Hetzner
Neon
| Feature | Hetzner | Neon |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | From $3.79/mo | Free / from $19/mo |
| Free Plan | ✗ No | ✓ Yes |
| Rating | 4.6 / 5 | 4.5 / 5 |
| Best For | startups, indie-hackers, european-companies, cost-conscious-teams | developers, startups, serverless-apps, ci-cd-workflows |
| Founded | 1997 | 2021 |
| Cloud Servers | ✓ | ✗ |
| Dedicated Servers | ✓ | ✗ |
| Load Balancers | ✓ | ✗ |
| Block Storage | ✓ | ✗ |
| Object Storage | ✓ | ✗ |
| Firewalls | ✓ | ✗ |
| Private Networks | ✓ | ✗ |
| Serverless Postgres | ✗ | ✓ |
| Branching | ✗ | ✓ |
| Autoscaling | ✗ | ✓ |
| Connection Pooling | ✗ | ✓ |
| Point In Time Recovery | ✗ | ✓ |
| Logical Replication | ✗ | ✓ |
✓ 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
✓ Neon Pros
- Serverless autoscaling
- Database branching
- Scale to zero
- Generous free tier
✗ Neon Cons
- Cold starts on free tier
- Newer platform
- Limited extension support
The Verdict
Hetzner is built for startups and indie hackers, with a focus on cloud-servers and dedicated-servers. Neon targets developers and startups and leads with serverless-postgres and branching.
On pricing, Hetzner is the clear winner for budget-conscious users — starting at $3.79/mo compared to $19/mo for Neon. That $15.21/mo difference adds up quickly for growing teams.
Neon 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.
Feature-wise, Hetzner offers broader built-in capabilities (7 features vs 6), while Neon takes a more focused approach — which can mean a simpler, faster onboarding experience.
Both tools are a solid fit for startups — in those cases, the decision often comes down to workflow style and how your team prefers to organize work.
This is a genuinely close comparison. If you can, sign up for both free trials (where available) and run a one-week test with your actual team tasks before deciding.