AWS vs Hetzner for Solo Developers

Quick Comparison

AWS Overview

AWS is the world's largest cloud platform with 200+ services covering compute, storage, databases, machine learning, analytics, IoT, and virtually every infrastructure need imaginable. EC2 instances, S3 storage, RDS databases, Lambda functions, CloudFront CDN, and SQS queues are just the surface.

The platform can scale from a single prototype to millions of concurrent users. Every Fortune 500 company uses AWS. That enterprise pedigree means rock-solid reliability, global data center coverage, and a service for every possible use case.

For solo developers, the trade-off is complexity. The AWS console has hundreds of services, each with their own pricing model, configuration options, and interconnections. Setting up a simple web server involves navigating security groups, VPCs, IAM policies, and elastic IPs. It works, but the learning curve is steep.

Hetzner Overview

Hetzner is a German hosting company known for exceptional price-to-performance ratios. A CX23 cloud server (2 vCPUs, 4GB RAM, 40GB SSD) costs EUR 3.99/month, with 20 TB of traffic included. The entry Intel dedicated server, the EX44, runs EUR 47.30/month plus a one-time setup fee. Note that Hetzner raised cloud and dedicated prices across the board on April 1, 2026 (the CX23 went from EUR 2.99 to EUR 3.99), citing higher hardware and energy costs, so older guides quoting EUR 3 servers are now stale. Even after the hike, for raw compute power per dollar Hetzner is nearly unmatched.

The product line includes cloud servers, dedicated servers, managed Kubernetes, object storage, load balancers, firewalls, and floating IPs. The cloud console is straightforward: create a server, pick a size, choose a location, launch. No VPC configurations or IAM roles to navigate.

I run production workloads on Hetzner. The servers are reliable, the network is fast, and the value is outstanding. A Hetzner dedicated server gives you performance that would cost 5-10x more on AWS.

Key Differences

Price-to-performance. Hetzner dominates here. A Hetzner CX23 (2 vCPU, 4GB RAM) costs EUR 3.99/month. A comparable AWS t3.medium (2 vCPU, 4 GiB RAM) costs $0.0416/hour, which works out to about $30.37/month on-demand in us-east-1. That is roughly 7 to 8x the price for equivalent specs. Even with Reserved Instances, AWS is 3 to 4x more expensive. For solo developers watching every dollar, this gap is enormous.

Service ecosystem. AWS has 200+ managed services. Need Elasticsearch? OpenSearch Service. ML model hosting? SageMaker. Message queues? SQS and SNS. Graph databases? Neptune. Hetzner has cloud servers, dedicated servers, object storage, Kubernetes, and basic networking. If your project needs a specialized managed service, AWS probably has it. Hetzner expects you to self-host it.

Global reach. AWS operates 39 launched regions and 123 Availability Zones, backed by 750+ CloudFront edge locations. Hetzner has six cloud locations: Nuremberg and Falkenstein in Germany, Helsinki in Finland, Ashburn (Virginia) and Hillsboro (Oregon) in the US, and Singapore. If you need infrastructure in South America, Africa, or most of Asia, AWS is the only realistic option. For European or US-based projects, Hetzner's coverage is sufficient.

Pricing predictability. Hetzner's pricing is simple. A server costs X per month. Period. AWS pricing involves instance types, on-demand vs reserved vs spot pricing, data transfer charges (per GB out), storage IOPS, request counts, and dozens of line items that combine into unpredictable bills. I've seen developers shocked by AWS bills because they didn't account for data transfer costs.

Complexity. Setting up a server on Hetzner: choose a size, pick a location, add an SSH key, click create. Takes 2 minutes. Setting up an EC2 instance: choose an instance type, configure a VPC, set up a security group, create a key pair, assign an elastic IP, configure IAM roles. Takes 15-30 minutes the first time. AWS front-loads complexity for features most solo developers don't need.

Dedicated servers. Hetzner offers dedicated (bare metal) servers at prices no major cloud provider can match. The entry Intel EX44 lands at EUR 47.30/month plus a one-time setup fee, and the Server Auction offers used hardware at steeper discounts. For CPU-intensive workloads, AI model serving, or anything that needs consistent performance without noisy neighbors, Hetzner's dedicated servers are in a category of their own.

By the Numbers (2026)

The headline specs and prices below were checked on 2026-05-28. Both providers moved their numbers recently, so treat any older comparison with suspicion.

A note on the Hetzner price jump. On April 1, 2026 Hetzner raised cloud and dedicated prices by up to roughly 37 percent, citing higher hardware procurement and energy costs. The CX23 went from EUR 2.99 to EUR 3.99 and the ARM CAX11 from EUR 3.29 to EUR 4.49. The gap with AWS narrowed slightly but stayed enormous.

Real Cost at Solo-Dev Scale

Specs alone undersell the difference, because AWS bills for traffic that Hetzner bundles in. Here is a realistic single-server SaaS or API workload priced with the real per-unit rates above.

Assumptions: one always-on 2-vCPU / 4GB server, Linux, on-demand (no reserved commitment), running in a US region, serving 500 GB of outbound traffic per month.

Hetzner CX23:

• Compute: EUR 3.99/month, flat.
• Egress: 500 GB is far under the 20 TB included allowance, so EUR 0.
• Total: EUR 3.99/month (about $4.99).

AWS t3.medium:

• Compute: $0.0416/hour times 730 hours, about $30.37/month on-demand.
• Egress: 500 GB minus the 100 GB free tier leaves 400 GB at $0.09/GB, which is $36.00/month.
• Storage: a small gp3 EBS volume adds a few dollars more (not included above).
• Total: roughly $66 to $70/month before storage line items.

At this modest scale AWS costs on the order of 13 to 14x more than Hetzner, and the egress charge alone ($36) is larger than the entire Hetzner bill. The gap widens further with traffic-heavy apps, because Hetzner's 20 TB allowance keeps the bill flat while AWS keeps metering every gigabyte at $0.09. Reserved Instances or Savings Plans can cut the AWS compute line by 40 to 60 percent if you commit for one to three years, but they do nothing for data transfer, which is where the surprise bills usually come from.

When to Choose AWS

• Your project needs specialized managed services (ML, analytics, IoT)
• You require data centers in regions Hetzner doesn't cover
• Enterprise compliance or certifications (HIPAA, SOC2) are required
• You're building for massive, unpredictable scale
• The 12-month free tier is valuable for experimentation

When to Choose Hetzner

• Budget is a primary concern and you want maximum compute per dollar
• Your users are primarily in Europe or North America
• You're comfortable self-hosting services instead of using managed offerings
• Dedicated servers with consistent performance are needed
• Simple, predictable pricing without surprise bills matters

The Verdict

For solo developers, Hetzner is almost always the better choice. The price-to-performance ratio is dramatically better, the interface is simpler, and the service lineup covers what web applications need. A single Hetzner VPS can run your entire stack for less than the cost of an AWS t3.micro.

AWS makes sense in specific scenarios: when you need services Hetzner doesn't offer, when you need global data center presence, or when enterprise compliance mandates it. For a typical SaaS, API, or web application, those situations are rare.

My recommendation: start with Hetzner. Invest the money you save into your product. If you eventually need a managed service only AWS offers (and can't self-host a viable alternative), add that specific AWS service while keeping your core infrastructure on Hetzner.

Sources

All figures checked on 2026-05-28.

• Hetzner price adjustment (April 1, 2026 cloud and dedicated prices, including CX23 EUR 3.99 and CAX11 EUR 4.49): https://docs.hetzner.com/general/infrastructure-and-availability/price-adjustment/
• Hetzner Cloud plans and pricing: https://www.hetzner.com/cloud
• Hetzner Cloud regular-performance plans: https://www.hetzner.com/cloud/regular-performance
• Hetzner Cloud locations (Germany, Finland, USA, Singapore): https://docs.hetzner.com/cloud/general/locations/
• Hetzner Cloud pricing page (plans and traffic overage at EUR 1.00/TB EU and US): https://www.hetzner.com/cloud/pricing/
• Hetzner EX44 dedicated server: https://www.hetzner.com/dedicated-rootserver/ex44/
• Hetzner Cloud review with current plan table (Better Stack, updated March 2026): https://betterstack.com/community/guides/web-servers/hetzner-cloud-review/
• AWS EC2 t3.medium pricing and specs (Vantage): https://instances.vantage.sh/aws/ec2/t3.medium
• AWS EC2 t3.medium $0.0416/hr, $30.37/mo (Economize): https://www.economize.cloud/resources/aws/pricing/ec2/t3.medium/
• AWS EC2 On-Demand pricing: https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/on-demand/
• AWS Global Infrastructure (39 regions, 123 Availability Zones, 750+ CloudFront POPs): https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/global-infrastructure/
• AWS data transfer out pricing (100 GB free, then $0.09/GB first 10 TB, us-east-1): https://leanopstech.com/blog/aws-data-transfer-pricing-2026/
• AWS EC2 Free Tier usage and limits: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/ec2-free-tier-usage.html