Assess DigitalOcean to Hetzner: Cloud migration from DigitalOcean to Hetzner covers planning for Droplets, databases and platform dependencies within the agreed scope. Arrange a consultation.
For small VM-based applications, DigitalOcean vs Hetzner involves bundle prices, traffic, region and operational scope. AWS Lightsail and Linode provide additional price references when choosing between several providers. Equal vCPU and RAM counts do not prove equal performance.
This comparison addresses provider selection before migration. The service page describes the migration that can be commissioned. There are no original benchmarks or invented customer cases here.
Date and methodology
Sources and prices checked 19 October 2026. All amounts exclude taxes, introductory credits and individual discounts; EUR and USD are not combined without an exchange rate.
The tables use the linked vendor sources and the stated region, product configuration and billing unit. Separately listed extras and operational services must be recorded separately for comparison; equal resource counts do not establish equal performance.
You may reuse the tables and calculation methodology in this article with attribution and a link to this article.
Contents
- Date and methodology
- Price table for small VM bundles
- Distinguish traffic bundles and overage
- Check locations per product
- Billing depends on the product family
- Assess platforms and databases separately
- Our approach at WZ-IT
- Further guides
Price table for small VM bundles
Selection method: small Linux VM references with roughly 4 GB or 4 GiB RAM; no GPU, Spot or dedicated-CPU plans. Units remain as shown in vendor listings. This is a procurement overview, not a benchmark or ranking.
| Provider and plan | vCPU / RAM | Local storage | Transfer in price list | Monthly price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DigitalOcean Basic, Regular | 2 / 4 GiB | 80 GiB SSD | 4,000 GiB | USD 24 |
| Hetzner CPX22, Germany/Finland | 2 / 4 GB (configuration) | 80 GB NVMe | 20 TB at EU locations | EUR 19.49 excluding IPv4 |
| AWS Lightsail, Linux/Unix with public IPv4 | 2 / 4 GB | 80 GB SSD | 4 TB; regional exceptions apply | USD 24 |
| Akamai/Linode Shared 4 GB | 2 / 4 GB | 80 GB | 4 TB | USD 24 |
Hetzner adds EUR 0.50 net/month for one Primary IPv4, totalling EUR 19.99 before backups and operations. The reference uses the new CPX22 price from the 15 June 2026 adjustment. An older comparison showing EUR 7.99 no longer represents that new-order price. IPv4 pricing, price adjustment.
The Regular Performance page verifies resources and EU transfer. The separate price adjustment verifies the amount; it does not establish current order availability. Plan using the specific console offer and confirm resources, location and allowance before ordering. Hetzner explicitly documents possible capacity and account restrictions. Ordering limits.
Distinguish traffic bundles and overage
DigitalOcean pools Droplet allowances and usage at team level. Additional outbound traffic costs USD 0.01/GiB. Do not assess one VM independently of the remaining pool. Inbound Droplet traffic is free. Droplet billing.
As an isolated calculation assumption, suppose 1,000 GiB of chargeable Droplet traffic remains after applying the entire team pool: 1,000 × USD 0.01 = USD 10 extra. This is not a measurement or a claim about your invoice. Use the reported pool usage in an actual calculation.
Linode Shared 4 GB includes 4 TB in the table; listed overage costs USD 0.005/GB. Newer G8 dedicated plans do not include bundled egress. The Shared table therefore cannot be applied to every Akamai VM. CPU pricing and plan limits.
Lightsail lists 4 TB for the selected bundle, with regional exceptions. Hetzner depends on plan and location; public traffic between different network zones counts as outbound. GiB, GB and TB are not interchangeable. Convert all quantities to the same unit before calculating. Lightsail pricing, Hetzner billing.
Check locations per product
| Provider | Verified location information | Selection consequence |
|---|---|---|
| DigitalOcean | Frankfurt FRA1 is listed; product availability depends on region | Check Droplets, databases and other services separately |
| Hetzner Cloud | Germany, Finland, US, Singapore | Select the EU region explicitly; account for the network zone |
| AWS Lightsail | Available regions and zones are documented separately | Do not assume every AWS region supports Lightsail |
| Akamai/Linode | Region can affect price and product selection | Record the specific target region with its plan offer |
A German registered office or an EU region does not replace reviewing data flows, access, contractual terms and backup destinations. The table therefore provides no blanket data protection or sovereignty guarantee. For technical selection, we also recommend checking application latency, database proximity and required regional products.
Billing depends on the product family
DigitalOcean bills bundled CPU Droplets per second with a minimum charge or duration; these bundles have a 672-hour monthly cap. v5 configurations have no monthly cap and are billed from configured resources for actual usage. This article's price table uses Basic Regular, not a v5 configuration. Droplet pricing model.
Hetzner charges the lower of rounded-up hourly usage and the monthly cap; a powered-off server that still exists remains billable. The same underlying issue applies to bundled DigitalOcean Droplets: powering off does not end billing. Hetzner billing, DigitalOcean billing.
For short-lived workloads, we recommend modelling actual creation and deletion times. A monthly bundle amount alone does not describe short-running jobs. Inventory separately retained resources in both environments.
Assess platforms and databases separately
DigitalOcean offers managed databases as separate products. A new server is not an equivalent replacement for that operational scope. Explicitly define database maintenance, backup, recovery and required redundancy for the target. Managed Databases.
An App Platform workload also needs its own target decision. DigitalOcean App Platform is a managed application platform; moving a VM does not address its deployment and runtime tasks. App Platform overview. One existing service path is PaaS and cloud exit, with Coolify as a target platform requiring a separate review.
Our decision matrix: For one self-managed VM, compare resources, traffic and backups first. For a platform, map functions and operational responsibility first. For regional requirements, check actual product availability. Then compare recurring source and target costs, remaining commitments and one-off migration costs. This does not produce a universal provider recommendation.
Our approach at WZ-IT
DigitalOcean to Hetzner migration is the relevant offer for moving Droplets and associated dependencies within the agreed scope. The Cloud Exit Assessment clarifies costs, target architecture and migration path before implementation. For a Linode source, see Linode migration. This comparison does not promise a new operational scope.
Further guides
For the actual data transfer, the Spaces migration guide covers rclone, feature limits and CDN dependencies.
- AWS and Hetzner: price references and method.
- Azure and Hetzner: compute, egress and platform.
- Cloud exit strategy: costs, dependencies and process.
- Migration overview: existing offers.
Plan a DigitalOcean migration: Discuss the target and migration with WZ-IT or book a consultation.
The Droplet migration guide covers the server move, snapshot limits, rsync and database acceptance.
Sources
- DigitalOcean Droplets
- DigitalOcean Droplet billing
- DigitalOcean regions
- DigitalOcean databases
- DigitalOcean App Platform
- AWS Lightsail
- AWS Lightsail regions
- Akamai CPU pricing
- Hetzner price adjustment
- Hetzner server and IPv4 overview
- Hetzner billing
- Hetzner locations
- Hetzner ordering limits
- Hetzner resource model
- Hetzner Regular Performance
