Hetzner and Linode end up on the same shortlist because they both sell plain virtual servers without a sales call, but they price from opposite ends. Hetzner's cloud price list is published in its June 15, 2026 price adjustment document, which shows current rates excluding VAT: the cost-optimized CX23 at €5.49 a month (€0.0088/hour, up from €3.99), the ARM CAX11 at €5.99 (€0.0096/hour), the regular CPX22 at €19.49 (€0.0312/hour) and the dedicated CCX13 at €42.99 (€0.0689/hour). Linode, part of Akamai since 2022, lists its 1 GB Nanode at $5 a month ($0.0075/hour) with 25 GB of SSD and 1 TB of transfer, rising through $12 for 2 GB, $24 for 4 GB, $48 for 8 GB and $192 for 32 GB on shared CPUs.
TL;DR
Hetzner sells cheaper hardware in Europe and publishes every rate in euros and dollars excluding VAT; Linode sells the same class of machine through Akamai's network with pooled transfer and a US-heavy footprint. Hetzner's CX23 (2 vCPU, 4 GB, 40 GB NVMe) is €5.49 a month at €0.0088/hour after the June 15, 2026 price adjustment, its ARM CAX11 is €5.99, and its dedicated CCX13 is €42.99; Linode's Nanode 1 GB is $5 a month with 25 GB and 1 TB of transfer, and Dedicated CPU starts at $36. Choose Hetzner for raw price per resource in Germany or Finland, choose Linode for a single account-wide transfer pool, ten US regions and hourly billing that behaves predictably in dollars.
Two structural differences decide most of these comparisons. The first is tax and currency: Hetzner quotes everything excluding VAT and sells in euros and dollars, with a primary IPv4 address adding €0.50 a month on top of the instance while IPv6 is included, and it bills hourly with a monthly cap. Linode's base prices apply in most regions — Jakarta and São Paulo list the Nanode at $6 and $7 — and it also bills hourly with the monthly rate as the cap, but its network allowance is pooled per account rather than per instance, with inbound free and $0.005 per GB above the pool in most regions. Hetzner includes 20 TB of traffic on the small cloud plans.
The second is range. Hetzner is not only a cloud: its price document also lists dedicated servers from €97.30 a month for an AX42-1 and €720.60 for a DX182-1, and it runs a server auction for refurbished hardware, which shows up on the homepage as a live listing of used machines. Linode's ladder runs to 192 GB of RAM on shared CPUs, $36 a month for a 2-core dedicated machine and $60 for 24 GB of high memory, all readable through a public API. One price note worth having before you budget: Hetzner has raised cloud prices twice in 2026, and its document shows CPX and CCX rates moving far more than the CX and CAX lines.
| Feature | Hetzner | Linode |
|---|---|---|
| Cheapest instance | CX23: 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 40 GB NVMe, €5.49/month (€0.0088/hour), excl. VAT | Nanode 1 GB: 1 vCPU, 1 GB RAM, 25 GB SSD, $5/month ($0.0075/hour) |
| RAM per entry euro/dollar | 4 GB of RAM at €5.49, roughly €1.37 per GB | 1 GB of RAM at $5, $5.00 per GB |
| ARM option | CAX11: 2 vCPU, 4 GB, 40 GB NVMe, €5.99/month (€0.0096/hour) | No ARM instance line; x86 plans only |
| Regular shared line | CPX22: 2 vCPU, 4 GB, 80 GB NVMe, €19.49/month (€0.0312/hour) after June 2026 | 2 GB $12, 4 GB $24, 8 GB $48, 16 GB $96, 32 GB $192 per month |
| Dedicated cores | CCX13: 2 vCPU, 8 GB, €42.99/month (€0.0689/hour) | Dedicated CPU from $36/month (2 cores, 4 GB); High Memory from $60/month (24 GB) |
| Billing | Hourly with a monthly cap, in euros or dollars, excluding VAT | Hourly with the monthly price as the cap, in dollars, before tax |
| IPv4 and traffic | Primary IPv4 adds €0.50/month; IPv6 included; 20 TB traffic on small plans | IPv4 included in plan price; transfer pooled per account, inbound free |
| Overage rate | Traffic beyond the included allowance billed per GB in the console | $0.005/GB above the account pool in most regions |
| Regions | Germany and Finland cheapest, US 0 to 2% above, Singapore 20 to 40% above | Ten US regions plus Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Stockholm; Jakarta and São Paulo priced higher |
| Extras on the same account | Block storage, snapshots, load balancers, dedicated servers and a used-hardware server auction | Managed databases from $15/month, object storage from $6.99/month, NodeBalancer from $10/month, backups from $2 |
Pick Hetzner if
Four gigabytes of RAM on NVMe storage for €5.49 a month excluding VAT, an ARM twin at €5.99 and a published price document you can audit line by line make Hetzner the harder number to beat in Germany or Finland. Accept two things before you commit: every figure is before VAT and the IPv4 surcharge, and 2026 has already brought two adjustments, so re-read the price document rather than the blog post you bookmarked in January.
Pick Linode if
Linode answers with $5 for a Nanode that carries 25 GB and 1 TB, ten US regions, hourly billing capped at the monthly rate, and transfer that pools across your whole account at $0.005/GB above the allowance. It is the plainer commercial choice — one currency, one network policy, an API that publishes every plan — and it costs more RAM per dollar than Hetzner at every size we compared.
Figures come from Hetzner's own price-adjustment document dated June 15, 2026, Hetzner's cloud pricing pages, and Linode's public plan API and documentation as read in October 2026. We did not collect or verify independent user reviews for either provider, so no third-party ratings are quoted here.
Per unit of RAM, yes by a wide margin: Hetzner's CX23 lists 4 GB for €5.49 a month excluding VAT, while Linode's 4 GB plan is $24 a month. The comparison is not identical — Hetzner's figure is before VAT and adds €0.50 for a primary IPv4 address, and Linode bundles 4 TB of transfer against Hetzner's 20 TB included traffic.
Yes. Hetzner's price-adjustment document, effective June 15, 2026, shows the cost-optimized CX23 moving from €3.99 to €5.49 a month, the ARM CAX11 from €4.49 to €5.99, and the regular CPX22 from €7.99 to €19.49. Prices in that document exclude VAT.
Hetzner's cheapest region is Germany and Finland, and it lists 20 TB of traffic on small cloud plans. Linode offers Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam and Stockholm as well, so latency can be comparable; the difference is that Hetzner's European price is the base price while Linode's dollar price is the base price everywhere except Jakarta and São Paulo.
Linode pools outbound transfer across the account per region, keeps inbound free, and charges $0.005 per GB above the pool in most regions. Hetzner includes 20 TB on small cloud plans and bills traffic above the included amount per GB in the console, with the rate published in its cloud pricing pages.
Hetzner sells an ARM line: the CAX series runs Ampere Altra cores, with the CAX11 at €5.99 a month for 2 vCPU, 4 GB and 40 GB NVMe. Linode's published plan list is x86 only — shared, dedicated and high-memory classes — with no ARM instance type.
Neither shows a permanent free plan. Hetzner's pricing pages list only paid instances and a server auction, and Linode gives new accounts time-limited trial credit. Both will let you start small — €5.49 or $5 — but nothing stays up for nothing.
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