The biggest catch is that you're getting more desktop-grade hardware than server-grade (notice Intel's i series instead of Xeon, non-ECC RAM). Doesn't make a lot of difference for the vast majority of use cases, but something to keep in mind.
You can get server-grade hardware from them, but then the pricing difference isn't so significant when compared to other providers.
If you go with their AMD servers, you'll get ECC RAM which would be the main sticking point for me. ECC memory will be €5.50 extra on their €37 Ryzen 5 3600 (6 core, 12 thread) 64GB RAM server. Even at €43 with EEC RAM, it's still a great deal. It even comes with 2x512 GB NVMe storage.
Yes, non-ECC RAM is an issue, but that's easily upgraded on their AMD servers.
For €63 you'll get a Ryzen 7 7700 (Zen 4, 8 core, 16 thread) box with 64GB ECC RAM and 2x1TB NVMe SSDs. Google Cloud's N2D-Standard-16 with 8 cores (16 vCPU threads, Zen 2 or Zen 3), 64GB ECC RAM, and no storage costs $550/mo. Yes, it's may not be a perfect comparison, but it's also 8x the price - oh, and Google will charge you $0.085/GB for bandwidth that Hetzner throws in for free. Even Google's Spot Pricing is more than double the cost.
I do agree that non-ECC RAM is an issue, but if you're willing to go with AMD servers, it becomes a very cheap issue to fix.
i really wonder how they are housing the desktop grade hardware. im so used to rack and stack servers (1U/2U), but do you really need that big of a chassis for a desktop cpu, a couple ram dimm's and some ssd? what are you're thoughts?
They have ATX cases on shelves. You can take a look at this tour of their datacenter [1] for more insight. ATX cases are visible around the 3 minute mark.
SoYouStart (which is OVH) have a Singapore region, they also have an "Asia" region, but I don't know where precisely that is located - https://www.soyoustart.com/asia/
We use a mix of SYS and Hetzner here and have found them both to be excellent and very comparable.
The catch is they lack enterprise features. No PCI DSS, not more than 25(?!) Servers per Network etc.
Sure you can workaround these limitations, but thats the catch.
I think what Hetzner have done is just specialise in doing one thing really really well and that is their product, they run servers. They don’t offer any of the „cloudy“ vendor lock in things like functions, DBaaS, blah blah but if you want to run a server (VM or BM) they have quite a solid offering. I really like them and use their products in lots of my projects.
Indeed they do but if you look at the product range they offer its still in the "we help you run your server" territory, not in the "this is a service that eliminates Component X of your architecture". I really like the Hetzner cloud!
ECC memory on the Cloud products? I'd like to assume they're using AMD's CPUs (consumer grade ECC support; as everyone should), ECC RAM, and at least mirrored storage. However I'd really like to see such basic features confirmed.
After many years of using Hetzner dedicated servers, I recently started using their US cloud for a project. So far, extremely happy, and it's very cost effective. Even cheaper than Digital Ocean (which I also use extensively).
> They don’t offer any of the „cloudy“ vendor lock in things like functions, DBaaS
Neither of those are lock-in. Postgres is pretty much the same if you self-manage it, or if you let Scaleway or AWS or OVH manage it for you. Functions can be if in a special format (Lambda), but pretty much everyone has standardised on Containers as a Service (KNative/OpenFaaS).
To me, there kind of isn't one. I have generally had very good and fast support, even on the auction servers (which are even wilder in terms of pricing than the ones linked -- e.g., I was paying like 40 euros a month for 40TB storage + a modern i7 and 64GB RAM).
The real 'catch' is the more limited offerings; it isn't the kind of one-stop-shop that AWS is where you can rent 8x A100s in a dozen datacenters while having them manage your database and a billion other things.
But if you just need lots of CPU, memory or storage, don't want to pay exorbitant bandwidth fees, and Europe is fine, they are pretty great.
> It seems like Hetzner is the only company in the world offering these kind of priced, right?
OVH is not quite as cheap, generally, but they have lots of inexpensive offerings, especially on their SoYouStart/Kimsufi lines [1], with much more variety in terms of datacenters, including Singapore and Australia, depending on what you need in Asia/APAC -- likely better DDoS mitigation than Hetzner as well.
LeaseWeb can be really cheap as well. Their public pricing on the main website can appear kind of expensive, or at least not Hetzner-tier cheap, but if you're ordering a decent number of servers, they seem to offer great volume discounts.
For example, through a reseller [2], I've got 100TB of their "premium" bandwidth @ 10Gbps, Xeon E-2274G, 64GB RAM, 4x8TB hard drives, and a 1TB NVMe SSD in Amsterdam that I use as a seedbox for like 60 euros.
Another semi-low-cost provider, depending on what you need, in Asia that is worth mentioning is Tempest.
I believe they are owned by Path.net, and they've so they've got better DDoS mitigation than most other providers without costing an arm and a leg; in Tokyo, $140 will get you an E3 1240v2 + 16GB RAM and $200 will get you a Ryzen 3600X + 32GB RAM, both servers are 10Gbps unmetered.
Not a great option for someone who needs a ton of variety in their hardware, but if you need something high-bandwidth with decent specs in Asia, it's not awful.
[1]: Worth noting that, although unmetered, SYS is generally limited to something like 250Mbps speeds, and Kimsufi is 100Mbps. You do get lucky occasionally and sometimes your server magically has uncapped gigabit, but for guaranteed high-bandwidth servers, the main OVH site is the only option.
[2]: I'm using Andy10gbit, who is fine for my needs - e.g., I don't need to reinstall the OS 24/7 or have instant support since it's just used for torrents. It'd be a bad option for a business, though, since I wouldn't want to be relying on some dude on Reddit if something goes horrifically wrong. WalkerServers is another example of one of the ultra-cheap LeaseWeb resellers.
It seems like Hetzner is the only company in the world offering these kind of prices, right? What's the catch?