Hetzner
Prometheus
| Feature | Hetzner | Prometheus |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | From $3.79/mo | Free only |
| Free Plan | ✗ No | ✓ Yes |
| Rating | 4.6 / 5 | 4.5 / 5 |
| Best For | startups, indie-hackers, european-companies, cost-conscious-teams | devops-engineers, sre-teams, kubernetes-users, infrastructure-teams |
| Founded | 1997 | 2012 |
| Cloud Servers | ✓ | ✗ |
| Dedicated Servers | ✓ | ✗ |
| Load Balancers | ✓ | ✗ |
| Block Storage | ✓ | ✗ |
| Object Storage | ✓ | ✗ |
| Firewalls | ✓ | ✗ |
| Private Networks | ✓ | ✗ |
| Metrics Collection | ✗ | ✓ |
| Alerting | ✗ | ✓ |
| Promql | ✗ | ✓ |
| Service Discovery | ✗ | ✓ |
| Grafana Integration | ✗ | ✓ |
| Multi Dimensional Data | ✗ | ✓ |
✓ 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
✓ Prometheus Pros
- Free and open-source
- Powerful query language
- Great Kubernetes integration
- Active community
✗ Prometheus Cons
- No built-in long-term storage
- Complex setup
- Steep learning curve
The Verdict
Hetzner is built for startups and indie hackers, with a focus on cloud-servers and dedicated-servers. Prometheus targets devops engineers and sre teams and leads with metrics-collection and alerting.
Prometheus uses custom enterprise pricing, while Hetzner starts at $3.79/mo — a tangible advantage for teams with a fixed budget.
Prometheus 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 Prometheus takes a more focused approach — which can mean a simpler, faster onboarding experience.
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.