Hetzner
Jenkins
| Feature | Hetzner | Jenkins |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | From $3.79/mo | Free only |
| Free Plan | ✗ No | ✓ Yes |
| Rating | 4.6 / 5 | 4.2 / 5 |
| Best For | startups, indie-hackers, european-companies, cost-conscious-teams | enterprise-teams, on-premise-deployments, complex-pipelines, legacy-systems |
| Founded | 1997 | 2011 |
| Cloud Servers | ✓ | ✗ |
| Dedicated Servers | ✓ | ✗ |
| Load Balancers | ✓ | ✗ |
| Block Storage | ✓ | ✗ |
| Object Storage | ✓ | ✗ |
| Firewalls | ✓ | ✗ |
| Private Networks | ✓ | ✗ |
| Pipeline As Code | ✗ | ✓ |
| Plugins | ✗ | ✓ |
| Distributed Builds | ✗ | ✓ |
| Pipeline Visualization | ✗ | ✓ |
| Scm Integration | ✗ | ✓ |
| Artifact Management | ✗ | ✓ |
| Notifications | ✗ | ✓ |
✓ Hetzner Pros
- Dramatically cheaper than AWS, GCP, and Azure
- Excellent price-to-performance ratio
- European data centers with strong GDPR compliance
- Simple and transparent pricing
✗ Hetzner Cons
- Fewer managed services than hyperscalers
- Limited regions (Europe and US East only)
- Less ecosystem of integrated services
✓ Jenkins Pros
- Completely free and open source
- Extremely extensible with 1,800+ plugins
- Mature and battle-tested over many years
- Supports any programming language and platform
✗ Jenkins Cons
- Dated UI feels old compared to modern CI tools
- Requires significant maintenance and administration
- Groovy-based Jenkinsfiles have steep learning curve
The Verdict
Hetzner is built for startups and indie hackers, with a focus on cloud-servers and dedicated-servers. Jenkins targets enterprise teams and on premise deployments and leads with pipeline-as-code and plugins.
Jenkins uses custom enterprise pricing, while Hetzner starts at $3.79/mo — a tangible advantage for teams with a fixed budget.
Jenkins has a free plan, which gives it a meaningful edge for individuals and small teams exploring their options. Hetzner requires a paid subscription from day one.
Hetzner edges out on user ratings (4.6 vs 4.2). While both are well-regarded, that gap reflects real differences in user satisfaction worth considering.
Bottom line: Hetzner has a slight overall edge — but if completely free and open source matters most to you, Jenkins may still be the right call.