Cloudways vs Hetzner Cloud: Complete Comparison (2026)
An in-depth comparison of Cloudways and Hetzner Cloud to help you choose the right tool for your business.
Last updated: November 2026
Cloudways
7/10
Managed cloud hosting platform that runs WordPress, WooCommerce, Magento, Laravel and PHP apps on DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, AWS or Google Cloud servers.
Hetzner Cloud
6.2/10
Hourly-billed virtual cloud servers, object storage, networking and load balancers from German host Hetzner, aimed at developers and cost-conscious technical teams.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
| Feature | | H Hetzner Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| Scores | ||
| Overall Rating | 7/10 | 6.2/10 |
| Integration | 7/10 | 7/10 |
| Support | 6/10 | 4/10 |
| Cost | 6/10 | 8/10 |
| Customization | 6/10 | 7/10 |
| Security | 8/10 | 6/10 |
| Reliability | 8/10 | 7/10 |
| Ease of Use | 8/10 | 7/10 |
| Analytics | 7/10 | 4/10 |
| Scalability | 7/10 | 6/10 |
| Pricing | ||
| Free plan | No | No |
| Cheapest paid plan | $14/mo Flexible Micro (DigitalOcean) | €6/mo Cost-Optimized CX23 |
| Estimated cost for 10 users | $14/mo Flexible Micro (DigitalOcean) | €6/mo Cost-Optimized CX23 |
| Features | ||
| API and CLI | ||
| Automatic Backups | ||
| Cloud Compute | ||
| Multiple Regions | ||
| VPS Hosting | ||
| Content Delivery Network | Not listed | |
| DDoS Protection | Not listed | |
| Dedicated Servers | Not listed | |
| Free SSL Certificates | Not listed | |
| Git Deployments | Not listed | |
| Managed WordPress | Not listed | |
| Object Storage | Not listed | |
| Uptime SLA | Not listed | |
Cloudways vs Hetzner Cloud cost by team size
| Team size | Cloudways | Hetzner Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| 1 user | $14/moFlexible Micro (DigitalOcean) | €6/moCost-Optimized CX23 |
| 5 users | $14/moFlexible Micro (DigitalOcean) | €6/moCost-Optimized CX23 |
| 10 users | $14/moFlexible Micro (DigitalOcean) | €6/moCost-Optimized CX23 |
| 25 users | $14/moFlexible Micro (DigitalOcean) | €6/moCost-Optimized CX23 |
| 50 users | $14/moFlexible Micro (DigitalOcean) | €6/moCost-Optimized CX23 |
The plan that fits each team size, billed monthly, before add-ons and usage charges. Each cost opens that tool's pricing calculator for the team size.
Which One Should You Choose?
Why choose Cloudways
- Higher Analytics score (7/10 vs 4/10)
- Higher Support score (6/10 vs 4/10)
- Better fit for small business (7/10 vs 5/10)
HWhy choose Hetzner Cloud
- Higher Cost score (8/10 vs 6/10)
- Higher Customization score (7/10 vs 6/10)
- Better fit for developers (9/10 vs 6/10)
Pros & Cons
Cloudways
Pros
- You can choose from five cloud providers and more than 50 locations from one control panel.
- Hourly pay-as-you-go billing, with a 5-day trial that needs no credit card.
- Every server includes free SSL, Layer 3 and 4 DDoS mitigation, a firewall and offsite backups.
- Agencies get one-click staging, cloning and Git auto-deployment for many client sites.
- Ratings are strong, at about 4.7 on G2 and 4.6 on Trustpilot.
Cons
- Email hosting and domain registration are not included.
- Billing gets hard to track once add-ons and bandwidth overages are added, and some reviewers report charges after cancelling.
- Some reviewers say support quality has dropped since the DigitalOcean acquisition.
- Power users report limited low-level control.
- Phone support requires a paid premium support add-on.
HHetzner Cloud
Pros
- EU servers include 20 TB of traffic, and extra traffic costs only €1 per TB.
- Hourly billing capped at a monthly price, with no contracts.
- A full API and CLI plus Terraform and Ansible integrations make automation straightforward.
- Stateful firewalls and private networks come at no extra cost.
- Still cheaper per spec than DigitalOcean in independent 2026 comparisons.
Cons
- Prices rose twice in 2026, with CPX and CCX new orders up by as much as about 176%.
- Cost-Optimized types are listed as unavailable, and provisioning was limited for new customers from June 2026.
- Many users report account verification failures and suspensions with little explanation.
- No managed database, serverless or managed Kubernetes products.
- US and Singapore servers include far less traffic than EU servers.
Not sold on either?
Frequently Asked Questions
Cloudways scores higher on our Hosting & Infrastructure criteria: 7/10 against 6.2/10 for Hetzner Cloud. The largest gap is in Analytics: 7/10 for Cloudways and 4/10 for Hetzner Cloud.
No, neither Cloudways nor Hetzner Cloud lists a free plan.
Hetzner Cloud is the better fit for developers: we rate it 9/10 for them, against 6/10 for Cloudways.
