DigitalOcean has been my go-to for purchasing VPS for the past few years. However, recently, some cheaper cloud providers, particularly Hetzner, have been getting a lot of attention!
In their cheapest plan, you can get 2 cores, 4 GB RAM, 40 GB SSD, and 20 TB bandwidth for just $4/month!
To get something similar on DigitalOcean, you’d need to pay $24/month!
Now on paper, it sounds like a great deal! and seems like a no-brainer to switch to Hetzner. But is there a catch? Is it as good as everyone claims? How much traffic can Hetzner’s cheapest plan handle compared to something like DigitalOcean?
To find out, I deployed the same app on both platforms in the same region, compared their performance, and shared my findings in this video:
If you’re in a hurry, here’s the result 👇
| Virtual Users | Digital Ocean | Hetzner |
|---|---|---|
| 50 | 593.4ms | 575.99ms |
| 100 | 754.84ms | 626.04ms |
| 250 | 1.4s+ | 950.23ms |
| 500 | 5.9s | 1.8s |
| Cost | $6/month | $4/month |