Gcore vs Hetzner: Complete Comparison (2026)

Why choose Gcore

• Has a free plan (Hetzner does not)
• Higher Analytics score (7/10 vs 4/10)
• Higher Scalability score (8/10 vs 6/10)
• Better fit for enterprise (8/10 vs 4/10)

Why choose Hetzner

• Lower estimated cost for 10 users: €2/mo vs €390/mo
• Higher Cost score (9/10 vs 7/10)
• Higher Customization score (8/10 vs 7/10)
• Better fit for startups (8/10 vs 6/10)

Gcore

Pros

• The CDN includes 1 TB of traffic and 1 billion requests free each month, and traffic after that starts at 0.01 EUR per GB.
• DDoS protection pricing does not depend on attack size, and mitigation is not metered on any plan.
• The managed Kubernetes control plane is free with high availability, so you pay only for the nodes.
• A large edge footprint, reported at about 210 PoPs and 200 Tbps of capacity, suits latency-sensitive workloads such as gaming and streaming.
• Headquarters in Luxembourg is an advantage for buyers who prefer an EU-based provider.

Cons

• Trustpilot scores are around 2.5 out of 5, with complaints about recurring billing, refunds, and slow support.
• There is no public price list for VMs and bare metal; prices are only available through the calculator.
• The Terraform v2 provider is still in alpha and Gcore says it is not ready for production.
• The product range is very broad, which can make it harder for small teams to understand how pricing works.

Hetzner

Pros

• Compute is still cheaper than DigitalOcean, Linode or Vultr and several times cheaper than the hyperscalers, even after the 2026 price rises.
• Cloud servers are billed hourly with a monthly cap, and firewalls and private networks are included at no extra cost.
• Infrastructure can be automated through a REST API, a CLI, and integrations for Terraform, Ansible and Kubernetes.
• Hetzner owns its data centers in Germany and Finland, which suits teams that need EU data residency.
• Object storage includes 1 TB of storage and 1 TB of egress for a flat base price.

Cons

• Prices rose by about 30 to 37 percent in April 2026, the second increase in about 18 months.
• US cloud bandwidth allowances were cut sharply in December 2024.
• Reviewers often report strict identity checks that block or close new accounts.
• There is no 24/7 chat support, and some reviewers say support is slow to respond.
• Managed services are limited compared with the hyperscalers, so most of the stack is self-managed.