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Alex Spinov
Alex Spinov

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Hetzner Gives You 4x More Server for the Same Price — And Has a Full API

#devops #cloud #hosting #webdev

Most developers default to AWS or DigitalOcean for servers. Then they see the bill. A $5 VPS on DigitalOcean gives you 1 GB RAM. The same $5 on Hetzner gives you 4 GB RAM and 2 vCPUs.

Hetzner is Europe's best-kept hosting secret — and they have a full API for managing servers, volumes, firewalls, and load balancers programmatically.

Here is what you get and how to use the API.

Pricing Comparison (Why Hetzner Wins)

Provider $5/mo gets you RAM CPU Storage
Hetzner CX22 4 GB 2 vCPU 40 GB NVMe
DigitalOcean Basic Droplet 1 GB 1 vCPU 25 GB SSD
Linode Nanode 1 GB 1 vCPU 25 GB SSD
Vultr Regular 1 GB 1 vCPU 25 GB SSD
AWS Lightsail Nano 0.5 GB 2 vCPU 20 GB SSD

That is 4x the RAM for the same price. For side projects, hobby servers, and dev environments, Hetzner is the rational choice.

The API: Create a Server in One Command 

# Get your API token: https://console.hetzner.cloud → Project → Security → API Tokens
export HETZNER_TOKEN="your_token_here"

# Create a server
curl -X POST "https://api.hetzner.cloud/v1/servers"   -H "Authorization: Bearer $HETZNER_TOKEN"   -H "Content-Type: application/json"   -d '{
    "name": "my-app",
    "server_type": "cx22",
    "image": "ubuntu-24.04",
    "location": "nbg1",
    "ssh_keys": ["my-key"]
  }' | jq '.server | {id, name, public_net}'
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Server is ready in ~10 seconds. Not minutes. Seconds.

Python SDK 

pip install hcloud
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from hcloud import Client
from hcloud.images import Image
from hcloud.server_types import ServerType

client = Client(token="your_token")

# Create server
response = client.servers.create(
    name="my-app",
    server_type=ServerType(name="cx22"),
    image=Image(name="ubuntu-24.04")
)

server = response.server
print(f"Server {server.name}: {server.public_net.ipv4.ip}")

# List all servers
servers = client.servers.get_all()
for s in servers:
    print(f"{s.name} ({s.server_type.name}): {s.status}")

# Delete when done
server.delete()
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What the API Covers

Resource Operations
Servers Create, resize, rebuild, snapshot, rescue mode
Volumes Attach block storage (10 GB to 10 TB)
Firewalls Create rules, attach to servers
Load Balancers HTTP/TCP balancing, health checks
Floating IPs Static IPs, reassign between servers
SSH Keys Manage deployment keys
Networks Private networking between servers
Certificates Manage TLS certificates

Hetzner vs. DigitalOcean vs. Linode

Feature Hetzner DigitalOcean Linode
Price/performance Best Average Average
API quality Good Excellent Good
Managed databases ❌ ✅ ✅
CDN ❌ ✅ (Spaces CDN) ✅ (Akamai)
Kubernetes ❌ ✅ ✅
Locations EU + US (Ashburn) Global Global
Terraform provider ✅ ✅ ✅

Choose Hetzner if: You want maximum performance per dollar and are OK with EU-centric locations.
Choose DigitalOcean if: You need managed services (databases, K8s, app platform).
Choose Linode if: You want Akamai CDN integration or need specific global locations.

When to Use Hetzner

  • Side projects: 4 GB RAM for $5 runs most apps
  • Dev/staging environments: Cheap to spin up and tear down
  • CI runners: Self-hosted GitHub Actions runners at 1/4 the cost
  • VPN/proxy servers: Private networking in EU
  • Web scrapers: Run headless browsers with enough RAM

The Bottom Line

Hetzner gives you 4x the resources of competitors at the same price. The API is clean and well-documented. The only downside is fewer managed services and primarily European locations (though US East is now available).

Try it: hetzner.cloud — $5/mo for a server that actually has enough RAM for Docker.

Building something that needs data extraction, web scraping, or API integration? I have built 77+ production scrapers. Email Spinov001@gmail.com — quote in 2 hours.

More free developer tools: awesome-web-scraping (9 stars, 150+ tools) | 640+ articles on Dev.to

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