If you need a VPS in the EU without paying US-cloud prices, three names come up every time: Hetzner, Netcup, and OVHcloud. All three run their own data centres in Germany (and beyond), all three bill in euros, and all three sit well under the €10/month mark for an entry-level server. But the specs, traffic policies, and contract terms differ enough that the "cheapest" label shifts depending on what you're building.
The contenders at a glance
- Hetzner CX23 — 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 40 GB NVMe, €5.49/month, 20 TB traffic, hourly billing capped at the monthly price
- Hetzner CAX11 (ARM) — 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 40 GB NVMe, €5.99/month, 20 TB traffic, hourly billing capped at the monthly price
- Netcup VPS 500 G12.5 — 2 vCores, 4 GB RAM, 64 GB SSD, €8.26/month, 80 TB traffic, 12-month minimum term
- OVHcloud VPS-1 — 2 vCores, 4 GB RAM, 40 GB NVMe, $4.54/month (about €4.20), unlimited EU traffic, monthly billing
Prices exclude VAT. The OVH traffic allowance is unlimited in EU locations; Asia-Pacific nodes carry quotas. Hetzner's figures are the list prices from its June 2026 adjustment.
Hetzner: the price floor
Hetzner's CX23 is the cheapest x86 VPS you'll find from a major EU provider — €5.49/month for 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, and 40 GB NVMe. The catch: it's a shared vCPU on older hardware, so sustained loads will throttle. For a personal site, a small database, or a development box, that rarely matters.
The ARM-based CAX11 (€5.99) matches the same 4 GB and 40 GB on Ampere Altra cores, which are efficient but not universal: most Linux distributions support ARM64 now, yet some proprietary binaries and older Docker images still don't.
Both plans include 20 TB of outbound traffic in Falkenstein, Nuremberg, and Helsinki — twenty times what Hetzner allows in its US locations. IPv4 addresses cost €0.50/month extra. Billing is hourly with a monthly cap: run a server for three days, pay for three days.
The trade-off is support. Hetzner's 24/7 email-only SLA covers 99.9% uptime, but there's no phone line and no managed option. You're on your own for OS updates and hardening. And the cheap line is deliberately older hardware: Hetzner's own docs describe the CX line that way, while the CPX line on current silicon starts around €19.49 for a comparable 4 GB plan.
Netcup: traffic you won't hit
Netcup's VPS 500 G12.5 costs €8.26/month on a 12-month term for 2 vCores, 4 GB RAM, and 64 GB SSD. The headline feature is 80 TB of included traffic — effectively unmetered for almost any real workload. DDoS protection is built in, and snapshots and remote console come standard.
The downside: you're locked in. The €8.26 price requires a 12-month commitment, and month-to-month runs higher. A setup fee of about €5–6 applies on the first order. Netcup's Nuremberg and Vienna data centres are solid, but the control panel feels dated next to Hetzner's console or OVH's panel.
Netcup also runs frequent promotions on older generations, where a 4-core, 8 GB plan sometimes drops near €7/month on sale. Those deals sell out fast and aren't always renewable at the same price.
OVHcloud: backups included
OVH's VPS-1 starts at $4.54/month (roughly €4.20) for 2 vCores, 4 GB RAM, 40 GB NVMe, and unlimited traffic in EU data centres. The standout: daily automated backups of the last 24 hours are included at no extra cost. That alone can save you a separate backup solution.
Bandwidth goes up to 500 Mbps on the entry tier, scaling to 3 Gbps on higher plans. The control panel is modern, the API is comprehensive, and you can upgrade in place without reprovisioning.
Prices are listed in USD on the global site, and EU customers pay VAT on top. The 99.9% SLA backs a service credit, not a cash payout. Support is ticket-based, with business-hours phone support on higher tiers.
What "cheapest" actually means
- Lowest sticker price: Hetzner CX23 at €5.49 (x86) or CAX11 at €5.99 (ARM)
- Best traffic headroom: Netcup's 80 TB flat rate or OVH's unlimited EU traffic
- Least commitment: Hetzner's hourly billing with no minimum term
- Most included ops value: OVH's daily backups plus unlimited traffic
- Cheapest per gigabyte of RAM: Contabo, if you accept older hardware and a 24-month term
Picking for your use case
Personal site, blog, or hobby project — Hetzner CX23 or CAX11. You'll pay a few euros, the 20 TB traffic cap won't bind, and you can spin the server down when idle.
Small business site with unpredictable traffic — OVH VPS-1 or VPS-2. The included backups and unlimited traffic remove two operational headaches.
Reselling or hosting multiple client sites — Netcup VPS 1000 or 2000 on a 12-month term. The traffic flat rate and DDoS protection scale better than per-terabyte billing.
Development or CI runners that run intermittently — Hetzner hourly billing. Pay only for the hours you build.
The fine print that bites
- Hetzner: IPv4 costs extra. ARM plans need ARM64-compatible images. The US locations include only 1 TB of traffic, so don't deploy there by accident.
- Netcup: Setup fees, contract lock-in, and G12.5 pricing only with 12- or 24-month terms. Sale prices on older generations may not renew.
- OVH: USD pricing plus VAT. Asia-Pacific nodes have traffic quotas and are throttled to 10 Mbps after the allowance. Backup retention is 24 hours only, not a long-term archive.
All three are GDPR-compliant, run their own EU hardware, and have been around long enough that they aren't vanishing next quarter. The best cheap EU VPS is the one whose constraints you're willing to live with.
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Updated 2026. Prices exclude VAT unless noted. Verify current specs on provider sites before ordering, because plans change.
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