Hetzner Pricing
In this technical retrospective (2024), @gurjeet shares practical architectural lessons learned from running, scaling, or migrating production software under lean constraints.
Core Principles for Independent Builders:
Defaulting to simpler architectures (such as monolithic frameworks, SQLite, or managed VPS) prevents early engineering bankruptcy.
Evaluating true compute and egress costs reveals that high cloud bills can often be slashed by 80%+ through judicious re-platforming.
Code you write at 2 AM as a solo engineer must be easy to debug six months later without complex microservice dependencies.
Community Debate Themes:
HN engineers debated the tradeoffs between cloud convenience and raw server economics, database indexing strategies, and resisting premature architectural complexity.
CATEGORY Frugal Engineering →
HISTORICAL ERA Post-ZIRP & AI (2023–2026)
COMMUNITY SCORE 63 points
TOTAL DISCUSSIONS 47 comments
Hetzner is great, I run services for my clients and production apps on their dedicated servers which are cheaper and more performant than AWS-wannabes like Linode and Digital Ocean which I used to use.
BUT I just wish they'd stop with the crypto fear. You can be banned just for having any form of crypto software running (i.e. a Bitcoin core node) or any form of cryptocurrency data in any shape or form.
Quote from a Reddit user quoting Hetzner's support: "From support: Please note that the operating of applications that are used to mine crypto currencies is not allowed on our dedicated and cloud servers. Our policy does not allow to run any application in connection with cryptocurrency. This includes mining/farming, plotting, operation of nodes, storage of blockchain data and trading."
That's far too vague to be sensible. I wanted to write some software to play with the Forth-like VM that's embedded in Bitcoin, and that sounds like it's forbidden (storing of blockchain data). I don't want to risk my livelihood or clients' VPSes to find out.
These draconian T&C rules is why I am slowly moving to the other AWS-wannabe-but-cheaper OVH, that at least has more sane and business-friendly terms and conditions, rather than being subject to the whims of some German middle manager that decided they just hate anything vaguely related to cryptocurrencies.
Question for people in the US that use Hetzner. Billing-wise, do they show up as a US presence? With Fastmail I have to disable some security on one of my bank accounts for a day every couple of years to add credit to Fastmail as they are based out of the AU as it pertains to billing. Would it be the same for Hetzner?
Fastmail has earned some trust from me so I don't mind having two or three years of credit on my account. With VPS/server providers and registrars I usually stay under 1 year so I can walk away without losing much. This would be more of a hassle is why I ask.
If that's the case, why aren't there more low budget hardware servers being offered? After all these years, there's Kimsufi by OVH but not much else.
There is a lot of very cheap hardware available these days that makes for a good small server to use as a mail server. Having a dedicated server for this purpose results in much better privacy.
I hope to see more low budget dedicated servers!
They require my passport for verifying identify. I am based in the US. This is a big no-no. When will these europeans understand that we don't give out sensitive documents to outsiders? Your laws and reasoning does not apply here in the US.
Drop passport requirement and I will spend $2k per month.
More businesses should work that way! I especially dislike these catchy 0 €* (or 0 USD) offers from other providers where all the truth is in the *.
I really whish that Hetzner continues to evolve the cloud business, so that more kinds of managed services could be booked.