Hetzner Cloud vs netcup VPS

Hetzner Cloud

Websites demonstrably run here — a ready-to-use WordPress app with MySQL and Apache is documented — and there is a genuinely public status page with incident history, scheduled maintenance by data-centre selector and subscribable email notifications. But the product is stated to be unmanaged, and we found no public information on the captured pages about resources per tariff, any uptime target, an SLA paying a credit, or the hardware and storage architecture behind it. A real platform with named locations, and no numbers.

netcup VPS

Hardware is named to a degree few competitors reach — AMD EPYC 9645 cores, DDR5, NVMe storage, hardware RAID, redundant power and uplinks, a 2.5 Gbit/s network card — and the root-server line carries a guaranteed minimum availability of 99.9% in the yearly average. But no captured page states what that guarantee pays when it is missed, and the VPS page itself says the guarantee and dedicated cores are not included in those tariffs; we found no public information on published incident history or measured performance.

Hetzner Cloud

A documented console, a REST API covering servers, load balancers, volumes, firewalls, floating IPs and DNS, plus a command-line tool and Go and Python libraries — tooling you can script, not just click. One-click apps including WordPress, snapshots movable between projects, snapshot protection, restricted project members and token-based transfers complete a solid picture. We found no public information on staging copies, Git deployment workflows, audit logs or single sign-on, which keeps it below the top tier.

netcup VPS

The Server Control Panel documents start, stop and reboot, images, snapshots, traffic statistics, a VNC remote console and SSH, with a documented REST API, image import and export, and full root access; a managed tier hands maintenance, security updates and monitoring to the vendor's experts. We found no public information on firewalls, private networks, team roles, or any agency or client view.

Hetzner Cloud

Daily automated backups with seven slots per server, fourteen-day encrypted retention, and on-demand snapshots that survive server deletion and land in a different location — but note the small print: attached volumes are excluded from backups and snapshots, and the vendor recommends powering the server off to get a consistent copy. Restore is rebuild-or-duplicate of the whole server; we found no public information on point-in-time, single-file or single-database recovery, a web application firewall, malware scanning, panel two-factor login or a hosting certification. The vendor is blunt that cloud servers are unmanaged and backups are the customer's responsibility, which I respect and count accordingly.

netcup VPS

Snapshots and image export give the customer a self-service restore point, DDoS protection is included, and the ISO 27001 and ISO 27701 certificates are published with their auditors and yearly validation. What I could not find anywhere: how long a snapshot is kept and where it is stored, and we found no public information on two-factor login to the panel or on malware scanning and cleanup.

Hetzner Cloud

A snapshot can be turned into a new server in any location, and token-based transfers of cloud servers, domains, storage boxes and rack space between customers are documented — real doors, though the domain move is stated as registrations only with the data left to move yourself, and a vSwitch is documented as not transferable at all. Beyond that we found no public information on the captured pages about resizing a server in place, tariff and resource limits, a migration service from another host, or cancellation and data-deletion terms. The exit hinges entirely on you building your own images.

netcup VPS

Block storage extends a server up to 8 TB at 0,012 € per GB net without fixed terms, the ladder runs from vServer Lite through x86 and ARM64 to root servers and vGPU at the same vendor, and monthly terms plus a 30-day money-back guarantee with the refund formula spelled out (the full base fee, monthly price times billing period) make leaving cheap. Full root on KVM with image export means the stack runs elsewhere; we found no public information on a migration service in, or on when data is deleted after termination.

Hetzner Cloud

A help centre, a community forum, a status page with email subscriptions and a documented support-team opening-hours page exist, and the managed-side mailboxes come with configurable storage and email-count limits, per-mailbox spam filters, retention settings and webmail. What we did not find on the captured pages: the support channels themselves, any stated response times, technical-depth promises or a partner programme. Documentation is not a promise of help.

netcup VPS

The captured pages show a help centre, FAQs and a contact form inside the customer panel, plus a managed tier whose experts handle maintenance, security updates and monitoring; a public status page exists. We found no public information on phone or chat channels, hours, languages or response times — and none on domains or mailboxes in this account.

Hetzner Cloud

German contracting entity in Gunzenhausen, own data centres named in Falkenstein, Nuremberg and Helsinki, customer master and billing data processed exclusively in the EU, backups of EU-located products staying in the EU, and a plain answer to my favourite question: only German courts for the German data centres, Finnish for Helsinki, and no direct access by US or Singaporean authorities to server contents in the EU. An Article 28 data processing agreement is published and signable in the account with a linked subprocessor list, and the technical and organisational measures are audited annually by TÜV Rheinland. What holds it back: the parent behind Hetzner Online GmbH is not stated on the captured pages, subprocessor locations are not given, and deliberately choosing a US or Singapore location puts the server data in a third country — a documented, opt-in risk.

netcup VPS

The vendor line names a German contracting entity (netcup GmbH, registered at the Mannheim court, seat in Karlsruhe) under the Austrian Anexia group, with servers in Nuremberg, Vienna and Amsterdam alongside locations in the USA and Singapore; a data protection officer and GDPR access rights are documented, as are ISO certifications with their auditors. We found no public information on a published data processing agreement or on the subprocessors in the chain, and the data-centre page we captured returned a "page not found" error.

Hetzner Cloud

The captured documentation says pricing information sits in the info box on the vendor's cloud page and states no prices itself, and no tariff price, renewal price, minimum term, setup fee, VAT treatment or price for the backup feature ever appears in what we captured. The only figure resembling billing is a notice that outstanding amounts below €10 are billed in a one-time run. A buyer cannot compute the first month's cost, let alone three years, from the captured pages.

netcup VPS

Every tariff shows the discounted and the list monthly price side by side including 19% VAT, the term mechanic is explicit (1 month, 12 months −13%, 24 months −26%), block storage is priced per GB net with its rounding rule, traffic is included, and the 30-day money-back terms state the refund formula outright. We found no public information on setup fees or on what snapshots and other add-ons cost, which keeps a three-year computation from closing cleanly.