Hetzner vs DigitalOcean vs Vultr: which cheap cloud VPS actually wins

The three most-shortlisted budget cloud VPS providers do not cost the same, and the gap is wider than most comparisons admit. Hetzner is famously the cheapest per core, DigitalOcean charges more but hands you a managed platform around the box, and Vultr sits between them with the widest choice of regions. The right one depends on three things: how price-sensitive you are, how much bandwidth you move, and whether you want managed services or just a bare box.

The same spec, three very different prices

Take a plain shared instance at 2 vCPU and 4 GB of RAM, the size a lot of small apps run on. On Hetzner cost-optimized Intel line that is around 5 to 6 euro a month (40 GB SSD, 20 TB of traffic included). On DigitalOcean the basic droplet at that spec is about 24 dollars a month (80 GB SSD). On Vultr the High Performance plan at 2 vCPU and 4 GB is about 24 dollars a month too (100 GB NVMe, 5 TB transfer). So for the same nominal CPU and RAM, Hetzner runs several times cheaper, while DigitalOcean and Vultr give you more and faster disk for the higher price. (List prices, checked July 2026, they move; Hetzner raised prices in April 2026 and adjusted again in June 2026.)

Hetzner: cheapest per core, most bandwidth, fewest frills

Hetzner whole reputation is price. On its cheapest Intel (CX) line a 2 vCPU and 4 GB shared server is around 5 to 6 euro a month, and every plan includes 20 TB of outbound traffic in its EU regions, far more than the others bundle, with overage around 1 euro per terabyte. Two 2026 price rises narrowed that lead on its pricier lines (the AMD CPX shared plans more than doubled and the dedicated-vCPU CCX line roughly tripled in June), though the entry Intel line stayed the cheapest of the three at that spec. The catch list is short but real: IPv4 is billed separately (about 0.60 euro a month per address), the managed-service menu is thinner than the others (raw compute, volumes, load balancers and networks, not a deep catalogue of managed databases), and until recently every datacenter was in Germany or Finland. Hetzner now runs US regions (Ashburn and Hillsboro), but those US plans include only 1 TB of traffic, not the 20 TB the EU plans get. If you are comfortable running the box yourself and your users are near its regions, nothing here undercuts it.

DigitalOcean: you pay more for the platform around the box

DigitalOcean costs multiples of Hetzner at the same spec, and what you buy for the difference is the ecosystem, not the raw compute. A basic droplet is about 6 dollars a month at 1 vCPU and 1 GB, 24 dollars at 2 vCPU and 4 GB, and 48 dollars at 4 vCPU and 8 GB (list, checked July 2026). Around those droplets sit managed PostgreSQL, MySQL and Valkey, the App Platform PaaS, Spaces object storage, managed Kubernetes and load balancers, plus the largest tutorial and community library of the three. Transfer is pooled: each droplet adds an allowance that starts at 500 GB and scales with the plan, shared across your fleet, overage 1 cent per GB, and a public IPv4 is included. If you would otherwise bolt a managed database and object storage onto a bare VPS, the higher sticker often buys back its own cost in saved setup.

Vultr: the widest map, NVMe on a budget

Vultr slots between the two on price and wins on geography. Its Regular Performance plans start at 2.50 dollars a month (IPv6 only; the cheapest plan with an IPv4 address is 3.50 dollars), and the High Performance line, on newer AMD or Intel silicon with NVMe storage, starts at 6 dollars a month for 1 vCPU and 1 GB. Bandwidth runs from about 2 TB on the smallest plan up to several TB higher up, overage 1 cent per GB. What sets Vultr apart is the number of datacenter locations, more than thirty worldwide, so if you need a server physically close to users in a region Hetzner and DigitalOcean do not cover, Vultr usually has one. Like the others it bills hourly, capped at 672 hours a month, so a month never costs more than the monthly rate.

The bandwidth line most comparisons skip

The sticker price is per core; the line that quietly separates these three is included traffic. Hetzner bundles 20 TB per plan in the EU, DigitalOcean pools a few hundred GB to a few TB depending on plan, and Vultr includes 2 to 6 TB per plan; all three charge about 1 cent per GB (roughly 10 dollars per terabyte) over the allowance, except Hetzner overage is nearer 1 euro per terabyte. For a normal site behind a CDN none of this matters. For anything that ships a lot of bytes (large downloads, video, a busy media API), Hetzner 20 TB allowance and cheap overage can be the deciding number, not the compute price.

The recurring line the per-core price skips: backups

The sticker compares an unprotected box. Turn on provider-managed backups and all three add a surcharge that scales with the instance, so a cheap server does not stay quite as cheap. Hetzner automatic backups cost 20 percent of the server price and keep up to seven; DigitalOcean is 20 percent of the droplet for weekly backups or 30 percent for daily, with a newer usage-based option from about 0.01 dollars per restorable GiB a month for more frequent 4, 6 or 12-hour schedules and retention up to six months; Vultr is a flat 20 percent premium and keeps your two most recent. Because the charge is proportional it does not reshuffle the ranking (20 percent of a 5 euro Hetzner box is about 1 euro, 20 percent of a 24 dollar droplet is about 5 dollars), but it is a real recurring line the per-core comparison leaves out, and DigitalOcean daily backups cost half again as much as its weekly. (List rates, checked July 2026, they move.)

Snapshots are the other half, and they are billed differently: not a percentage of the box but per GB of stored image a month, and unlike automatic backups they do not rotate, so an old snapshot keeps billing until you delete it. Hetzner charges about 0.0143 euro per GB a month, Vultr about 0.05 dollars, and DigitalOcean about 0.06 dollars per GiB (minimum 0.01 dollars). A couple of snapshots is trivial; the habit of snapshotting a large disk before every deploy and never pruning is how a small VPS quietly grows a storage bill nobody remembers starting. Price backups and snapshots into the monthly figure before you compare, the same way you size the box.

The disk the plan does not include: block-storage volumes

One more line the per-core sticker skips is the one where Hetzner looks most exposed: included disk. At the same 2 vCPU and 4 GB tier the three hand you very different amounts of storage, Hetzner about 40 GB, DigitalOcean 80 GB and Vultr 100 GB, so the cheapest box also gives you the least room. A database, a media library or a pile of logs that outgrows that disk needs an attached block-storage volume, and that is a separate recurring charge on all three, billed per GB of provisioned size every month whether or not the volume is full, and it keeps billing until you delete it, the same way a snapshot does.

You might expect the smaller included disk to be where Hetzner quietly hands the saving back, and it is not, because its volume rate is also the lowest. Hetzner Volumes run about 0.057 euro per GB a month (raised from 0.044 euro on 1 April 2026, minimum 10 GB), while DigitalOcean and Vultr both charge about 0.10 dollars per GB a month on their standard tier (Vultr also sells a cheaper HDD tier). So say a workload needs roughly 200 GB of persistent disk: on Hetzner that is the box plus a 160 GB volume at about 9 euro a month, near 15 euro all in; on DigitalOcean a 120 GB volume at about 12 dollars on top of the 24 dollar droplet, near 36 dollars; on Vultr a 100 GB volume at about 10 dollars on top of the 24 dollar plan, near 34 dollars. The smaller included disk narrows nothing, because the per-GB volume rate is roughly half, so on storage-heavy work the Hetzner lead widens rather than closing. (List rates, checked July 2026, they move.)

So which one

• Cheapest, and you will run the box yourself: Hetzner, especially if you move real bandwidth or your users are in or near its EU and US regions.
• You want managed databases, object storage or a PaaS around the VPS, not just a bare server: DigitalOcean, where the higher price buys the platform.
• You need a datacenter in a specific region the other two lack, or NVMe disk on a small budget: Vultr.

None of that replaces sizing the box to your real peak first. A plan that is one tier too big wastes money on every provider, and the tier you need, not the brand, sets most of the bill. Put your traffic, peak concurrency, app type and database size into the calculator, get a recommended spec and monthly cost band, then compare the three at that size. The sibling guide on whether you are overpaying for your server covers the tier decision that comes before the brand one.