AWS EC2 vs Hetzner Cloud
Hetzner Cloud is cheaper across every workload modelled here.
List prices checked
Rate cards side by side
Only the axes at least one of them bills on. A dash means that provider does not charge for it.
| Billing axis | AWS EC2 | Hetzner Cloud | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry plan | — | $3.79/mo | — |
| Compute | $0.042/vCPU-hr | $0.0052/vCPU-hr | 8× Hetzner Cloud |
| Data transfer out | $0.090/GB | $0.0012/GB | 75× Hetzner Cloud |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes | — |
Source: Amazon Web Services pricing (May 2026) · Hetzner pricing (May 2026). Published list prices only — committed-use discounts, regional variation, and per-request charges are not included. Not yet independently re-checked against the vendor’s page.
Monthly cost for three real workloads
The rate cards applied to identical usage. This is where the winner changes.
| Workload | AWS EC2 | Hetzner Cloud | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| Side projectA personal site or small app with modest traffic, a few gigabytes of assets, and one small always-on process. | $39 | $3.80 | Hetzner Cloudsaves $36/mo (90%) |
| Growing SaaSA funded product serving a few thousand daily users, with an image-heavy frontend and two application servers. | $151 | $7.59 | Hetzner Cloudsaves $143/mo (95%) |
| Media-heavy siteA publisher or video product where delivery dominates the bill and compute is almost an afterthought. | $930 | $3.80 | Hetzner Cloudsaves $927/mo (100%) |
Workload definitions are identical on every comparison page, so figures here can be read against any other pair in the same category.
What each one is for
AWS EC2
by Amazon Web Services
On-demand instances across every region and instance family. List rates are the highest in this category on both compute and egress; reserved instances and savings plans are how the price actually comes down.
Free tier: 750 hours per month of a t-class micro instance for 12 months
Hetzner Cloud
by Hetzner
The cheapest mainstream cloud compute by a wide margin, with 20 TB of traffic bundled into every instance. Regions are limited to Germany, Finland, Singapore, and the United States.
Free tier: 20 TB of traffic included with every server
Common questions
- Is AWS EC2 or Hetzner Cloud cheaper in 2026?
- Hetzner Cloud is cheaper in all 3 modelled workloads.
- What is the difference in egress cost between AWS EC2 and Hetzner Cloud?
- Hetzner Cloud charges $0.0012 per GB against AWS EC2's $0.090, roughly 75× cheaper. Egress usually dominates the bill once traffic is measured in terabytes.
- Which has the better free tier, AWS EC2 or Hetzner Cloud?
- Both publish one. AWS EC2: 750 hours per month of a t-class micro instance for 12 months. Hetzner Cloud: 20 TB of traffic included with every server.
- What do these estimates not include?
- Committed-use and reserved discounts, regional price variation, per-request API charges, support plans, and minimum retention periods. All of those move real invoices, sometimes by a lot. These figures compare published list prices for the same workload, which is the comparison the rate cards alone cannot give you.