Disclosure: we may earn a commission or referral reward from CloudCone, Contabo, DigitalOcean (account credit, not cash), Hostwinds, InterServer, RackNerd, VPSDime and Vultr if you sign up through our links. It does not change the price you pay. Every other provider pays us nothing.
Hetzner vs netcup
Entry prices are within a dollar of each other (Hetzner $8.09, netcup $8.93, counting the IPv4 address billed on top), so price alone does not decide it. Hetzner lists more regions, which matters if latency to a specific city is your constraint. netcup is the better pick for European projects that want a lot of disk and traffic per euro and can live with a shared vCore.
Hetzner
$8.09/mo entry$7.49 plus $0.60 for an IPv4 address
Workloads with European users that move a lot of traffic each month.
netcup
$8.93/mo entry€7.48 plus €0.50 for an IPv4 address, €7.98 in all
European projects that want a lot of disk and traffic per euro and can live with a shared vCore.
Specification differences
Entry plans compared line by line. Rows marked with a dash are preferences rather than measurable wins, so we do not pick a side on them.
| Attribute | Hetzner | netcup | Better |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry plan price / month, with IPv4 where billed extra | $8.09 | $8.93 | Hetzner |
| Entry plan vCPU | 1 | 2 | netcup |
| Entry plan RAM | 1 GB | 4 GB | netcup |
| Entry plan storage | 20 GB | 64 GB | netcup |
| Listed regions | 6 | 5 | Hetzner |
| Management model | Unmanaged (you run the OS) | Unmanaged (you run the OS) | |
| Support | Ticket support; no phone support on cloud plans. | See netcup for its support terms. | |
| Billing | Hourly metering, capped at the listed monthly price. | Monthly on the 1-month term; 12- and 24-month terms are cheaper and billed for the whole term. | |
| Free tier | No free tier. | No free tier. |
Same size, side by side
The cheapest plan from each provider that meets each size, so the comparison is between equal servers rather than two entry plans. Prices include a separately-billed IPv4 address where the provider charges for one.
| Size | Hetzner | netcup | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 vCPU / 1 GB | $8.09CPX02 · 1 vCPU · 1 GB · 20 GBSmallest Regular Performance type. Price excludes VAT and the IPv4 address ($0.60 a month extra). | $8.93VPS 500 G12.5 · 2 vCPU · 4 GB · 64 GBMonth-to-month price with netcup choosing the data centre in Europe; 12- and 24-month terms cost less. Traffic flat rate, throttled to 200 Mbps while the 24-hour average is above 2 TB. | Hetzner cheaper by $0.84 |
| 2 vCPU / 4 GB | $23.59CPX22 · 2 vCPU · 4 GB · 80 GBRegular-performance AMD line. Price excludes VAT and IPv4. Was $9.49 before 15 June 2026. | $8.93VPS 500 G12.5 · 2 vCPU · 4 GB · 64 GBMonth-to-month price with netcup choosing the data centre in Europe; 12- and 24-month terms cost less. Traffic flat rate, throttled to 200 Mbps while the 24-hour average is above 2 TB. | netcup cheaper by $14.66 |
| 4 vCPU / 8 GB | $42.59CPX32 · 4 vCPU · 8 GB · 160 GBRegular-performance AMD line. Price excludes VAT and IPv4. Was $15.99 before 15 June 2026. | $15.67VPS 1000 G12.5 · 4 vCPU · 8 GB · 128 GBMonth-to-month price with netcup choosing the data centre in Europe; 12- and 24-month terms cost less. Traffic flat rate, throttled to 200 Mbps while the 24-hour average is above 2 TB. | netcup cheaper by $26.92 |
| 8 vCPU / 16 GB | $82.59CPX42 · 8 vCPU · 16 GB · 320 GBRegular-performance AMD line. Price excludes VAT and IPv4. Was $29.99 before 15 June 2026. | $29.10VPS 2000 G12.5 · 8 vCPU · 16 GB · 256 GBMonth-to-month price with netcup choosing the data centre in Europe; 12- and 24-month terms cost less. Traffic flat rate, throttled to 200 Mbps while the 24-hour average is above 2 TB. | netcup cheaper by $53.49 |
Not in the table because they are sold out on the provider's own site today: Hetzner CX23 (2 vCPU, 4 GB, $7.09/mo), Hetzner CX33 (4 vCPU, 8 GB, $10.59/mo), Hetzner CX43 (8 vCPU, 16 GB, $19.09/mo). We check stock every day, and a plan returns to the table once it can be ordered again.
Every provider at these sizes, ranked: 1 GB RAM · 4 GB RAM · 8 GB RAM · 16 GB RAM
Where each one wins and loses
Hetzner
Hetzner made its name as the price floor for European cloud servers, with included traffic far larger than the US budget clouds. Two things have changed that: prices rose on 15 June 2026, by 25% to 204% depending on the server type, and Hetzner’s cheapest shared-vCPU lines (CX, and the Arm-based CAX) are sold out, which leaves the dearer CPX line as what you can buy today. Prices exclude VAT, the region map is Europe-heavy, and a public IPv4 address is billed separately.
Strengths
- Very large included traffic allowance
- Hourly billing, capped at the monthly price
- An official API, command-line tool and Terraform provider
Weaknesses
- Europe-weighted region map; thin coverage outside the EU and two US sites
- Prices rose by 25% to 204% on 15 June 2026, and the cheapest lines (CX, CAX) are sold out
- IPv4 addresses carry a separate monthly charge
- New-account identity verification can delay first provisioning
Support: Ticket support; no phone support on cloud plans.
Billing: Hourly metering, capped at the listed monthly price.
Free tier: No free tier.
netcup
netcup is a German host selling KVM virtual servers from Nuremberg, Vienna, Amsterdam, Manassas (US) and Singapore. Its VPS G12.5 line pairs shared vCores with large SSDs and a traffic flat rate. Prices are set in euros: we list the month-to-month price without VAT and convert it to US dollars at the European Central Bank rate.
Strengths
- Large disks for the price (128 GB SSD with 8 GB RAM)
- Traffic flat rate on a 2.5 Gbit/s port
- Month-to-month contracts, with lower prices on 12- and 24-month terms
Weaknesses
- Traffic is throttled to 200 Mbps while the 24-hour average is above 2 TB
- Choosing a specific data centre costs about 15% more than letting netcup pick one in Europe; Singapore costs about twice as much
- Billed in euros, so the dollar price moves with the exchange rate
- A public IPv4 address is EUR 0.50 a month on top of the plan price
Support: See netcup for its support terms.
Billing: Monthly on the 1-month term; 12- and 24-month terms are cheaper and billed for the whole term.
Free tier: No free tier.
The full cost stack
What a server costs beyond its sticker price, shown for 2 vCPU / 4 GB. Only figures read from each provider's own documentation appear; a gap says “not captured yet”.
| Item | Hetzner | netcup |
|---|---|---|
| Plan (2 vCPU / 4 GB) | $23.59 | $8.93 |
| Automatic backups | 20% = +$4.72 ($28.31 total) | not captured yet |
| Outbound traffic beyond the allowance | Traffic beyond the included allowance is billed in 100 MB blocks; the per-TB price is not stated on the billing FAQ. | not captured yet |
| Smallest managed load balancer | not captured yet | not captured yet |
Sources: docs.hetzner.com
Price changes we have logged
- 2026-06-15 · Hetzner CX23: $4.99 → $6.49 notice
- 2026-06-15 · Hetzner CX33: $7.99 → $9.99 notice
- 2026-06-15 · Hetzner CPX22: $9.49 → $22.99 notice
- 2026-06-15 · Hetzner CPX32: $15.99 → $41.99 notice
Full record at the change log.
Every plan
The complete plan ladders, with the date and source of every price, are on each provider's page: Hetzner and netcup.
All figures are the providers' own published list prices in USD, on-demand monthly. The index was last refreshed 2026-10-14, and every row shows the date its own price was read. Nothing here is live or negotiated pricing. Where a provider bills a public IPv4 address on top, it is added to the monthly price, the ranking and every cost per vCPU or per GB, and the row shows the parts: the server, any disk priced apart, and the IPv4 charge. Some prices exclude VAT or need a commitment; the plan notes say which. Check the provider's pricing page before you commit.
Related comparisons
Where both sell
Hetzner and netcup both have data centres in these places. Each page ranks every provider there at the price charged in that location.
Hetzner vs netcup — frequently asked
Every answer is computed from this pair's own prices and costs.
- Which is cheaper for 1 vCPU / 1 GB, Hetzner or netcup?
- Hetzner CPX02 at $8.09/mo, which is $0.84 (9%) less than netcup VPS 500 G12.5 at $8.93/mo.
- How many datacentre locations do Hetzner and netcup have?
- Hetzner lists 6 and netcup lists 5.
- What do backups add at Hetzner and netcup?
- Hetzner: 20% of the plan price; netcup: not captured yet.