Hetzner vs Microsoft Azure Comparison

Why choose Hetzner

• Higher Cost score (9/10 vs 4/10)
• Higher Ease of Use score (6/10 vs 4/10)
• Better fit for developers (9/10 vs 7/10)
• Better fit for small business (6/10 vs 4/10)

Why choose Microsoft Azure

• Has a free plan (Hetzner does not)
• Higher Analytics score (8/10 vs 4/10)
• Higher Scalability score (9/10 vs 6/10)
• Better fit for enterprise (9/10 vs 4/10)

Hetzner

Pros

• Compute is still cheaper than DigitalOcean, Linode or Vultr and several times cheaper than the hyperscalers, even after the 2026 price rises.
• Cloud servers are billed hourly with a monthly cap, and firewalls and private networks are included at no extra cost.
• Infrastructure can be automated through a REST API, a CLI, and integrations for Terraform, Ansible and Kubernetes.
• Hetzner owns its data centers in Germany and Finland, which suits teams that need EU data residency.
• Object storage includes 1 TB of storage and 1 TB of egress for a flat base price.

Cons

• Prices rose by about 30 to 37 percent in April 2026, the second increase in about 18 months.
• US cloud bandwidth allowances were cut sharply in December 2024.
• Reviewers often report strict identity checks that block or close new accounts.
• There is no 24/7 chat support, and some reviewers say support is slow to respond.
• Managed services are limited compared with the hyperscalers, so most of the stack is self-managed.

Microsoft Azure

Pros

• Free account includes a 200 USD credit plus always-free allowances such as 1 million Functions requests and Azure DevOps for 5 users.
• Close integration with Microsoft products such as Entra ID and Power BI is repeatedly praised by reviewers.
• Very broad catalogue covering compute, Kubernetes, serverless, databases, storage and AI services.
• Global footprint of over 400 datacenters across 70 regions as of fiscal 2025.
• Reviewers credit built-in identity management and security.

Cons

• Reviewers on Capterra and TrustRadius say monthly bills are hard to understand and predict.
• Steep learning curve, with many services carrying similar names.
• Some PeerSpot reviewers report support tickets taking weeks or months to resolve.
• Paid support is extra, from 29 to 1,000 USD per month beyond the free Basic plan.
• Integration with non-Microsoft platforms and documentation for new releases draw criticism.