Hetzner vs OVHcloud: Two European Answers to the Same Question

Both sell serious hardware at prices the hyperscalers do not match. They differ on breadth, geography and how much complexity you want in the console.

27 July 2026 3 min read

Hetzner and OVHcloud are the two European providers most often shortlisted against each other. Both own their infrastructure, both sell dedicated servers and cloud instances well below hyperscaler pricing, and both are credible choices for production.

The one-line summary

Hetzner is simpler and usually cheaper for straightforward compute. OVHcloud has more managed services, a wider hardware range and more geography. If your needs are plain, Hetzner. If they are not, OVHcloud.

Price and bandwidth

On like-for-like cloud instances Hetzner is typically the lower price. On dedicated servers it depends heavily on the specific machine, and OVHcloud’s range is broader at both the low and high ends.

Bandwidth is where the models diverge. Hetzner includes a large monthly traffic allowance per server with cheap overage. Many OVHcloud dedicated ranges are unmetered, limited by port speed rather than a quota. For very high egress, unmetered is the stronger position; for moderate egress, Hetzner’s allowance is usually more than enough.

Managed services

Service	Hetzner	OVHcloud
Managed Kubernetes	No	Yes
Managed databases	No	Yes
Object storage	Yes	Yes
Load balancer	Yes	Yes
Private networking	Yes	Yes
Managed VMware / private cloud	No	Yes
Domain registrar	No	Yes

This table is the real decision. If you want a managed Postgres and a managed Kubernetes control plane, Hetzner cannot supply them and you will be running both yourself.

Geography

Hetzner: Germany, Finland and two United States locations. OVHcloud: France, Germany, Poland, the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, Singapore, Australia and India among others.

If you need presence outside Europe and North America, OVHcloud wins by default. Within Europe, both are excellent and latency differences are small.

Console and operational feel

Hetzner Cloud Console is minimal and fast. Very few options, very little to learn, and you can provision a working server in under a minute.

The OVHcloud control panel covers a much wider product range and is correspondingly denser. It takes longer to learn and exposes more configuration, which is a benefit when you need it and friction when you do not.

Reliability and reputation

Both have solid track records and both have had incidents — OVHcloud’s Strasbourg data-centre fire in 2021 is the most publicised, and its lesson was about customer backup practice as much as about the provider. The takeaway applies universally: on a low-cost provider, backups off the platform are your responsibility and you should have them.

How to choose

List the managed services you need. If Kubernetes or a managed database appears, OVHcloud unless you want to run them yourself.
Check geography against your users. Outside Europe and North America, OVHcloud.
Estimate monthly egress. Very high egress favours OVHcloud unmetered ranges.
If neither of the above decides it, price the exact server you want on both and take the cheaper. That is usually Hetzner.

Common questions

Are these providers suitable for production?

Yes. Both host substantial production estates. The difference from a hyperscaler is the absence of managed services and a smaller compliance certification list, not reliability of the underlying hardware.

What about the Hetzner server auction?

It sells previously used dedicated servers at a discount, with the same support terms. Availability is the constraint: you buy what is listed at that moment rather than specifying a build.

Do either offer a free tier?

Neither offers a meaningful free tier. Both bill hourly on cloud instances, so the cost of a short evaluation is small.

Is OVHcloud Public Cloud comparable to AWS EC2?

On the primitive — a virtual machine in a virtual network — yes. The surrounding ecosystem of managed services is much smaller, so the comparison stops being useful the moment you rely on those.

Where to go next

Platform guides: Hetzner and OVHcloud. Account configurations are on the Hetzner and OVHcloud pages.

Hetzner OVHcloud