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Hetzner vs Scaleway
Scaleway starts $3.11 per month cheaper at the entry tier, counting the IPv4 address billed on top. Hetzner lists more regions, which matters if latency to a specific city is your constraint. Hetzner is the better pick for workloads with European users that move a lot of traffic each month.
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.
Scaleway
$4.98/mo entry€0.44 plus €0.36 for a 10 GB disk and €3.65 for an IPv4 address, €4.45 in all
European projects that want hourly billing and free egress, and can budget for storage and an IPv4 address on top.
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 | Scaleway | Better |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry plan price / month, with IPv4 where billed extra | $8.09 | $4.98 | Scaleway |
| Entry plan vCPU | 1 | 1 | |
| Entry plan RAM | 1 GB | 1 GB | |
| Entry plan storage | 20 GB | 10 GB | Hetzner |
| Listed regions | 6 | 3 | Hetzner |
| Management model | Unmanaged (you run the OS) | Unmanaged (you run the OS) | |
| Support | Ticket support; no phone support on cloud plans. | See Scaleway for its support plans. | |
| Billing | Hourly metering, capped at the listed monthly price. | Hourly, invoiced monthly, with no commitment. Storage volumes and flexible IPv4 addresses are billed by the hour too, even while an Instance is powered off. | |
| Free tier | No free tier. | No free Instance tier is listed; check Scaleway for current trial credit. |
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 | Scaleway | 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). | $4.98STARDUST1-S · 1 vCPU · 1 GB · 10 GBScaleway bills storage separately: this price includes a 10 GB local SSD volume, the most this type takes (EUR 0.36 a month). Egress and IPv6 are included; a public IPv4 address is EUR 3.65 a month on top. 100 Mbps network port. Often out of stock: it is listed only in the zones where it can be ordered. | Scaleway cheaper by $3.11 |
| 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. | $22.17DEV1-M · 3 vCPU · 4 GB · 40 GBScaleway bills storage separately: this price includes a 40 GB local SSD volume, the most this type takes (EUR 1.43 a month). Egress and IPv6 are included; a public IPv4 address is EUR 3.65 a month on top. 300 Mbps network port. | Scaleway cheaper by $1.42 |
| 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. | $42.26DEV1-L · 4 vCPU · 8 GB · 80 GBScaleway bills storage separately: this price includes a 80 GB local SSD volume, the most this type takes (EUR 2.86 a month). Egress and IPv6 are included; a public IPv4 address is EUR 3.65 a month on top. 400 Mbps network port. | Scaleway cheaper by $0.33 |
| 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. | no plan this size | — |
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.
Scaleway
Scaleway is a French cloud provider selling virtual Instances from Paris, Amsterdam and Warsaw. Its list prices include egress and IPv6; storage volumes and a public IPv4 address are billed separately, by the hour. Prices are set in euros: we list each instance with the local SSD volume shown on the plan, without VAT, convert it to US dollars at the European Central Bank rate, and add the IPv4 address when ranking.
Strengths
- Egress is included in every instance price, so there is no bandwidth bill
- Billed by the hour with no commitment; savings plans cut up to 25% for an hourly spend commitment
- IPv6 is free, and an Instance can run without a public IPv4 address
- One of the smallest servers on sale anywhere (STARDUST1-S, 1 vCPU and 1 GB), when it is in stock
Weaknesses
- Storage is billed on top of the instance, per GB and per hour
- A public IPv4 address costs EUR 0.005 an hour, about EUR 3.65 a month
- The development instances have slow network ports (100 to 500 Mbps)
- STARDUST and some PLAY2 sizes are often out of stock in one zone or more
- Billed in euros, so the dollar price moves with the exchange rate
Support: See Scaleway for its support plans.
Billing: Hourly, invoiced monthly, with no commitment. Storage volumes and flexible IPv4 addresses are billed by the hour too, even while an Instance is powered off.
Free tier: No free Instance tier is listed; check Scaleway for current trial credit.
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 | Scaleway |
|---|---|---|
| Plan (2 vCPU / 4 GB) | $23.59 | $22.17 |
| 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 Scaleway.
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 Scaleway both have data centres in these places. Each page ranks every provider there at the price charged in that location.
Hetzner vs Scaleway — frequently asked
Every answer is computed from this pair's own prices and costs.
- Which is cheaper for 1 vCPU / 1 GB, Hetzner or Scaleway?
- Scaleway STARDUST1-S at $4.98/mo, which is $3.11 (38%) less than Hetzner CPX02 at $8.09/mo.
- How many datacentre locations do Hetzner and Scaleway have?
- Hetzner lists 6 and Scaleway lists 3.
- What do backups add at Hetzner and Scaleway?
- Hetzner: 20% of the plan price; Scaleway: not captured yet.