Compare / Heroku vs Hetzner Cloud
Heroku vs Hetzner Cloud
Pre-calculated from hand-checked data — Heroku checked 2026-09-15, Hetzner Cloud checked 2026-09-15.
The short version
Heroku and Hetzner Cloud split our comparison — the right pick depends on what your project values.
Price Hetzner Cloud
Hetzner Cloud is cheaper at most of the stages we model.
Ease Heroku
Heroku is easier to get running: git push heroku main; buildpacks detect the stack and the platform handles the rest.
Control Hetzner Cloud
Hetzner Cloud gives you more control over the stack — the flip side of the convenience trade.
Features Heroku
Heroku comes out ahead on 6 of the 15 features we track, versus 1.
What developers say about this matchup
First-person discussions from the past three years that compare these products directly. Summaries are paraphrased; follow the source for the full context.
Developers directly contrast Heroku's backend and full-stack strengths with Vercel's frontend focus, newer PaaS alternatives, and much cheaper Hetzner compute.
Been a while since I used Heroku — how is it faring with Vercel out?At a glance
| Heroku | Hetzner Cloud | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Teams that already know Heroku and value its mature workflow over price. | European projects that need serious compute or move a lot of traffic. |
| How deploys work | git push heroku main; buildpacks detect the stack and the platform handles the rest. | You get root on a bare server: bring your own setup, or use one-click apps like Docker and WordPress. |
| The tradeoff | You pay a platform premium — comparable raw compute costs a third as much elsewhere. | Self-managed like any VPS, and the bandwidth advantage mostly applies to EU locations. |
| Free tier | None | None |
What you'd realistically pay
Heroku Hetzner Cloud
| Project stage | Heroku | Hetzner Cloud | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| Just starting | ≈$5/mo Eco — One Eco dyno (512 MB) that sleeps after 30 idle minutes; an always-on Basic dyno is $7, and an Essential-0 Postgres adds $5. | ≈€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. | Heroku |
| Steady traffic | ≈$25/mo Standard-1X — Adds horizontal scaling and zero-downtime deploys; database still extra. | ≈€8.99/mo CX33 (EU) — €8.49 + €0.50 IPv4. 4 shared vCPU, 8 GB RAM, 80 GB SSD, 20 TB traffic. | Hetzner Cloud |
| Growing | ≈$50/mo Standard dynos + add-ons — Two Standard-1X dynos; realistic totals depend heavily on add-ons. | ≈€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. | ≈ Tie |
Heroku pricing notes
- Dynos are prorated to the second up to the monthly maximum.
- Heroku Postgres starts at $5/month (Essential-0, 1 GB storage); the Redis-compatible Key-Value Store starts at $3/month (Mini, 25 MB).
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.
- Singapore pricing is higher: CCX13 costs €53.99 and CCX23 costs €108.49 before IPv4.
- 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 Heroku
Pricing clarity Hetzner Cloud
Free tier
Scaling Heroku
Control Hetzner Cloud
Feature by feature
Heroku wins 6, Hetzner Cloud wins 1, with 8 even.
Deploy workflow
| Heroku | Hetzner Cloud | |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy from Git push | Yes git push heroku main is the original deploy story; GitHub integration too. | No No deploy pipeline — bring your own CI or scripts. |
| Preview deploys | Yes Review Apps create a running app per pull request. | No Nothing built in. |
| Official CLI | Yes The heroku CLI covers deploys, logs, scaling, and add-ons. | Yes hcloud CLI manages servers, networks, and snapshots. |
| Instant rollbacks | Yes heroku releases:rollback reverts to any previous release instantly. | Partial Snapshots and paid backups restore machines; no deploy-level rollback. |
Platform
| Heroku | Hetzner Cloud | |
|---|---|---|
| Custom domains + HTTPS | Yes Custom domains with automated certificate management on paid dynos. | Yes Point DNS at the server; TLS is yours via certbot or a proxy. |
| Built-in CDN / edge network | No No built-in CDN — pair with Cloudflare or Fastly yourself. | No No CDN product — put Cloudflare in front if needed. |
| Serverless functions | No Dynos are long-running processes; there is no function product. | No Not a VPS feature. |
| Docker containers | Yes Deploy container images through the Heroku container registry. | Yes Docker CE one-click app or install it yourself. |
| SSH / shell access | Partial heroku run bash gives a one-off shell in a fresh dyno, not the live one. | Yes Full root SSH. |
| EU hosting region | Yes Common Runtime offers a Europe region at the same prices. | Yes Germany and Finland are the home turf — this is where the value is. |
Runtime & operations
| Heroku | Hetzner Cloud | |
|---|---|---|
| Automatic scaling | Partial Built-in autoscaling requires Performance-tier dynos; standard dynos scale manually. | No Manual resizing or manual fleet management. |
| Scale to zero | Partial Eco dynos sleep after 30 idle minutes; Basic and Standard run continuously. | No Servers bill until deleted, even powered off. |
| Scheduled jobs | Yes Heroku Scheduler (free add-on) runs tasks on a schedule. | Yes Classic cron on the box. |
| Managed database | Yes Heroku Postgres and Key-Value Store are fully managed add-ons. | No No managed database product — self-host or go external. |
| Logs & metrics built in | Partial Log stream and basic metrics included; serious monitoring means add-ons. | Partial Basic server graphs in the console; app-level monitoring is yours. |
Watch out for
Heroku
- There is no free tier.
- Compute is expensive for what you get: Standard-1X costs $25/month for 512 MB of RAM.
- Databases and other add-ons bill separately and can dominate the total.
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.
- Singapore has separate, higher prices. A CCX13 costs €53.99 there versus €42.99 in the EU.
- 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: Heroku and Hetzner Cloud. Or answer four questions to see what fits your project.