Coolify vs Hetzner Cloud
Pricing
Coolify: Free (self-hosted), Cloud from $5/mo
Hetzner Cloud: Servers from EUR 5.49/mo excl. VAT and IPv4, billed hourly
Description
Coolify: Open-source, self-hostable alternative to Heroku and Netlify: deploy anything on your own server
Hetzner Cloud: German cloud provider renting virtual servers by the hour from data centres in Germany, Finland, the US and Singapore
Pros
- Completely free if you self-host on your own VPS: no per-app or per-user fees
- Supports databases, apps, static sites, and one-click services (Plausible, Ghost, etc.)
- No vendor lock-in: your infrastructure runs on a standard VPS you control
- Servers in the EU include 20 TB of traffic a month
- Hourly billing with a monthly cap: delete a server mid-month and you pay only for the hours used
- Firewalls at no extra cost, private networks, a REST API, a CLI and Terraform support
Cons
- Self-hosting means you are responsible for server maintenance, updates, and backups
- Smaller community than mainstream PaaS: fewer tutorials and Stack Overflow answers
- Initial setup requires comfort with SSH, DNS, and basic Linux server administration
- The cheapest Cost-Optimized servers (from EUR 5.49/mo) are marked as not available on Hetzner's site
- Prices rose on 15 June 2026: the 2 vCPU, 4 GB CPX22 went from EUR 7.99 to EUR 19.49 a month in Germany and Finland
- Servers come unmanaged: you install, update and secure them yourself
Details
Coolify is an open-source platform that gives you Heroku-like deployment on your own server. Install it on a $5/month VPS (Hetzner, DigitalOcean, whatever), and you get git-push deploys, automatic SSL, database provisioning, and a dashboard, all without paying per-app fees. Your $5 VPS can run multiple apps and databases that would cost $50+ on Railway or Render.
The trade-off is real: you manage the server. Updates, disk space, backups, security patches: that is on you. Coolify handles the deployment layer, but the underlying server is your responsibility. For founders who are comfortable with basic server admin and want to keep hosting costs under $10/month for multiple projects, Coolify is the best deal in hosting. For those who would rather not think about servers at all, stick with a managed platform.
Hetzner rents virtual servers by the hour from data centres in Falkenstein and Nuremberg (Germany), Helsinki, two US locations and Singapore. You pick a size and an operating system such as Ubuntu or Debian, and the server is ready in seconds. You can run a self-hosting tool such as Coolify on top of it.
It suits founders who are comfortable running a Linux server. There are three lines: Cost-Optimized (shared CPUs, the cheapest), Regular Performance (shared AMD CPUs on newer hardware) and General Purpose (dedicated vCPUs).
Read the prices carefully. Hetzner’s June 2026 price list puts the CX23 (2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 40 GB disk) at EUR 5.49 a month and the CPX22 at EUR 19.49, both excluding VAT and the IPv4 address, and the Cost-Optimized line is currently shown as not available. Singapore servers cost more and include only 0.5 TB of traffic.
Coolify verified
Hetzner Cloud verified
