Hetzner Cloud spent a decade as the answer to “what’s the cheapest VPS that isn’t rubbish.” If you priced a server there in early 2026, a lot changed by autumn. Prices were raised twice, the ARM “click save by going Ampere” advice flipped, and - at the time of writing - the cheapest tier is temporarily not being sold to new customers at all.
This guide is the current state of the catalog: the lines, the region prices, the shared-versus-dedicated decision, and a plan recommendation for the workloads most people actually run (Node.js, WordPress, Docker, a database). Prices were checked against Hetzner’s own rate card on 2026-10-07 and re-checked on 2026-10-22; each figure is cited.
Why Hetzner in 2026, and what changed
Hetzner still runs its own data center parks in Falkenstein, Nuremberg, and Helsinki, plus cloud locations in the US (Hillsboro, Oregon and Ashburn, Virginia) and, since 2024, Singapore.[1] The value pitch is the same - well-priced, GDPR-compliant, 99.9% uptime SLA - but the pricing reality shifted.[1]
Two adjustments landed this year. A broad one effective April 1, 2026, and a second for new orders and rescales on June 15, 2026.[2] The June table is the one that matters if you’re pricing a server today, and it hit the entry tier hardest on percentage terms:
| Plan | Old (monthly, EU) | New (monthly, EU) | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| CX23 (2 vCPU / 4 GB) | €3.99 | €5.49 | +38% |
| CAX11 (2 ARM / 4 GB) | €4.49 | €5.99 | +33% |
| CPX22 (2 vCPU / 4 GB) | €7.99 | €19.49 | +144% |
| CCX13 (2 vCPU / 8 GB) | €15.99 | €42.99 | +169% |
Two things to note. First, the increase applies to new orders and instance rescales only - a server you already run keeps its old rate.[2] That flips the cheapest button in the console: resizing a long-running instance reprices it onto the current card, so treat “Rescale” as a pricing decision, not just a capacity one. Second, this is why “ARM is cheaper” died - see below.
Repricing like this is not unique to Hetzner. OVH made a parallel move on October 1, 2026, unbundling the local disk and the public IPv4 address from its Generation-3 Public Cloud instances, which pushes an identical configuration up 1.4% to 21.9% depending on size.[10] If you run OVH boxes too, our OVH Public Cloud pricing breakdown walks through the new math line by line.
The 2026 catalog: how to read the price
Hetzner splits cloud servers into three lines, and the naming tells you the model:
- Cost-Optimized (CX, CAX) - shared vCPUs, lowest price, “perfect for test environments.” CX = Intel/AMD, CAX = Ampere (ARM). EU locations only.
- Regular Performance (CPX) - shared AMD vCPUs, the best price-to-performance middle ground. EU, US, and Singapore (each zone has its own model names and prices).[2]
- General Purpose (CCX) - dedicated AMD vCPUs, unshared and predictable, for sustained high load. EU, US, and Singapore.
Within each line, the trailing digit is the size ladder - CX23 is the entry point, CX33 the step up, and so on. The price is a monthly EUR figure (net, before VAT, and excluding a primary IPv4 address, which is billed separately) per network zone,[2] and billing is hourly, postpaid, capped at the monthly rate - you pay the hourly price and never more than the monthly cap for a given month.[3]
The elephant: Cost-Optimized is currently off sale
As of October 2026 the entire Cost-Optimized line - every CX and CAX plan from CX23 to CAX41 - shows “Currently not available” on Hetzner’s own product page, backed by a status incident on limited cloud-instance availability.[4] The stated cause is “high demand and the limited availability of required hardware,” which is the same DRAM shortage that pushed prices up across the market in 2026.[5] If you’re ordering a new server today, the cheapest thing you can actually create is CPX02 (1 vCPU / 1 GB / 20 GB) at €5.99/mo net - €6.49 as printed on the price list, which includes the primary IPv4 - followed by CPX12 (1 vCPU / 2 GB) at €11.49/mo net (€11.99 on the list).[9] A 2 vCPU / 4 GB box (CPX22) is €19.49/mo net, or you step up to a dedicated CCX plan.[9]
None of this invalidates the CX/CAX rate card; it’s still the reference for existing customers and for when the line returns. But a “Hetzner in 2026” answer built only around a €5.49 CX23 would recommend a product you can’t buy right now. We’ll give you both.
CX23 vs CAX11: is ARM still worth it?
The short answer: no, not on price. This was the headline change of 2026.
Hetzner’s two cheapest historical picks were the Intel/AMD CX23 (2 shared vCPU / 4 GB / 40 GB NVMe / 20 TB traffic)[4] and the Ampere ARM CAX11 (2 shared vCPU / 4 GB / 40 GB NVMe / 20 TB traffic).[4] The classic advice was “take the ARM box, it’s cheaper and plenty fast.” After June 15 that’s inverted:
| CX23 (x86) | CAX11 (ARM) | |
|---|---|---|
| vCPU | 2 shared Intel/AMD | 2 shared Ampere |
| RAM | 4 GB | 4 GB |
| Disk | 40 GB NVMe | 40 GB NVMe |
| Included traffic | 20 TB (EU) | 20 TB (EU) |
| Monthly (EU) | €5.49 | €5.99 |
CAX11 now costs €0.50/month more than the x86 CX23 for the identical memory and disk envelope.[2] In percentage terms the ARM box took a nearly identical increase as the Intel one, but because ARM started lower it crossed past the x86 price instead of staying under it.[2][5] “ARM is no longer cheaper” is not editorializing - it’s the current rate card.
That doesn’t make ARM useless. For the same money you get Ampere’s power efficiency, which matters on always-on app servers where a few watts add up, and if you’re on ARM-native builds you won’t notice a difference in day-to-day web serving. But the price argument for choosing CAX11 over CX23 is gone. If frames-per-euro (or bytes-per-euro) is your only criterion, the x86 CX23 is the pick.
Shared vs dedicated: when to step up
The shared lines (CX/CAX and CPX) are cheap because hardware is shared with “neighbors” - vCPUs are virtualized and contended, which is fine for low-to-moderate and bursty traffic, less fine for sustained saturation.[1] Hetzner is explicit: shared is for development, testing, personal sites, small databases, low- to moderate-traffic web servers.[1]
Dedicated (CCX) assigns dedicated vCPUs - no noisy neighbors, predictable and consistent performance - and is where Hetzner points high-traffic websites, large databases, gaming servers, and ML.[1] The premium is real: CCX13 (2 dedicated vCPU / 8 GB) is €42.99/mo against CPX22 (2 shared vCPU / 4 GB) at €19.49/mo.[2]
The rule of thumb: if your box is CPU-bound continuously (a busy production API, a large Postgres, a game server under load) the dedicated vCPU is worth the jump because shared vCPU performance drops exactly when your neighbors ramp up. For a blog, a staging site, or a small app with spikey-but-mostly-idle usage, shared is the better spend of the same money.
Which region?
Hetzner runs four network zones, and the price and included traffic differ per zone - choose before you build, because traffic between zones bills like ordinary internet traffic.[6]
| Network zone | Locations | Notable |
|---|---|---|
eu-central |
Falkenstein, Nuremberg (DE); Helsinki (FI) | Cheapest; ≥20 TB included traffic |
us-east |
Ashburn, VA | For a US user base; higher price, less traffic |
us-west |
Hillsboro, OR | US west coast |
ap-southeast |
Singapore (since 2024) | For APAC |
For a US audience, Ashburn (us-east) is the sensible default - it’s on the East Coast where most of the equation sits, and it’s a real Hetzner first-party location, not a resold presence. The tradeoff is cost: US plans run noticeably higher than EU and include about 1 TB instead of 20 TB.[6][7] If your users span both continents, accept that cross-zone traffic bills as normal egress and pick the zone that holds the majority of your latency-sensitive users.
For APAC, Singapore (ap-southeast) is the only option and has been live since 2024.[1][6]
Picking a plan for your workload
Prices below are EU monthly net for the shared and dedicated lines; US prices run higher for the same spec. Where a plan is currently off sale, we say so and give the orderable alternative.
Node.js / Next.js app
A single Next.js (output: 'standalone') or Node API on one box fits any of this generation comfortably. The cheapest currently orderable is CPX02 (1 vCPU / 1 GB / 20 GB) at €5.99/mo net, and a comfortable 2 vCPU / 4 GB box is CPX22 at €19.49/mo.[9] If you’re an existing customer or the Cost-Optimized line is back, CX23 / CAX11 (2 vCPU / 4 GB) is the budget pick. Add PM2 cluster mode or a reverse proxy on top and you’ll only feel the wall when you outgrow 4 GB.
WordPress / personal blog
Light front-end work, mostly idle: shared is exactly right and the cheapest thing that exists. CPX02 at €5.99 is enough for a small site, and CPX22 at €19.49 (or CX/CAX when orderable) is comfortably more than a single WordPress site needs; even one managed WP instance plus its DB fits in 2 vCPU / 4 GB.[2]
Docker / self-hosted toolkit
Containers add a lean constant overhead (the daemon, your reverse proxy, monitoring), not a huge one. Stay on the 4 GB shared tier - CPX22, or CX23/CAX11 - unless you’re also running CI runners or a self-hosted GitLab, where 8 GB is the safer floor.[8] Coolify, run as a self-hosted container, lists a 2 vCPU / 2 GB minimum and runs happier at the 4 GB shared tier.
Database (Postgres / MySQL)
This is where “shared vs dedicated” bites. A production Postgres that you actually query is the classic sustained-load case, and the dedicated vCPU is the difference between consistent and neighbor-dependent latency. Start at CCX13 (2 dedicated vCPU / 8 GB / 80 GB) at €42.99/mo.[2] A small embedded DB for a low-traffic app can live on shared, but the moment it becomes the bottleneck, move it to a dedicated CCX rather than just adding RAM to a shared box.[1]
Cheat sheet
| Your situation | Pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Cheapest possible EU box (line currently off sale) | CX23 €5.49 / CAX11 €5.99 | 2 vCPU / 4 GB; take x86 CX23 - ARM is now pricier |
| Cheapest orderable box today | CPX02 €5.99 (€6.49 with IPv4) | 1 vCPU / 1 GB / 20 GB, shared AMD - EU only |
| Cheapest orderable 2 vCPU / 4 GB box | CPX22 €19.49 | 2 vCPU / 4 GB / 80 GB, shared AMD |
| WordPress / blog / staging | CPX22 or CX23 | shared is plenty for bursty low load |
| Node/Next.js production | CPX22 → CCX13 as you grow | 4 GB starts, dedicated vCPU when CPU-bound |
| Docker / self-hosted | CPX22 (8 GB if CI runs) | lean container overhead |
| Production database | CCX13 €42.99 | dedicated vCPU, 2 vCPU / 8 GB |
| High-traffic site, game server, ML | CCX33+ | consistent dedicated vCPUs at scale |
The honest bottom line for 2026: Hetzner is no longer “the cheapest.” The entry tier went up a third and is temporarily not being sold, but the shared CPX tier is still among the best price-to-performance in Europe, and CCX gives you genuinely dedicated compute without hyperscaler markup. And for the specific old question - should I buy ARM? - the answer is now the exact opposite of 2023: on the current rate card, the x86 CX23 is cheaper than the ARM CAX11.
Sources
- Hetzner - Cloud overview (Shared vs Dedicated, locations incl. Singapore since 2024, GDPR, 99.9% SLA). https://www.hetzner.com/cloud/ - checked 2026-10-07
- Hetzner Docs - Price Adjustment 15 June 2026 (old/new hourly & monthly prices excl. IPv4 for CX, CAX, CPX, CCX in DE/FI, US and SIN; applies to new orders and rescales). https://www.hetzner.com/pressroom/standardization-and-price-adjustment-of-our-server-products/ - checked 2026-10-10
- Hetzner Docs - Cloud billing FAQ (hourly billing with monthly price cap; partial hours rounded up). https://docs.hetzner.com/cloud/billing/faq/ - checked 2026-10-07
- Hetzner - Cost-Optimized Cloud Servers (CX23 / CAX11 specs and “Currently not available” status on the product line). https://www.hetzner.com/cloud/cost-optimized/ - checked 2026-10-07
- webhosting.today - “OVHcloud Unbundles, Hetzner Sells Out” (Oct 5, 2026; reports on Cost-Optimized line off sale and the June 15 price table). https://webhosting.today/2026/10/05/ovhcloud-unbundled-the-ip-and-the-disk-hetzner-took-its-cheapest-line-off-sale-the-memory-bill-has-reached-the-price-list/ - checked 2026-10-07
- Hetzner - General Purpose (CCX) page (EU ≥20 TB, US ≥1 TB, AP ≥0.5 TB included traffic; CCX13 €42.99). https://www.hetzner.com/cloud/general-purpose/ - checked 2026-10-07
- Hetzner Docs - Locations (network zones
eu-central,us-east/ASH,us-west/HIL,ap-southeast/SIN; zone price and traffic differences). https://docs.hetzner.com/cloud/general/locations/ - checked 2026-10-07 - Coolify - Self-hosted installation requirements (2 vCPU / 2 GB RAM / 10 GB minimum). https://coolify.io/docs/start-with-self-hosted - checked 2026-10-07
- Hetzner - Regular Performance (CPX02 1 vCPU / 1 GB / 20 GB €6.49 list incl. IPv4; CPX12 €11.99; CPX22 2 vCPU / 4 GB / 80 GB €19.99 list; list prices include the primary IPv4, so net plan price = list − €0.50). https://www.hetzner.com/cloud/regular-performance/ - checked 2026-10-22
- OVHcloud Blog - “Public Cloud, our prices are changing on 1 October 2026” (component rates, instance-by-instance table, flex and gateway examples; 1.4% to 21.9% effective increase depending on instance size). https://blog.ovhcloud.com/en/posts/public-cloud-pricing-update-october-2026/ - checked 2026-10-03