The title is clickbait or maybe simply misguided in my opinion. A cheap VM and Serverless services are very different things and not directly comparable.
But I do sometimes get the impression that the simple approaches are discarded too easily today. You can rent a lot of hardware pretty cheap from Hetzner and the raw power you get is much higher than what you get with cloud services for the same amount of money. Of course the cloud also provides more stuff, but you really pay a hefty price for some of the things you get there (cough traffic).
The difference gets even larger when you look at the Hetzner root servers, that's a lot of CPU, RAM and storage for little money. And renting actual servers does seem to be overlooked a bit at times, often the comparison is between the cloud and actually buying servers and doing everything yourself.
It's true the title is clickbait and VMs and serverless are completely different beasts.
However, there is something right in this title: when you take into account how serverless was originally marketed ("you save costs as you run things only when you need so you save on these expensive ec2s running 24/7") and the reality (performance issues, cold boot, arbitrary timeout limit, high cost for longer-running processes) it may turn out that cheap VMs might work much better in scenarios where serverless was initially considered.
Who are comparable providers in your opinion? Hetzner has KYC and needs ID for you to use their services, I’d rather go with a service that didn’t. Any recommendations?
There some hetzner resellers which accept crypto coins instead
OVH(and subsidiaries like server
4 you,kimsufi) is the pricing a bit higher but comparable (in some regions)
But last time I used ovh Hetzner also didn't require Id verification, maybe they changed since then
Ionos also similarly priced didn't need Id last time I used them
I’m so disillusioned with cloud/serverless/Kubernetes these days. If I were building a startup I’d just build a monolithic service, plonk it on a Hetzner VM, boom done. You can start making money.
So many startups are bleeding cash because they’ve been convinced by AWS and others they need auto scaling and self healing from day one. Just build the thing, get it running, make it good later.
Honestly, same. I'm building a small BE for a small startup with a friend of mine, and while sometimes I have these urges that I should migrate everything to K8S / Docker Swarm, so far the setup with three small VMs of API server machine + ingress machine + auth machine with simple SSH deploy through GitHub Actions (that can always be performed manually, if needed) works fine. Is it fancy? No. Can I understand everything to the last details what happens during deploy and debug it? Oh yes.
Focusing on fancy infra now will just take a lot of time for little to no benefit.
It sounds a bit like a grift these days; investors want you to invest millions in infinite scaling ops 'because good' so you don't get the big money if you don't so you do, wether you may ever need it or not.
Almost every startup can run their entire lifetime on a $4 vps and have the same outcome if it wasn't for the required (...) vc moneys.
I always hear great things about Hetzner. I don't know if those comments are just patriotic Europeans or if Hetzner is really that much better than the alternatives.
Hetzner is dirt cheap, and especially known for dirt cheap bandwidth.
They had a bit of a reputation for unreliability but that was decades ago, I expect them to have improved and it's definitely more than good enough for a hobby project.
My main concern with them would be the abuse policies - unless that changed in the past couple of years, they have a "shoot first ask questions later" approach (shutting down or firewalling your server, then asking you to explain/fix the issue before maybe turning it back on - e.g. if their automated systems detect what they think to be a port scan).
Pricing:
$6 on DigitalOcean gets you 1 GB RAM, 1 vCPU, 1 TB traffic, 25 GB SSD. Additional traffic is $10/TB.
€4.51 ($5) on Hetzner gets you 4 GB RAM, 2 vCPU, 20 TB traffic, 40 GB SSD. Additional traffic is likely around €1/TB.
$48 on DigitalOcean gets you a VM with 8 GB RAM, 4 vCPUs, 5 TB traffic, 160 GB SSD.
$48 (€43) on Hetzner gets you a physical machine with e.g. (the specs are a bit random since you're picking from a list of customized systems) an Intel XEON E-2176G (6 cores/12 threads), 64 GB of ECC RAM, 2 x 960 GB SSD, and a Gigabit link with "unlimited" traffic (there are reports https://lowendtalk.com/discussion/180504/hetzner-traffic-use... that they don't like it if you actually max out the line rate all the time, but you should consider the 20 TB/month they offer by default the minimum that they will have absolutely no issue with).
They're great if you need raw processing power but they have a very backwards, German view of the internet where even a port scan is considered abuse. It's very easy to get your machine nullrouted or account closed.
I use them a lot for backend data processing but anything public facing I host at AWS or Digital Ocean who have a more reasonable approach to the internet.
I've just switched from DigitalOcean to Hetzner purely for cost. I'm getting more resources for less money. Features seem pretty comparable to me but I don't need anything more than a standard VPS. The only thing I've found weird is SELinux being set to permissive by default.
I'm not sure why anyone would be patriotic about a private company.
I am a hetzner customer for around 5 years, and DO customer for 12. Hetzner is always on point. Botched your vm? they mount a live cd and let you rescue the system. Got provisioned hardware? they provide hardware reset services in case software reset doesn't work. They continuously check if your ip is blacklisted and warn you. They check for vulnerable ports and EU security mandates. UI and prices are competitive. Overall great experience.
I have both DO and Hetzner VMs and I find them comparable, with Hetzner being a bit cheaper. If I look at the logs and fail2ban, it looks like DO does a bit more abusive traffic filtering, but that is basically the only difference.
However, the DO docs are on a different level and high quality. But those are also accessible if you are not a customer.
> I don't know if those comments are just patriotic Europeans or...
This is nitpicky, but just want to mention that Europe is a continent made up of 44 diverse and distinct nations, and Hetzner originates from one of them.
Patriotism doesn't really work in that situation (nor in the context of a private company).
I’m not sure if there’s another word besides “patriotism”, but there certainly is a sense of continental pride amongst many (especially western) Europeans that mimics what American’s have for their nation (and not, e.g., their state [Texans aside])
DO is crazy expensive compared to all big EU hosters; we run servers at ovh and hetzner for decades; no issues, but, and this does make a difference even though people keep saying it does not on reddit, I speak german and french and I call them when I need something.
I've been using their services for over a decade (first physical servers, now their cloud) and have little to complain. It just works, and if something breaks, they help you real fast.
If you have only heard great things, you've not been paying very much attention. Hetzner is known for deleting nodes and accounts without warning or explanation if your CPU usage stays persistently high. They even had the audacity to send a bill thereafter.
We're using tons of Hetzner nodes that are under constant heavy load (~100% CPU usage for ~12 hrs/day), never had problems. I know this is anecdotal, just logging it here.
I’ve been on the “very negative experience” side with Hetzner. It’s great when it works but terrible when they decide to null route your account and take a week to respond to support inquiry.
I would use Hetzner more but most of my user base is in the USA, and there is a lot of added latency to having your servers in Europe. I sort of think of Hetzner like a Costco for servers - does anyone know the closest equivalent in the USA?
Update: Hetzer does have USA servers, but apparently not dedicated bare metal servers in USA (only shared/VM).
What if I'm nervous about my SQL db? I pay 12$ onwards to RDS so I can do one click backups and restores to any point in time. With a VPS, I have to make a script to cron to generate backups and test that the VPS backup has backed up the file and the file is useful. Is there a "set and forget" solution?
Serverless is nice for running low traffic services for free. Azure Functions for example don't start charging until 1M+ executions IIRC.
Transitioning to micro services also makes serverless more appealing since you're getting a separate web server (resiliency) and scaling for free if you need it.
I do agree for the use case of low traffic services but I've not tried Azure yet.
What options do you have to avoid runaway costs and "denial of wallet" attacks?
The function app resource itself has a "Daily Usage Quota (GB-sec)"[0], but I'm not sure how useful it is since I've never used it. Overall billing management doesn't have a way to shut off the world if you go over, but alerts can be setup... basically the same as other clouds in this regard. You can also host functions apps on dedicated service plans and not "consumption" (serverless) plans which provides a predictable monthly bill without changing any of your code.
Readit News
But I do sometimes get the impression that the simple approaches are discarded too easily today. You can rent a lot of hardware pretty cheap from Hetzner and the raw power you get is much higher than what you get with cloud services for the same amount of money. Of course the cloud also provides more stuff, but you really pay a hefty price for some of the things you get there (cough traffic).
The difference gets even larger when you look at the Hetzner root servers, that's a lot of CPU, RAM and storage for little money. And renting actual servers does seem to be overlooked a bit at times, often the comparison is between the cloud and actually buying servers and doing everything yourself.
However, there is something right in this title: when you take into account how serverless was originally marketed ("you save costs as you run things only when you need so you save on these expensive ec2s running 24/7") and the reality (performance issues, cold boot, arbitrary timeout limit, high cost for longer-running processes) it may turn out that cheap VMs might work much better in scenarios where serverless was initially considered.
OVH(and subsidiaries like server 4 you,kimsufi) is the pricing a bit higher but comparable (in some regions) But last time I used ovh Hetzner also didn't require Id verification, maybe they changed since then
Ionos also similarly priced didn't need Id last time I used them
So many startups are bleeding cash because they’ve been convinced by AWS and others they need auto scaling and self healing from day one. Just build the thing, get it running, make it good later.
Focusing on fancy infra now will just take a lot of time for little to no benefit.
Almost every startup can run their entire lifetime on a $4 vps and have the same outcome if it wasn't for the required (...) vc moneys.
I always hear great things about Hetzner. I don't know if those comments are just patriotic Europeans or if Hetzner is really that much better than the alternatives.
They had a bit of a reputation for unreliability but that was decades ago, I expect them to have improved and it's definitely more than good enough for a hobby project.
My main concern with them would be the abuse policies - unless that changed in the past couple of years, they have a "shoot first ask questions later" approach (shutting down or firewalling your server, then asking you to explain/fix the issue before maybe turning it back on - e.g. if their automated systems detect what they think to be a port scan).
Pricing:
$6 on DigitalOcean gets you 1 GB RAM, 1 vCPU, 1 TB traffic, 25 GB SSD. Additional traffic is $10/TB.
€4.51 ($5) on Hetzner gets you 4 GB RAM, 2 vCPU, 20 TB traffic, 40 GB SSD. Additional traffic is likely around €1/TB.
$48 on DigitalOcean gets you a VM with 8 GB RAM, 4 vCPUs, 5 TB traffic, 160 GB SSD.
$48 (€43) on Hetzner gets you a physical machine with e.g. (the specs are a bit random since you're picking from a list of customized systems) an Intel XEON E-2176G (6 cores/12 threads), 64 GB of ECC RAM, 2 x 960 GB SSD, and a Gigabit link with "unlimited" traffic (there are reports https://lowendtalk.com/discussion/180504/hetzner-traffic-use... that they don't like it if you actually max out the line rate all the time, but you should consider the 20 TB/month they offer by default the minimum that they will have absolutely no issue with).
I use them a lot for backend data processing but anything public facing I host at AWS or Digital Ocean who have a more reasonable approach to the internet.
I'm not sure why anyone would be patriotic about a private company.
My bet is to reduce support calls. "Why can't I do X and Y on this server?"
I had one project which was part AWS, part Hetzner, for cost reasons. Both driven from terraform.
If you can do it with simple VMs, I’d go for Hetzner. Of late they’ve added more features like private networks.
The original offering is real servers, and the “server bidding” feature is brilliant for getting a bargain.
However, the DO docs are on a different level and high quality. But those are also accessible if you are not a customer.
This is nitpicky, but just want to mention that Europe is a continent made up of 44 diverse and distinct nations, and Hetzner originates from one of them.
Patriotism doesn't really work in that situation (nor in the context of a private company).
Update: Hetzer does have USA servers, but apparently not dedicated bare metal servers in USA (only shared/VM).
(haven’t tried them though)
Transitioning to micro services also makes serverless more appealing since you're getting a separate web server (resiliency) and scaling for free if you need it.
0: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-functions/func...
If so, the code/test/deploy loop is certainly much faster with this method than any serverless I've messed with.