Hetzner Cloud vs Neon
Side-by-side comparison to help you pick the right tool.
| Hetzner Cloud | Neon | |
|---|---|---|
| Tagline | European cloud servers at a fraction of AWS pricing. | Serverless Postgres with branching and instant scale-to-zero. |
| Category | Hosting Infrastructure | Hosting Infrastructure |
| Pricing | Usage Based | Freemium |
| Skill Level | Developer | Developer |
| Platforms | Api Headless | Web, Browser, Api Headless |
| Use Cases | Side Project, Solo Indie, Small Team | Solo Indie, Side Project, Small Team |
| Traits | Eu Gdpr Compliant, Good Api, Fast To Set Up | Has Free Tier, Fast To Set Up, Good Api, Active Development |
| Best For | Best for developers who want affordable, predictable cloud hosting — especially if EU data residency matters. | Best for developers who want managed Postgres with a git-like branching workflow and zero idle costs. |
Hetzner Cloud
Hetzner Cloud is a European cloud infrastructure provider offering virtual machines (VMs), dedicated servers, object storage, load balancers, and managed Kubernetes at prices significantly lower than AWS, GCP, or Azure. Data centres in Germany, Finland, Singapore, and the United States give flexibility over data residency. Hetzner's API is clean and well-documented, and the web console is straightforward. EU-based infrastructure makes it a natural fit for companies needing GDPR-compliant hosting without overpaying for compute. It is widely used by developers and bootstrapped startups who want reliable, predictable cloud hosting at a fraction of the cost of hyperscaler alternatives.
View detailsNeon
Neon is a serverless PostgreSQL provider that separates storage from compute, allowing databases to scale to zero when idle and wake in milliseconds when needed. Its git-like database branching lets you create isolated copies of your database for each pull request or preview environment, then delete them when the branch merges — enabling safe schema migrations and isolated testing environments without provisioning separate databases. The free tier includes one project with 0.5 GB storage and a generous compute allowance. Neon integrates with Vercel, Railway, and other platforms via environment variables. It is popular with Next.js developers and teams using preview deployment workflows who want Postgres without idle compute costs.
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