Hetzner has a solid reputation, so the reasons to shop around tend to be specific. One is cost at the small end. When we checked, CPX12 with 1 vCPU and 2 GB RAM started at $14.09 per month including IPv4. The cheapest plan, CX23 with 2 shared vCPU and 4 GB RAM, was listed from $7.09 but marked unavailable.
Another is the payment model. Hetzner invoices cloud usage once a calendar month has ended, and its docs say you cannot pay ahead. Its payment overview rules out cryptocurrencies and wallets like Apple Pay. To fight fraud it may ask a newcomer for a government ID or an advance payment from a card in their own name. People who want a prepaid budget, crypto or a lighter sign-up end up comparing other hosts.
DataPasa: prepaid hourly servers in Falkenstein
DataPasa runs in Falkenstein, the same German region as one of Hetzner's data center parks, so a European workload sees little change in latency after a move. What changes is the account model. You load a USD balance (from $5), and each server pays for its next hour from that balance in advance. Remove the server and the charges end. No bill ever shows up for a month that is already over.
Where it falls short: there is one live location today, the product is a plain KVM VPS without managed databases or load balancers, and the community around it is far smaller than Hetzner's. Windows is available from VPS-4 upward on request.
Good for: small and mid sized Linux servers aimed at Europe, short lived projects, paying with crypto or PIX.
Price: VPS-1 (1 vCPU, 1 GB RAM, 16 GB NVMe) $1.81 a month, VPS-2 (1 vCPU, 2 GB, 32 GB) $3.54, VPS-3 (2 vCPU, 4 GB, 64 GB) $7.09. Every plan has dedicated vCPU.
Billing: by the hour from a prepaid balance, no setup fee, no minimum term.
Payments: cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay and PIX through Stripe, plus roughly 100 coins and networks through Cryptomus.
Sign-up: an email address. Identity checks happen only when AML screening flags a payment.
Locations: Falkenstein, Germany. São Paulo, Brazil is coming soon.
Contabo: lots of RAM if you commit for two years
Contabo is the classic pick when the goal is the most memory per euro. At the time of our check, Cloud VPS 4 came with 4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM and 100 GB SSD for €5.50 a month. Contabo labels that as the effective rate on a 24 month subscription with taxes included, so shorter terms cost more each month. Compared with Hetzner, you trade hourly flexibility for a low long term rate.
Good for: memory hungry or storage heavy servers you expect to keep running for a long time.
Billing: contract terms from one month that renew for the same length. Postpaid orders need four weeks of cancellation notice.
Payments: card and PayPal on any account, plus Skrill, bank transfer and direct debit on EUR accounts. Crypto is not accepted.
Sign-up: Contabo says it is required to verify customer data, and an order under review can need a scan of an ID or a utility bill.
Locations: eleven sites in nine regions across the EU, the UK, the US, Singapore, Japan, India and Australia.
OVHcloud: monthly VPS with backups in the price
OVHcloud sells its VPS range by the month. On its worldwide site we saw VPS-1 with 2 vCores, 4 GB RAM and 40 GB NVMe at $5.35 a month before tax, dropping to $4.54 a month if you paid 12 months upfront. A daily backup, anti-DDoS and unlimited traffic in most regions came with every plan. It also covers more countries than Hetzner Cloud does.
Good for: 4 GB and 8 GB servers you will keep for a year, when bundled backups and DDoS protection matter.
Billing: month to month, or a discounted commitment charged once a year in advance.
Payments: Visa, Mastercard, Maestro, PayPal and a prepaid account. We did not see crypto on the list.
Sign-up: orders can go through a random payment validation step. We found no public rule about ID documents.
Locations: France, Germany, Italy, Poland, the UK, Canada, Singapore, Australia, India and Local Zones.
DigitalOcean: a platform rather than a single server
DigitalOcean makes sense when the VPS is only one part of a bigger setup. Droplets sit next to managed Kubernetes, managed databases, load balancers, block storage and a 1-Click Apps marketplace. The cost of that convenience shows on small plans: when we checked, a Basic Droplet with shared CPU, 1 vCPU and 2 GiB RAM was $12 a month, and dedicated CPU started at $42.
Good for: teams that want managed services and many regions behind one dashboard.
Billing: per second with a 60 second minimum and a monthly cap, charged to your payment method after each month. Prepaying is optional.
Payments: major cards, PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Alipay, Link and ACH for qualifying US customers. Virtual and prepaid cards are refused. Stablecoins are offered to a limited group.
Sign-up: you add a payment method before creating anything, and DigitalOcean uses it to confirm who you are.
Locations: 12 cities across North America, Europe, India, Singapore and Australia.
LightNode: hourly servers in 40+ locations
LightNode is the one to check when location decides everything. It lists more than 40 sites on five continents, including the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Africa and South America. Like Hetzner it charges by the hour, but hourly usage is capped at 672 hours per calendar month, and a monthly price is also available.
Good for: projects that need a server inside a particular country outside Europe.
Price: from $7.71 a month ($0.012 per hour) for 1 vCPU, 2 GB RAM, 50 GB NVMe and 1 TB of bandwidth at the time of our check.
Payments: Visa, Mastercard, Amex, UnionPay, Alipay, Google Pay and PayPal, settled in USD or HKD. Crypto was not listed.
Sign-up: the pages we checked did not describe verification rules.
Extras: Windows on entry plans and up to $15 of credit for new users.
How to choose a Hetzner alternative
Start with your users. If they are in Europe, Falkenstein is a sensible place to be, and both Hetzner and DataPasa run there. If they sit in Asia, South America or Australia, a host with a nearby region will do more for response times than any price gap.
Next, think about how long the server will live and how you want to pay. A two year box with plenty of RAM is where Contabo and OVHcloud commitments shine. Something you need for days or weeks is cheaper on hourly billing. If you prefer a fixed prepaid budget, or want to pay with crypto or PIX, DataPasa is built around exactly that.
Several regions or managed services: DigitalOcean, OVHcloud, or simply stay on Hetzner.
Most RAM per euro over a long term: Contabo.
A server in a specific country outside Europe: LightNode.
Prepaid hourly billing, crypto or PIX, and an email sign-up: DataPasa.
Step by step guides
Written by our team and tested on DataPasa servers.
There is no single winner. For prepaid hourly servers in the same German region, DataPasa. For long term value, Contabo or OVHcloud. For managed services, DigitalOcean. For a wide choice of countries, LightNode.
DataPasa takes roughly 100 coins and networks, USDT, BTC and XMR among them, on every account. Hetzner, Contabo, OVHcloud and LightNode did not list crypto when we checked, and DigitalOcean offers stablecoins only to some customers.
DataPasa runs in Falkenstein, close to one of Hetzner's parks. OVHcloud lists Germany among its VPS locations, and DigitalOcean and LightNode both have Frankfurt.
DataPasa works only on a prepaid balance that is charged hour by hour. DigitalOcean accepts an optional prepayment, and Contabo and OVHcloud sell terms paid in advance. Hetzner bills after use.
No document is needed to sign up, only an email. If our AML screening flags a payment, we may ask you to verify your identity before that money reaches your balance.
Create the new server first, copy files with rsync and databases with a dump, test the result, then point DNS at it. Keep the Hetzner server for a few days until the new one has handled real traffic.