Compare / Google Cloud Run vs Hetzner Cloud
Google Cloud Run vs Hetzner Cloud
Pre-calculated from hand-checked data — Google Cloud Run checked 2026-08-06, Hetzner Cloud checked 2026-08-06.
The short version
Google Cloud Run wins more of our comparison points, but Hetzner Cloud still fits if european projects that need serious compute or move a lot of traffic describes you.
Price Tie
Google Cloud Run costs less while you're starting out, but Hetzner Cloud works out cheaper once traffic grows.
Ease Google Cloud Run
Google Cloud Run is easier to get running: run `gcloud run deploy --source .` — buildpacks containerize the app, or push any Docker image; GitHub continuous deployment is built in.
Control Hetzner Cloud
Hetzner Cloud gives you more control over the stack — the flip side of the convenience trade.
Free tier Google Cloud Run
Google Cloud Run has a free tier; Hetzner Cloud doesn't.
Features Google Cloud Run
Google Cloud Run comes out ahead on 9 of the 15 features we track, versus 2.
What developers say about this matchup
We couldn't find a substantive first-person discussion comparing this exact pair. We leave the section empty instead of filling it with vendor marketing or generic SEO comparisons.
At a glance
| Google Cloud Run | Hetzner Cloud | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Container apps with spiky or low traffic that want scale-to-zero economics and can manage billing discipline. | European projects that need serious compute or move a lot of traffic. |
| How deploys work | Run `gcloud run deploy --source .` — buildpacks containerize the app, or push any Docker image; GitHub continuous deployment is built in. | You get root on a bare server: bring your own setup, or use one-click apps like Docker and WordPress. |
| The tradeoff | The best free tier and autoscaling here, attached to a billing system with no hard cap and real horror stories. | Self-managed like any VPS, and the bandwidth advantage mostly applies to EU locations. |
| Free tier | Always free: 2M requests, 180k vCPU-seconds, 360k GiB-seconds per month, plus a $300/90-day new-customer credit. | None |
What you'd realistically pay
| Project stage | Google Cloud Run | Hetzner Cloud | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| Just starting | Free Free tier — A scale-to-zero service with hobby traffic typically rounds to $0 — the always-free tier absorbs it. | ≈€5.99/mo CX23 (EU) — €5.49 + €0.50 IPv4. 2 shared vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 40 GB SSD, 20 TB traffic. Germany and Finland only. | Google Cloud Run |
| Steady traffic | ≈$10/mo Pay-as-you-go + 1 warm instance — One min-instance (1 vCPU, 512 MiB at the idle rate) is ~$10/month; request costs on top are usually small. | ≈€8.99/mo CX33 (EU) — €8.49 + €0.50 IPv4. 4 shared vCPU, 8 GB RAM, 80 GB SSD, 20 TB traffic. | ≈ Tie |
| Growing | ≈$58/mo Always-on + Cloud SQL — ~$50/month for an always-on 1 vCPU / 1 GiB service (instance-based billing) plus ~$7.67 for a db-f1-micro Cloud SQL instance. | ≈€43.49/mo CCX13 (EU) — €42.99 + €0.50 IPv4. 2 dedicated vCPU, 8 GB RAM, 80 GB NVMe — move to dedicated CPUs when shared bursting stops being enough. | Hetzner Cloud |
Google Cloud Run pricing notes
- Egress: first 1 GiB/month free, then $0.12/GiB to NA/EU/Asia.
- Tier 2 regions cost more; committed-use discounts take ~17% off.
- The $300 new-customer credit runs 90 days and cannot produce a bill — the account closes instead of charging you.
Hetzner Cloud pricing notes
- Traffic overage costs €1/TB in the EU — most providers charge 10–100x that per GB.
- Billed hourly up to a monthly cap.
- The Arm-based CAX plans match CX specs at similar prices if the Intel CX line is out of stock.
Our ratings
Ease of use Google Cloud Run
Pricing clarity Hetzner Cloud
Free tier Google Cloud Run
Scaling Google Cloud Run
Control Hetzner Cloud
Feature by feature
Google Cloud Run wins 9, Hetzner Cloud wins 2, with 4 even.
Deploy workflow
| Google Cloud Run | Hetzner Cloud | |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy from Git push | Yes Built-in continuous deployment from GitHub, or deploy from source with gcloud. | No No deploy pipeline — bring your own CI or scripts. |
| Preview deploys | Partial Every deploy creates a tagged revision you can hit directly and split traffic to — but no automatic PR previews. | No Nothing built in. |
| Official CLI | Yes `gcloud run` covers deploys, revisions, and traffic splits. | Yes hcloud CLI manages servers, networks, and snapshots. |
| Instant rollbacks | Yes Shift traffic back to any previous revision instantly. | Partial Snapshots and paid backups restore machines; no deploy-level rollback. |
Platform
| Google Cloud Run | Hetzner Cloud | |
|---|---|---|
| Custom domains + HTTPS | Partial Domain mappings exist but Google steers production setups toward a load balancer, which adds cost and setup. | Yes Point DNS at the server; TLS is yours via certbot or a proxy. |
| Built-in CDN / edge network | Partial Cloud CDN is available but requires fronting Cloud Run with a load balancer. | No No CDN product — put Cloudflare in front if needed. |
| Serverless functions | Yes The whole platform is serverless; Cloud Run functions cover event-driven code. | No Not a VPS feature. |
| Docker containers | Yes Runs any container image — that is the product. | Yes Docker CE one-click app or install it yourself. |
| SSH / shell access | No No servers to reach. | Yes Full root SSH. |
| EU hosting region | Yes A dozen-plus EU regions, four of them at Tier 1 pricing. | Yes Germany and Finland are the home turf — this is where the value is. |
Runtime & operations
| Google Cloud Run | Hetzner Cloud | |
|---|---|---|
| Automatic scaling | Yes Scales per request from zero to your max-instances setting. | No Manual resizing or manual fleet management. |
| Scale to zero | Yes Idle services cost nothing unless you set min-instances. | No Servers bill until deleted, even powered off. |
| Scheduled jobs | Yes Cloud Scheduler triggers services; Cloud Run jobs handle batch work. | Yes Classic cron on the box. |
| Managed database | Yes Cloud SQL from ~$7.67/month (no SLA at that size); Firestore and AlloyDB nearby. | No No managed database product — self-host or go external. |
| Logs & metrics built in | Yes Cloud Logging, Monitoring, and request traces are built in. | Partial Basic server graphs in the console; app-level monitoring is yours. |
Watch out for
Google Cloud Run
- There is no hard spend cap anywhere in Google Cloud — budgets only send alerts. The community horror stories ($4.6k on an idle setup, $18k against a $7 budget) are real.
- Min-instances are the classic trap: a warm instance bills around $10/month, and old revisions can silently keep their own min-instances.
- Egress costs $0.12/GiB after the first free GiB — heavy traffic gets expensive fast.
- Since March 2026 Google can automatically raise your spending-tier quotas, which amplifies leaked-API-key incidents.
Hetzner Cloud
- Hetzner raised prices on 15 June 2026: dedicated CCX and shared CPX plans roughly tripled, while the budget CX line rose about 35%.
- The cheap CX plans are sold in Germany and Finland only, in limited capacity — Hetzner sometimes pauses sales when stock runs out.
- US locations include only 1–2 TB of traffic versus 20 TB in the EU — the famous value is a European value.
- A public IPv4 address costs €0.50/month extra; only IPv6 is free.
- Servers bill until deleted, even while powered off.
Read the full reviews: Google Cloud Run and Hetzner Cloud. Or answer four questions to see what fits your project.