one bill.

The honest counter-argument is that a 32 GB Hetzner box will run Postgres, Redis and your application together perfectly well. It will. What you are then operating is backups, restore testing, failover, point-in-time recovery and version upgrades — and Hetzner's backup add-on costs 20% of the server price on top.

When you should choose Hetzner over Raff

• Users in Europe or Asia — Falkenstein, Nuremberg, Helsinki and Singapore against Raff's single us-east region
• Sequential-disk-heavy workloads — Hetzner measured 11% higher on both 64K mixed and 1M sequential aggregate in May 2026 testing
• Dedicated hardware and storage boxes — Hetzner's dedicated server range and Storage Box products have no Raff equivalent
• Established community and tooling — a large, active user base with extensive third-party guides and automation recipes
• Hourly billing with a monthly cap — pay only for hours used if a server is deleted mid-month

When you should choose Raff over Hetzner

• Lower cost on identical hardware — 6% to 22% cheaper at five shapes with identical cores and memory (VPS for application hosting)
• Backups without a 20% surcharge — Daily and Weekly schedules on a free storage pool against 20% of the server's monthly price
• Users in North America — us-east against a European-first footprint, with unmetered transfer on a 3 Gbps port
• Database-backed products — managed PostgreSQL, MySQL, Valkey, ClickHouse and Kafka from $7.99/month, which Hetzner does not offer (VPS for databases)
• Long-running serverless jobs — Raff Functions run up to 24 hours; Hetzner has no serverless product
• 24/7 human support — live chat to the same engineers at any account size, first response typically under 10 minutes

Migrating from Hetzner to Raff

1. Check which CPX generation you are on first — if you are on CPX21, CPX31, CPX41 or CPX51, moving to the current CPX*2 line may save more than switching providers. Do that comparison before this one.
2. Match the tier, not the name — Hetzner "General Purpose" is dedicated vCPU and maps to Raff CPU-Optimized. Hetzner "Regular Performance" is shared and maps to Raff General Purpose.
3. Check your region requirement — Raff serves us-east only. If your users are in Europe, this migration adds latency that the price saving will not offset.
4. Account for the backup line — Hetzner backups cost 20% of the server price; on Raff that line goes away, which widens the real saving beyond the plan-price difference.
5. Move data in order — files with rsync or SCP, then database dumps into managed Postgres or MySQL, then assets to object storage. Keep the Hetzner server running throughout.
6. Cut over and delete, don't power off — lower DNS TTL beforehand, switch, then delete the server. Hetzner bills until a server is deleted, not until it is stopped.

About Hetzner

Hetzner Online GmbH is a German hosting provider founded in 1997 and headquartered in Gunzenhausen, offering cloud servers, dedicated servers, storage boxes, load balancers and colocation from data centers in Germany, Finland, the United States and Singapore. It is known for low prices and a strong engineering reputation in the European developer community. See Hetzner Cloud for current plans and terms.

Conclusion: Hetzner or Raff?

The comparison resolves across four axes:

• Price — Raff wins, 6% to 22% cheaper at five shapes with identical cores and memory, plus no 20% backup surcharge
• Reach — Hetzner wins, with European and Asian regions against Raff's single us-east
• Sequential disk — Hetzner led by about 11% in May 2026 testing, though that data is now stale
• Managed services — Raff wins, with managed databases, Functions and Kubernetes that Hetzner does not sell

If your users are in Europe, you want dedicated hardware or storage boxes, or your workload is dominated by large sequential disk operations, choose Hetzner. If your users are in North America and you want the same hardware for less with managed databases beside it, choose Raff.

And if you are on an older CPX plan, check the current line first — that saving is available without moving anywhere.

Raff runs 15,000+ VMs for 3,000+ customers and is rated 4.5/5 on Trustpilot, with a 99.90% monthly uptime SLA in writing.