Hetzner alternatives
5 Hetzner Cloud alternatives in Germany
Hetzner’s cheapest plans are often sold out and its account verification turns some sign-ups away. These five providers all run servers in Germany or neighbouring EU zones, bill in euros and expose an API. Prices are for a 2 vCPU / 4 GB server, list price per month, excluding VAT.
Prices checked on 16 October 2026
The five at a glance
| Provider | 2 vCPU / 4 GB price | Disk | Traffic | API + Terraform | Billing | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Odinex Cloud | €8.99 (s2) + €0.50 IPv4 | 40 GB NVMe | unmetered | REST, CLI, Terraform/OpenTofu | prepaid, hourly, capped, no ID check | Hetzner-style cloud, in stock, sign-up from any country |
| Contabo | ~€5 (Cloud VPS 10, smallest plan: 4 vCPU / 8 GB) | 75 GB NVMe | 32 TB | REST API, no official Terraform | monthly, setup fee on short terms | most RAM per euro, slower support |
| Netcup | €8.26 (VPS 500 G12.5) | 64 GB SSD | included, fair use | SCP API, community Terraform | monthly price on a 12-month contract | long-term low cost, German-only UI parts |
| OVHcloud | ~€3.81 (VPS-1, “from” price; €4.53 incl. VAT) | 40 GB NVMe | unmetered, 500 Mbit/s | REST, Terraform (OpenStack) | monthly (VPS) or hourly (Public Cloud) | enterprise ecosystem, more locations |
| DigitalOcean | US$24 (Basic) | 80 GB SSD | 4 TB | REST, CLI, Terraform | postpaid monthly | huge tutorial library, US-centric |
Competitor prices from each provider’s public pricing page, checked on 16 October 2026; the Contabo figure is approximate because its price page could not be read that day. Odinex prices are live from /pricing/ (snapshot of 16 October 2026).
How to read this
- Contabo, Netcup and OVHcloud’s VPS range are the cheapest per gigabyte but are classic VPS hosts: you buy a box for a month or a year, not an API-driven cloud. Scaling means ordering another product.
- OVHcloud Public Cloud and DigitalOcean are full clouds but either OpenStack-heavy or US-priced.
- Odinex sits between: Hetzner-style resource model (servers, volumes, floating IPs, firewalls by label, load balancers), Terraform from day one, and prepaid hourly billing so you can test for cents.
One stack, five providers: what changes
| Task | Hetzner | Odinex | Contabo / Netcup |
|---|---|---|---|
| Create a server from code | hcloud server create | odx server create | API or panel, no CLI |
| Private network between servers | yes | yes, plus NAT gateway | VLAN add-on |
| Firewall by label | yes | yes | per-server panel |
| Load balancer | yes | yes | no (run HAProxy yourself) |
| Snapshot + restore | yes | yes | image feature, slower |
| Pay for one hour of testing | yes | yes (prepaid) | no, monthly minimum |
Verdict
- Cheapest box
- OVHcloud VPS, Contabo or Netcup.
- Closest Hetzner replacement with an API, in stock today
- Odinex.
- Most locations
- OVHcloud.
- Most tutorials
- DigitalOcean.
Sources: each provider’s public pricing page, checked on the date above.
Try Odinex for an hour
Prepaid and billed by the hour: start a server, test your stack, delete it and pay cents.