Hetzner vs Vultr: Which Is Better?
We track Hetzner and Vultr prices, uptime and specs 24/7. Here's the live head-to-head for September 2026 — no paid rankings, just the data.
About HetznerHetzner is a German cloud and dedicated-server provider famous for the best price-to-performance in Europe. Where Contabo competes on raw resources, Hetzner competes on network quality, low latency and a polished API — ideal for developers running latency-sensitive workloads.
About VultrVultr, operated by Constant Company LLC, is a US-based cloud provider with the largest global footprint of any independent cloud (32 locations across 6 continents). Founded in 2014 with a focus on simplicity and global reach, Vultr competes directly with DigitalOcean and Linode, offering cloud compute, bare metal, GPU instances, block storage, and Kubernetes.
Comparison Table
| Feature | Hetzner | Vultr |
|---|---|---|
| Price / mo | $1.86 win | $2.50 |
| Renewal price | Same as initial | Same as initial |
| Datacenters | 5 | 32 win |
| NVMe storage | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes |
| Free domain | ✗ No | ✗ No |
| Backups | Paid | Paid |
| CDN | ✗ No | ✓ Yes win |
| Support | Ticket 1-4h | 24/7 chat |
| Uptime · 30d | 99.13% | — |
Price History
Hetzner · Webhosting SCollecting price history — the trend fills in as we track this plan.
Vultr · Cloud Compute 1 vCPU / 0.5 GB (IPv6-only)Collecting price history — the trend fills in as we track this plan.
Uptime & Performance
Hetzner 99.13% Vultr —Daily uptime appears once our monitor has collected enough data.
Pros & Cons
Hetzner- Exceptional price-to-performance — among the cheapest x86 VPS in the EU
- 99.9% uptime advertised for Hetzner Cloud (provider claim)
- Full-featured API with Terraform provider and Kubernetes support
- ARM servers (CAX) starting €3.29/mo — cheapest in Europe
- Transparent pricing — no hidden fees, no bandwidth surprises
- 5 datacenter locations: Nuremberg, Falkenstein, Helsinki, Ashburn, Singapore
- Support is ticket-based only — no live chat or phone
- UI/UX less polished than DigitalOcean or Vultr
- No managed databases (must self-manage)
- Limited global footprint — no APAC or LATAM DCs
- No Windows server images available
- Support response can be slow on weekends
Vultr- Industry-leading 32 data center locations worldwide
- Deploy in under 60 seconds with custom ISOs
- GPU instances (NVIDIA A100, A40, L40S) for AI/ML
- Bare metal dedicated servers with root access
- Simple hourly billing тАФ spin up and destroy anytime
- Free $250 credit for new users to test the platform
- No live chat support on basic plans
- No managed databases or managed Kubernetes
- No free domain or email hosting addons
- Backups and snapshots are paid addons
- Windows Server licenses are expensive addons ($23.50+/mo)
The Verdict
On the data we track, Vultr wins more rows in the comparison table above (2 vs 1). That said, the right pick depends on which rows matter most for your use case — price, uptime, datacenters or backups.
Hetzner & Vultr alternatives
Cheaper than Hetzner / Vultr
FAQ
Right now Hetzner has the lower entry price across the plans we track. Prices update every few hours — the live snapshot above always shows the current starting price for both.
Yes. Both run standard KVM virtualization, so you can snapshot your server, export the image, and import it on the other provider. For most stacks a fresh deploy plus a data copy is simpler.
It depends on your priority: pick the one that wins on the rows that matter most to you in the table above (price, uptime, datacenters, backups). For latency-sensitive apps favour uptime and network; for value favour price and specs.