Teams reach for Hetzner or OVHcloud for one of two reasons: European data residency, or the fact that both price well below the hyperscalers for comparable compute and bandwidth. Those reasons often arrive together, which is why the two providers get compared so frequently.
They are less alike than the shared category suggests.
What this comparison covers
- Geographic footprint and where data physically sits.
- Product range, from cloud instances to dedicated hardware.
- How much operational work each expects from you.
- Pricing model and what is included rather than metered.
- Which workloads each suits.
Footprint
OVHcloud operates the larger and more geographically distributed estate, with datacentres across multiple European countries and a presence beyond Europe. For an organisation that needs a specific jurisdiction, or that wants more than one European region for resilience, that breadth is the main argument.
Hetzner concentrates on a smaller number of locations, historically centred on Germany and Finland with later expansion elsewhere. Fewer locations is a genuine constraint if you need a particular jurisdiction, and close to irrelevant if you simply need low latency to European users.
If data residency is a compliance requirement rather than a preference, confirm the current region list with the provider directly. Both change, and a compliance decision should not rest on a third-party description.
Product range
OVHcloud’s catalogue is wider. Alongside VPS and public cloud instances it offers dedicated servers, managed Kubernetes, object and block storage, managed databases, and a range of hosting and domain products. The public cloud layer is built on OpenStack, which matters if you value an open API and portability.
Hetzner’s catalogue is narrower and more opinionated: cloud instances, classic VPS, dedicated servers, load balancers, block and object storage, and a well-regarded auction market for discounted dedicated hardware. There are fewer managed services, which means more assembly for you and less platform to learn.
The practical consequence is that a team wanting managed databases and managed Kubernetes from the same vendor will find more of it at OVHcloud, while a team that intends to run its own stack on cheap reliable metal often prefers Hetzner.
Operational model
Both leave more to you than a hyperscaler does. That is a large part of why they cost less.
Expect to handle more of your own monitoring, backup strategy, high availability design and operating system maintenance than you would on AWS or Azure, where a managed service often absorbs those concerns at a price. Neither provider is a bad choice for production, and plenty of serious workloads run on both. The question is whether your team wants to own that layer.
Hetzner in particular rewards teams comfortable at the infrastructure level. Its value is strongest when you are capable of running your own database rather than buying a managed one.
Pricing model
Both publish straightforward prices and both include a substantial traffic allowance with instances rather than metering egress aggressively. For bandwidth-heavy workloads this is frequently the single largest cost difference against a hyperscaler, and it is worth modelling before assuming the hyperscaler is competitive.
Beyond that, compare on the specific shape you need rather than on headline figures, because the ordering changes by instance size and by product line.
Side by side
| Criterion | Hetzner | OVHcloud |
|---|---|---|
| Footprint | Fewer locations, Europe-centred | Larger European estate, plus locations beyond Europe |
| Product breadth | Narrow and opinionated | Wider, including more managed services |
| Public cloud API | Own API | OpenStack-based |
| Dedicated hardware | Yes, including a discounted auction market | Yes, across several hardware ranges |
| Traffic allowance | Generous allowance included | Generous allowance included |
| Operational burden | Higher, suits infrastructure-comfortable teams | Moderate, more managed options available |
| Best fit | Self-managed stacks, cost-sensitive compute, bare metal | Jurisdiction-specific residency, broader product needs |
Which to pick
Reasons to choose Hetzner
- Price per unit of compute is the dominant constraint.
- Your team is comfortable running its own databases, monitoring and backups.
- You want dedicated hardware at a low price, including from the auction market.
- Central European latency is sufficient.
Reasons to choose OVHcloud
- You need a specific European jurisdiction, or more than one European region.
- You want managed services rather than assembling everything.
- An OpenStack-compatible API matters for portability or tooling.
- You need a wider product range from a single vendor.
What this comparison does not tell you
There are no performance numbers here, because comparable figures require identical workloads on identical shapes in identical regions, and anything less is noise. There is no price table either, because both providers price per product and per region and both change prices.
Regional availability, product lines, included traffic and support terms are set by each provider and change without notice. Where a decision rests on data residency or on a compliance obligation, confirm it against the provider’s own current documentation and contractual terms rather than any third-party summary, including this one.
Getting an account on either
Both are available here as prepared accounts. Hetzner configurations come at several server limits, including one with outbound port 25 open. OVHcloud configurations include a vCPU allocation and, again, an open port 25 option. Outbound port 25 matters only if you intend to send email directly from the server, and it is restricted by default on most providers specifically because of abuse.
On delivery either account is yours, including its security configuration, its spend and its compliance with the provider’s terms of service.