Compare / Vercel vs Hetzner Cloud
Vercel vs Hetzner Cloud
Pre-calculated from hand-checked data — Vercel checked 2026-09-15, Hetzner Cloud checked 2026-09-15.
The short version
Vercel 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 Vercel
Vercel is cheaper at most of the stages we model.
Ease Vercel
Vercel is easier to get running: connect the Git repo; every push builds and deploys with a preview URL per branch.
Control Hetzner Cloud
Hetzner Cloud gives you more control over the stack — the flip side of the convenience trade.
Free tier Vercel
Vercel has a free tier; Hetzner Cloud doesn't.
Features Vercel
Vercel comes out ahead on 9 of the 15 features we track, versus 2.
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.
Production operators contrast managed-platform convenience with Hetzner-style VPS control, portability, recovery, and long-run cost.
Railway outage highlights managed platforms vs VPSAt a glance
| Vercel | Hetzner Cloud | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Next.js and frontend apps where you want deploys and previews to just work. | European projects that need serious compute or move a lot of traffic. |
| How deploys work | Connect the Git repo; every push builds and deploys with a preview URL per branch. | You get root on a bare server: bring your own setup, or use one-click apps like Docker and WordPress. |
| The tradeoff | Usage pricing past the credit can climb fast with real traffic, especially data transfer. | Self-managed like any VPS, and the bandwidth advantage mostly applies to EU locations. |
| Free tier | Hobby: free for personal, non-commercial projects — 100 GB data transfer, 1M function invocations, and 4 active CPU hours per month. | None |
What you'd realistically pay
Vercel Hetzner Cloud
| Project stage | Vercel | Hetzner Cloud | Cheaper |
|---|---|---|---|
| Just starting | Free Hobby — Personal projects only; commercial use requires Pro at $20/month. | ≈€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. | Vercel |
| Steady traffic | ≈$20/mo Pro — Includes $20/month of usage credit, which covers modest traffic. | ≈€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 | ≈$40/mo Pro + usage — The $20 fee plus typical usage overages; heavy traffic or extra seats push it higher. | ≈€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. | Vercel |
Vercel pricing notes
- Hobby has no paid overage — features pause when an allowance runs out.
- Deployment Storage is $0.10/GB-month; Hobby includes 10 GB. Existing teams keep their current Deployment Storage pricing for now.
- Databases come from partners (Neon, Supabase, and others) and bill separately.
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 Vercel
Pricing clarity Hetzner Cloud
Free tier Vercel
Scaling Vercel
Control Hetzner Cloud
Feature by feature
Vercel wins 9, Hetzner Cloud wins 2, with 4 even.
Deploy workflow
| Vercel | Hetzner Cloud | |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy from Git push | Yes Connect GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket; every push deploys. | No No deploy pipeline — bring your own CI or scripts. |
| Preview deploys | Yes Automatic preview URL for every branch and pull request. | No Nothing built in. |
| Official CLI | Yes The vercel CLI deploys, manages env vars, and streams logs. | Yes hcloud CLI manages servers, networks, and snapshots. |
| Instant rollbacks | Yes Instant rollback to any previous deployment from the dashboard. | Partial Snapshots and paid backups restore machines; no deploy-level rollback. |
Platform
| Vercel | Hetzner Cloud | |
|---|---|---|
| Custom domains + HTTPS | Yes Unlimited domains with automatic TLS on all plans. | Yes Point DNS at the server; TLS is yours via certbot or a proxy. |
| Built-in CDN / edge network | Yes Global edge network serves static assets and caches responses. | No No CDN product — put Cloudflare in front if needed. |
| Serverless functions | Yes Serverless and edge functions are the core compute model. | No Not a VPS feature. |
| Docker containers | No No container deploys — code must fit the serverless build. | Yes Docker CE one-click app or install it yourself. |
| SSH / shell access | No No shell; debugging happens through logs and tracing. | Yes Full root SSH. |
| EU hosting region | Yes Function region is selectable, including EU locations. | Yes Germany and Finland are the home turf — this is where the value is. |
Runtime & operations
| Vercel | Hetzner Cloud | |
|---|---|---|
| Automatic scaling | Yes Serverless scales per request with no configuration. | No Manual resizing or manual fleet management. |
| Scale to zero | Yes Functions cost nothing while idle by design. | No Servers bill until deleted, even powered off. |
| Scheduled jobs | Yes Cron jobs trigger functions; Hobby is limited to 2 daily crons. | Yes Classic cron on the box. |
| Managed database | Partial No own database — the marketplace resells Neon, Supabase, Upstash, and others. | No No managed database product — self-host or go external. |
| Logs & metrics built in | Yes Runtime logs and Web Analytics built in; deeper observability is a paid add-on. | Partial Basic server graphs in the console; app-level monitoring is yours. |
Watch out for
Vercel
- The free Hobby plan does not allow commercial projects.
- Pro usage beyond the included $20 monthly credit bills on demand: edge requests from $2 per million, fast data transfer from $0.15/GB after the first 1 TB.
- Deployment Storage is $0.10/GB-month (Hobby includes 10 GB); shorter retention saves storage but you cannot roll back to deleted deployments.
- Every additional team member who deploys costs $20/month.
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: Vercel and Hetzner Cloud. Or answer four questions to see what fits your project.