Hetzner Cloud vs Dedicated Server: Every Type with Price per vCPU and GB RAM

Deciding between Hetzner Cloud and a dedicated server right now? We calculate your workload against both lines and plan networking, backup and migration - see Hetzner consulting, architecture and migration or book an initial consultation.

The price adjustment of 15 June 2026 has shifted the calculation between Hetzner Cloud and dedicated servers. A CCX53 with 32 dedicated vCPUs used to cost €249.99 net per month; today it costs €533.49. At the same time, Hetzner moved its dedicated portfolio to fixed variants and lowered setup fees.

This article puts all current cloud types and the regular dedicated lines AX and EX side by side, with net price, euros per vCPU or thread and euros per GB of RAM. It also covers hidden costs, delivery times, sizing examples and the most common misconceptions. All prices are net (excluding VAT), excluding IPv4, for the locations in Germany and Finland, as of 13 October 2026.

Table of contents

• Key points at a glance
• Cloud and dedicated: the technical difference
• Hetzner Cloud: every type with price per vCPU and GB RAM
• Dedicated servers: AX and EX with price per thread and GB RAM
• Head-to-head: what a thread and a GB of RAM cost
• When the cloud wins
• When dedicated wins
• Hidden costs: IPv4, setup, backups, traffic
• Availability and delivery times in October 2026
• Sizing examples: situation and recommendation
• Hybrid: connecting cloud and dedicated via vSwitch
• Common misconceptions
• Status and methodology
• Our approach at WZ-IT
• Further guides

Key points at a glance

• Small workloads belong in the cloud. The cheapest orderable cloud server, the CPX02, costs €5.99 net; the cheapest regularly orderable dedicated server, the AX42-1, costs €97.30 plus a €49 setup fee.
• From about 8 threads and 32 GB RAM under sustained load, dedicated is cheaper. A GB of RAM costs €2.01 on the AX102-1 and €4.17 on the CCX53. A thread costs €8.04 on the AX102-1 and €16.67 on the CCX53.
• A cloud vCPU is a thread, not a core. According to Hetzner, this applies to the dedicated CCX types; shared types only guarantee a baseline performance.
• The setup fee determines the runtime threshold. An AX102-1 is cheaper than a CCX53 with the same thread count from around 12 days of runtime.
• The cheapest cloud class cannot be ordered. CX and CAX are listed as not available on 13 October 2026.
• ECC costs extra on dedicated servers. The AX102-3 with ECC RAM costs €195 per month more than the AX102-1 without ECC.

Cloud and dedicated: the technical difference

A Hetzner Cloud server is a virtual machine on a physical host. It is created via the Hetzner Console or the API, billed per hour up to a monthly cap and can be rescaled, backed up and cloned via snapshot. A dedicated server is a physical server in a Hetzner data centre whose hardware belongs entirely to one customer. It is managed via the Robot interface.

The bandwidth and virtualisation details come from the cloud server FAQ and the Regular Performance product page, the dedicated details from the AX102 product page.

Hetzner Cloud: every type with price per vCPU and GB RAM

Since October 2025, Hetzner has distinguished three cloud lines: Cost-Optimized (CX with Intel or AMD, CAX with Arm CPUs from Ampere) on older hardware generations, Regular Performance (CPX) on current AMD hardware and General Purpose (CCX) with dedicated vCPUs on current hardware (What's New). New additions are the CPX12 (in the EU since 7 July 2026) and the CPX02 (since 6 October 2026).

Sources: Hetzner price adjustment of 15 June 2026 and the product pages Regular Performance, General Purpose and Cost-Optimized. The CPX02 and CPX12 prices are not in the price adjustment table and come from the price data of the product page.

Three observations from the table:

• Within the CPX line, the price per vCPU falls with size, from €11.49 (CPX12) to €8.12 (CPX62). CPX02 and CPX12 are the most expensive orderable cloud types per GB of RAM.
• A dedicated CCX vCPU costs roughly twice as much as a shared CPX vCPU, €16.67 to €21.50 versus €8.12 to €11.49. For RAM, both lines are close at €4.06 to €5.37 per GB.
• The monthly cap applies after around 624 hours, i.e. after about 26 days. For every type this follows from the monthly price divided by the hourly price.

In the USA (Ashburn, Hillsboro) and in Singapore, prices are higher and the included traffic is considerably lower, for example 1 to 8 TB in the USA and 0.5 to 8 TB in Singapore. CCX is available in the EU, the USA and Singapore, the new CPX generation in the EU and Singapore, and the USA uses the older CPX11 to CPX51 generation. CX and CAX are only offered in the EU.

Dedicated servers: AX and EX with price per thread and GB RAM

Since 15 June 2026, Hetzner has offered dedicated servers only in fixed variants with the suffixes -1, -2 and -3, plus limited variants (-1-LTD) built from hardware sourced at lower cost, while supplies last (press release). Individual RAM and storage configurations are no longer available. The variant number says nothing about size: on the AX102, -3 is the ECC variant of -1, and -2 has more RAM.

Sources: Hetzner price adjustment, the AX and EX matrix pages and the configurators of the individual models, e.g. AX102. Variants such as AX42-2, AX102-3 and EX63-4 were added after the June table and only appear in the configurator. Thread counts are derived from core count and SMT/Hyper-Threading, see Status and methodology.

All dedicated servers include unlimited traffic with a guaranteed 1 Gbit/s and, according to the product page, have no minimum term and can be cancelled immediately. AX and EX are located in Falkenstein (FSN1) and Helsinki (HEL1). Hetzner also offers storage servers (SX), Dell servers (DX) and GPU servers (GEX), which are not covered here. The GPU servers are compared in Hetzner GPU servers compared. There is currently no Arm line among dedicated servers; the former RX product page redirects to the server finder.

Head-to-head: what a thread and a GB of RAM cost

The following table condenses both datasets. For the cloud lines it shows the range across all sizes, for dedicated the cheapest regular variant per model.

This means:

• An exclusive thread costs €6.08 to €8.04 on the regular base variants. That is less than a shared CPX vCPU (from €8.12) and less than half of a dedicated CCX vCPU (from €16.67).
• RAM costs about half on the Ryzen and Core models. AX42-1, AX102-1 and EX63-1 are at €1.52 to €2.30 per GB, the orderable cloud types at €4.06 to €5.99. The EPYC and Xeon models with ECC registered RAM are at cloud level with €4.35 to €4.78, but offer 32 to 48 cores.
• Before 15 June 2026, CCX and dedicated were closer together. The CCX53 cost €7.81 per vCPU at the time, today €16.67.

These values measure price per resource, not performance. A thread of a Ryzen 9 7950X3D and a shared vCPU on older hardware deliver different amounts of work.

When the cloud wins

• Small servers. New dedicated servers start at €57.30 as a limited offer and at €97.30 regularly. A CPX22 with 2 vCPUs and 4 GB RAM costs €19.49.
• Short runtimes. Cloud servers have no setup fee (payment FAQ). For tests, CI runners, load tests or migration windows you only pay for the hours.
• Fluctuating load and automation. Servers are created via API or Terraform, can be rescaled and placed behind a load balancer. Kubernetes workers that come and go on demand fit here.
• Platform features. Snapshots, automatic backups, Floating IPs, Cloud Networks and free stateful firewalls are built in. On dedicated servers, the operating system has to handle these tasks itself.
• Locations outside Europe. Ashburn, Hillsboro and Singapore are only available in the cloud.
• Fast replacement. A broken or compromised server is recreated from a snapshot or image instead of being repaired.

Two cloud limits matter for planning: the disk of a cloud server cannot be shrunk when rescaling, and by default up to 20 shared and 8 dedicated vCPUs are enabled, with higher limits available on request (server overview). A CCX43 with 16 dedicated vCPUs therefore requires a limit increase first.

When dedicated wins

• Sustained load from about 8 threads and 32 GB RAM. Here a thread or a GB of RAM on the base variants costs about half, see head-to-head.
• RAM-heavy services. Databases, caches, search indexes and Java applications benefit from cheap RAM. 128 GB cost €257.30 on the AX102-1 and €533.49 on the CCX53.
• Lots of local storage. The largest cloud type has 960 GB of local NVMe; dedicated servers come with 2 × 1.92 TB to 4 × 3.84 TB.
• High outbound traffic. Dedicated servers have unlimited traffic at a guaranteed 1 Gbit/s. The cloud includes 20 to 60 TB.
• No shared resources. On shared cloud types, instances share hardware with neighbours. On a dedicated server, no other workloads compete for CPU, cache or memory bus.
• Virtualisation. Nested virtualisation is not possible in the cloud. Proxmox on Hetzner or other hypervisors require dedicated hardware.

Hidden costs: IPv4, setup, backups, traffic

The list price is not the invoice amount. Depending on the setup, these items are added, all net:

A worked example: a CCX33 with IPv4 and backups enabled costs €138.49 + €0.50 + €27.70 = €166.69 net per month. With 19% German VAT, as shown on the Hetzner website for Germany, it is €198.36.

Only outbound traffic is counted. According to the billing FAQ, traffic between Hetzner Cloud and Hetzner dedicated servers is internal and free of charge. If you want to compare data volumes against hyperscalers, see the egress cost comparison.

Availability and delivery times in October 2026

The cheapest cloud class is currently only a price anchor:

• CX and CAX are listed as "Currently not available" on the cloud product page (13 October 2026).
• Since 26 June 2026, a status notice has been in place: new cloud servers can only be created to a limited extent for new customers and randomly selected existing customers.
• Existing CX and CAX servers keep running. If you delete one, you currently cannot recreate it in the same class.

For dedicated servers, Hetzner publishes estimated delivery times every week. As of 6 October 2026:

According to Hetzner, limited variants are only offered when hardware sourced at lower cost is available in the data centre, and only while supplies last. For planning, the regular prices are therefore what counts. The server auction with used hardware and no setup fee was excluded from the June adjustment.

Sizing examples: situation and recommendation

Three calculations with prices including IPv4, net:

Example A: database with 8 vCPUs and 32 GB RAM under sustained load

The AX42-1 is €430.88 cheaper per year and has twice the threads and twice the RAM. In exchange, it lacks ECC RAM, snapshots and rescaling. In Germany, provisioning takes 2 to 3 working days.

Example B: 32 threads and 128 GB RAM for a database or container host

With the same thread count and the same RAM, the AX102-1 costs €3,170.88 less per year. Even the ECC variant remains cheaper than the CCX53.

Example C: 5-day load test with 32 threads

A CCX53 costs €102.70 for 120 hours (€0.8558 per hour including IPv4). An AX102-1 costs €49.80 at the hourly rate plus a €129 setup fee, €178.80 in total. The threshold is €129 divided by the €0.4408 hourly difference, i.e. around 293 hours or 12 days. Below that, the cloud is cheaper; above it, the dedicated server.

Overview: situation and recommendation

For ongoing operations, the number of servers matters. Fewer, larger dedicated servers mean fewer systems to patch, monitor and back up.

Hybrid: connecting cloud and dedicated via vSwitch

Cloud and dedicated are not mutually exclusive. Via a vSwitch, dedicated servers can be coupled to a Hetzner Cloud Network. A typical setup: web frontends on cloud servers behind a load balancer, the database on a dedicated server.

The key rules from the Hetzner documentation:

• One vSwitch per Cloud Network. Up to 100 servers per vSwitch, and one server can be attached to 5 vSwitches (vSwitch docs).
• MTU 1400. On the dedicated servers, the VLAN interface has to be configured manually with an MTU of 1400; cloud servers receive their configuration automatically.
• No router on the dedicated side. A dedicated server cannot act as the router for the Cloud Network.
• Internal traffic is free, including between locations. For public subnets on the vSwitch, 1 TB per month is included, and each additional TB costs €1.00.

The guide Proxmox cluster networking on Hetzner shows what this looks like in a Proxmox cluster.

Common misconceptions

"Dedicated is always cheaper than the cloud"

Not for small workloads. A CPX32 with 4 vCPUs and 8 GB RAM costs €35.49, the smallest regularly orderable dedicated server €97.30 plus a €49 setup fee. ECC variants also shift the calculation: the AX102-3 costs €452.30 instead of €257.30.

"A cloud vCPU is a physical core"

On the CCX types, one vCPU equals one thread of a physical core, according to Hetzner. The shared types CX, CPX and CAX only guarantee a baseline performance and may burst above it temporarily. If you need 16 cores, you need 32 dedicated vCPUs in the cloud.

"Dedicated servers lock me in monthly"

According to the product page, dedicated servers have no minimum term and can be cancelled immediately. Hetzner bills hourly up to the monthly cap. The actual barrier is the setup fee.

"Cloud traffic is unlimited"

In the EU, 20 TB are included, 30 to 60 TB on the CCX33 to CCX63. After that, each TB costs €1.00 net, billed in 100 MB blocks. Traffic is only unlimited on dedicated servers with a 1 Gbit connection.

"Docker does not run on CAX with Arm CPUs"

Docker Engine officially supports arm64. What matters is that the images you use have an arm64 variant. Limitations: rescaling and snapshots only work within the same architecture, and CAX currently cannot be ordered.

"Every AX102 has ECC RAM"

Since the standardisation, the AX102-1 has 128 GB DDR5 without ECC. ECC is available on the AX102-3 (128 GB) and AX102-2 (192 GB). If you require ECC, check the variant in the configurator.

"Existing servers are never affected by the June adjustment"

Existing servers only keep their terms as long as they remain unchanged. A rescale moves a cloud server to the current prices, as does restoring a deleted server or transferring a project to a different currency (billing FAQ). Details are in our analysis of the price adjustment.

Status and methodology

• Data collected: 13 October 2026. Delivery times as of 6 October 2026.
• Prices: net excluding VAT, excluding IPv4, locations in Germany and Finland, monthly price. Sources are the price adjustment table, the price data behind the Hetzner product pages and the configurators of the dedicated servers. Where both are available, the values are identical, for example €533.49 for the CCX53 and €257.30 for the AX102-1.
• Gross: The Hetzner website shows prices including VAT depending on the selected country. With 19% German VAT, €138.49 (CCX33) becomes €164.80 and €257.30 (AX102-1) becomes €306.19.
• € per vCPU: monthly price divided by vCPUs.
• € per thread (dedicated): monthly price divided by threads. Threads = cores × 2 with SMT or Hyper-Threading. Exceptions: EX44 with 6 performance cores with Hyper-Threading and 8 efficiency cores (20 threads), EX63 with 20 cores without Hyper-Threading (20 threads).
• € per GB RAM: monthly price divided by GB of RAM. The value assigns the full server price to RAM and is meant as a comparison metric, not as a cost allocation.
• Annual cost: 12 × monthly price including IPv4 plus setup.
• Runtime threshold: setup fee divided by the difference in hourly prices including IPv4.
• Not included: performance benchmarks, Volumes, Object Storage, server auction prices, storage, Dell and GPU servers.

Tables and figures may be reused with attribution and a link to this article.

Our approach at WZ-IT

We plan Hetzner environments around the workload profile, not the list price. You keep your own Hetzner account and contract.

• Platform choice and sizing: We measure the CPU, RAM, storage and traffic requirements of existing systems and calculate cloud types and dedicated variants against each other, including IPv4, backups and setup. More under Hetzner consulting, architecture and migration.
• Hybrid architecture: We plan Cloud Networks, vSwitch, firewalls, backups and access as one environment.
• Migration: We carry out the move from cloud to dedicated or vice versa with a test migration and rollback plan.
• Operations: Updates, hardening, monitoring and backups are covered by our Linux server management from €149.90 net per month for the first server, with tiered pricing from the second server. For Hetzner-specific questions, see Hetzner server management.
• Virtualisation: On dedicated servers, we build Proxmox on Hetzner.

If a cloud server is the better choice for your workload, we recommend the cloud server.

Further guides

• Hetzner consulting, architecture and migration - platform choice, networking and migration
• Hetzner price increase June 2026 - background and alternatives to CPX and CCX
• Hetzner Managed Server vs. server management - when operations are part of the decision
• Outsourcing Hetzner server maintenance - patching, monitoring and backups in detail
• Hetzner Cloud Volumes explained - expanding storage for cloud servers
• Setting up Proxmox on Hetzner - dedicated server with ZFS RAID1
• Kubernetes on Hetzner - clusters on cloud and dedicated servers

Cloud, dedicated or both? We calculate your Hetzner environment with real load data and propose the right split. Book an initial consultation now

Sources

• Hetzner Docs: Price adjustment 15 June 2026
• Hetzner Pressroom: Standardisation and price adjustment of server products
• Hetzner Cloud: What's New (CPX02, CPX12, new lines)
• Hetzner Cloud: product overview with availability
• Hetzner Cloud: Regular Performance (CPX)
• Hetzner Cloud: General Purpose (CCX)
• Hetzner Cloud: Cost-Optimized (CX, CAX)
• Hetzner Docs: cloud server overview, IPv4 price and limits
• Hetzner Docs: cloud server FAQ (vCPU, nested virtualisation, rescale)
• Hetzner Docs: cloud billing (backups, snapshots, traffic)
• Hetzner Docs: billing system (hourly rate up to monthly cap)
• Hetzner Docs: payment FAQ (setup fees)
• Hetzner Docs: IP pricing for dedicated servers
• Hetzner Docs: Floating IPs
• Hetzner: dedicated server AX matrix
• Hetzner: dedicated server EX matrix
• Hetzner: AX102 product page and configurator
• Hetzner Docs: dedicated server delivery times
• Hetzner Status: limited availability of cloud instances
• Hetzner Docs: connecting dedicated servers to Cloud Networks via vSwitch
• Hetzner Docs: vSwitch
• Docker documentation: Docker Engine on Ubuntu (architectures)