Contabo contre Hetzner (2026): Quel VPS à petit budget allemand gagne après la hausse des prix? - FR

How We Compared Contabo and Hetzner

Two German hosts, one billing currency, and a price list that moved four times this year. So we pinned every figure to a date. Prices come from contabo.com and Hetzner's own price-adjustment notice, checked on July 9, 2026, with entry rate, terme de facturation, and post-June pricing logged apart. Both firms bill in euros, so the US-dollar figures here are approximate conversions that drift with the exchange rate.

We weighted this toward how the two are actually bought: resources per euro (RAM, vCPU, NVMe), CPU consistency under load, network and traffic terms, proximité du datacenter, et politique de remboursement. Sources were the vendors' own pricing pages, published specs, and review aggregators that show how many ratings back a score, ignoring anything under 4.0 across fewer than 50 Commentaires. Two honest limits worth stating. We didn't run synthetic load tests on either host. And Hetzner's June 15 increase applies to new orders, so a pre-June server keeps its old rate. If you're new to the category, our primer on VPS géré ou non géré covers who patches the box on each model. Both of these are the unmanaged kind.

What Hetzner's June 2026 Price Hike Actually Did

This is the piece most "Contabo contre Hetzner" pages haven't caught up with yet. En juin 15, 2026, Hetzner repriced its cloud lineup, and the increase was lopsided. The shared Intel line (CX23) rose from EUR 3.99 c'est des euros 5.49, en haut 38%. The ARM line (CAX11) went EUR 4.49 c'est des euros 5.99, en haut 33%. Manageable. The dedicated-vCPU line is where it hurt: the CCX13 jumped 169% c'est des euros 42.99, and the CCX23 climbed 173% c'est des euros 85.99.

Relisez ça, because it inverts the old advice. Hetzner's dedicated cores were the reason performance-minded buyers paid the small premium over Contabo. After June 15, that premium isn't small. Existing servers keep their old price, so this bites new orders only. If you're spinning up fresh infrastructure this year, the comparison below runs on the new numbers, not the ones cached in two-year-old reviews.

Contabo – Idéal pour un maximum de RAM et de stockage par euro

Entrée: Cloud VPS 10 at EUR 5.50/mo (à propos des dollars américains 5.95). 8 Go de RAM, 4 processeur virtuel partagé, 75 GB NVMe. 99.9% SLA de disponibilité. 14-jour de remboursement.

Line the two up at the entry tier and the gap is almost comical. For EUR 5.50 un mois, Le VPS Cloud de Contabo 10 te tend les mains 8 Go de RAM, 4 cœurs de processeur virtuel partagés, et 75 Go de NVMe (flash rapide) espace de rangement. Hetzner's closest-priced plan, the CX23 at EUR 5.49, te donne 4 Go et 2 cores on 40 GB. Même argent, doubler la mémoire, double the cores, nearly double the disk. Préférez la capacité à la vitesse? Swap the 75 Go NVMe pour 150 GB of SSD at signup, même prix.

Push up the range and Contabo holds the lead. Le VPS Cloud 30 runs EUR 14 pour 24 Go de RAM, 8 vCPU, et 200 GB NVMe. But here's the number that rewrites the old script. Contabo's entry dedicated-core plan, the Cloud VDS S, costs EUR 34.40 pour 3 physical AMD cores, 24 Go de RAM, et 180 GB NVMe. Hetzner's cheapest dedicated-vCPU plan after June 15, the CCX13, is EUR 42.99 pour 8 Go et 2 noyaux. Contabo comes in EUR 8.59 moins cher and ships three times the RAM. A year ago that comparison went the other way.

What you trade for those specs is consistency. The cheap cores are shared, and Contabo's shared vCPU draws real complaints. User reports put CPU steal (time your server waits for a physical core a neighbor is hogging) à 20-40% during peak hours on busy boxes. Le support est uniquement par ticket, pas de chat en direct, and reviews flag slow replies, hours on routine tickets and occasionally days on hard ones. The uptime promise is 99.9%, and independent monitoring lands right around there, près 99.91%. None of that dents a staging box or an overnight batch job. It dents a checkout page.

Avantages:

• À peu près 2x the RAM and cores per euro versus Hetzner at entry
• NVMe ou jusqu'à 150 GB SSD inclus, votre choix, pas de supplément
• Tarification forfaitaire: the sign-up rate is the renewal rate
• Centres de données dans Tokyo, Sydney, Bombay that Hetzner lacks

Les inconvénients:

• Processeur virtuel partagé; 20-40% Vol de processeur reported at peak
• Ticket-only support with a slow-response reputation
• Port d'entrée plafonné à 200 Mbit / s

Tarification: Cloud VPS 10 en euros 5.50, VPS 20 en euros 7.50 (12 GB), VPS 30 en euros 14 (24 GB), VPS 40 en euros 25 (48 GB). Dedicated cores begin at the VDS S, EUR 34.40. Object storage from EUR 2.49 pour 250 GB. No setup fee on 12-month terms, and Contabo does not raise the price at renewal.

Meilleur pour: self-hosters who want big memory and disk cheap and can run their own Linux box. Ignorer si: your workload is latency-sensitive and can't absorb CPU steal, or you need a data center Contabo doesn't operate.

Verdict: Contabo wins when the spec sheet is the whole point and you own the sysadmin work. If your traffic is latency-critical or you want per-second cloud primitives, that's a Hetzner job, and no amount of cheap RAM changes it.

Hetzner – Best for Consistent Performance and Cloud Tooling

Entrée: CX23 at EUR 5.49/mo (à propos des dollars américains 5.93). 4 Go de RAM, 2 Processeur virtuel Intel, 40 GB SSD, 20 TB EU traffic. ARM and dedicated-vCPU lines. Facturation à l'heure.

Commencez par les mauvaises nouvelles, since it reshapes everything else. En juin 15, 2026, Hetzner's dedicated-vCPU line stopped being a bargain. The CCX13 went EUR 15.99 c'est des euros 42.99, the CCX23 EUR 31.49 c'est des euros 85.99. The shared lines rose more gently, but the plans people came to Hetzner for, guaranteed cores at low prices, took the full hit. If dedicated cores are your reason to switch, Contabo's VDS S now undercuts the CCX13 by EUR 8.59 with triple the RAM.

So why still pick it? Because within a tier, Hetzner behaves. Its shared vCPU shows far less steal than Contabo's, and the network is faster and more even. The platform underneath is a real cloud, not a plain server rental. You get an API, Prise en charge de Terraform, équilibreurs de charge gérés, réseaux privés, pare-feu, IP flottantes, and free snapshots. Hourly billing means you can spin a server up for an afternoon and delete it when you're done. Contabo has none of that cloud-native layer. If your mental model is closer to a small AWS than a cheap box, browse the wider field of plateformes d'hébergement cloud and you'll see where Hetzner sits.

The value pick in Hetzner's 2026 catalog is ARM. The CAX11 gives 4 Go et 2 Ampere ARM cores for EUR 5.99, and if your stack runs on ARM (most modern Linux software does), it runs cooler and often faster than the Intel CX23 at nearly the same price. Contabo offers no ARM at all. One number to watch, bien que. Hetzner's headline 20 TB of included traffic only applies in Europe. US servers include 1 TB and Singapore just 0.5 TB, with overage at EUR 1/TB in the US and a steep EUR 7.40/TB in Singapore. Contabo's traffic is unlimited (fair-use throttled). For a busy site outside the EU, that one line can flip the entire cost comparison toward Contabo.

Avantages:

• Real dedicated-vCPU option with little CPU steal
• Cloud-native stack: API, équilibreurs de charge, BRAS, réseaux privés
• 20 TB included EU traffic, EUR 1/TB overage
• Hourly billing and free snapshots

Les inconvénients:

• Dedicated-vCPU line up 169-173% since June 15, 2026
• US and Singapore traffic cut to 1 TB / 0.5 TB
• Half the RAM of Contabo at the same entry price

One more thing before you commit. Hetzner has no money-back guarantee. Hourly billing is the safety net instead, so you delete a server and charges stop. And new accounts, especially outside Germany, sometimes need an ID scan before the first server boots. Neither is a dealbreaker, but both catch people off guard who expect a one-click signup.

Tarification: CX23 à EUR 5.49 (4 GB Intel), CX33 (8 GB), CAX11 at EUR 5.99 (4 GB ARM), CAX21 at EUR 10.49 (8 GB ARM), CCX13 at EUR 42.99 (8 GB, dévoué). Servers ordered before June 15 keep their pre-hike rate. Watch the extras: automatic backups add 20% to the monthly rate, each IPv4 runs about EUR 0.50/mo, and some newer orders carry a setup fee. Contabo, en revanche, folds an IPv4 and one snapshot into its sticker price.

Meilleur pour: developers who want consistent cores, ARM options, and cloud primitives in an EU region. Ignorer si: you need dedicated cores on the cheap (Contabo's VDS is now cheaper) or you deploy heavy traffic in the US or Singapore.

Verdict: Hetzner earns its keep for EU-region apps that value predictable performance and real tooling over headline RAM. If you're buying dedicated cores or serving Asia and Australia, Contabo now wins the same money, so don't pay Hetzner's June prices out of habit.

Prix ​​par ressource: Where the Euro Goes Further

Strip away the branding and match tier for tier. A l'entrée, EUR 5.50 achète 8 Go et 4 cores at Contabo or 4 Go et 2 cores at Hetzner. Contabo doubles you on both. Environ 24 Go de RAM, Le VPS Cloud de Contabo 30 is EUR 14 with shared cores. To match that memory on Hetzner you'd climb well up its shared lines, and its dedicated 16 GB CCX23 alone now runs EUR 85.99.

The dedicated-core tier is the headline flip. Contabo VDS S at EUR 34.40 donne 3 physical cores and 24 Go de RAM. Hetzner CCX13 at EUR 42.99 donne 2 processeur virtuel et 8 GB. On raw allocation, Contabo wins that matchup by a wide margin after June 15. Where Hetzner claws value back is ARM: the CAX11 at EUR 5.99 has no Contabo equivalent, and for ARM-native workloads it's cheap, efficace, and consistent. So the price answer isn't "one is cheaper." It's Contabo for memory and dedicated cores, Hetzner for ARM and for what a euro buys in stability rather than gigabytes.

Now the twist most buyers miss: true bare metal reverses the dedicated story. Contabo wins cheap dedicated vCPU through its VDS line. But Hetzner owns cheap physical hardware through its Server Auction. These are refurbished machines with no setup fee or minimum term, starting near EUR 35/month. Contabo's cheapest bare-metal server starts around USD 110/month. Want a whole physical box rather than a guaranteed slice? Hetzner's auction undercuts Contabo by roughly 3x, and the June price hike left it untouched. If bare metal is the goal, weigh both against the wider dedicated server field avant d'acheter.

Performance, Réseau, et portée mondiale

Specs win the spreadsheet; behavior wins production. Contabo's shared cores can hit 20-40% CPU steal at peak, and reviewers note time-to-first-byte (à quelle vitesse le serveur commence à répondre) swinging through the day on loaded machines. Hetzner's shared cores wobble less, and its dedicated-vCPU line, pricey as it now is, removes the noisy-neighbor problem outright. Network favors Hetzner too: Contabo caps the entry port at 200 Mbit / s, while Hetzner runs a faster, more even backbone. If your bottleneck is bandwidth or steady response time, that difference is the product.

Reach flips the other way. Contabo se propage 9 régions et 11 centres de données: a European hub in Germany plus the UK (Portsmouth), trois régions des États-Unis (New York, Seattle, St. Louis), Singapour, Tokyo, Sydney, et Bombay. Hetzner runs six locations across four countries: Falkenstein et Nuremberg en Allemagne, Helsinki en Finlande, Ashburn and Hillsboro in the US, et Singapour. For an audience in Japan, Australie, ou en Inde, Contabo puts a box near them; Hetzner can't. Both are German companies, so for EU data-residency under GDPR either one keeps data on the continent. That's worth weighing alongside the broader German hosting market if your users sit in Central Europe.

How to Choose Between Contabo and Hetzner

Don't default to the cheaper sticker. Match the box to the job.

Charge de travail: memory-hungry app, budget inférieur à 15 EUR/mois, latency not critical → Contabo Cloud VPS 30 (EUR 14, 24 Go de RAM). Self-hosted analytics, un serveur de jeu, a big database cache, or a staging fleet all want RAM more than steady microsecond timing. Hetzner can't touch 24 GB at that price without jumping to an EUR 85.99 dedicated plan. Skip Contabo only if the app can't tolerate occasional CPU steal.

Charge de travail: production API or checkout flow, EU audience, needs consistent cores → Hetzner. Buy the CAX11 (EUR 5.99 BRAS) if your stack is ARM-ready, or step to a dedicated CCX plan if it isn't and the budget allows. The point here is predictable response time, and Contabo's shared-core variance works against you. Pair it with a managed load balancer as you scale.

Public: primarily Japan, Australie, or India → Contabo, on distance alone. A Tokyo or Sydney box shaves latency that no amount of Hetzner tuning recovers from Falkenstein. Hetzner's only Asia-Pacific site is Singapore, et son 0.5 TB traffic cap there makes a busy site expensive fast.

Budget: you want dedicated cores as cheap as possible → Contabo VDS S (EUR 34.40, 3 noyaux, 24 GB). Post-June, this undercuts Hetzner's CCX13 (EUR 42.99, 2 noyaux, 8 GB) on both price and resources. A year ago the smart pick was Hetzner; the June hike reversed it. Une mise en garde: if the workload can run on ARM, Hetzner's CAX11 is the exception that still beats Contabo on efficiency per euro.

Questions fréquemment posées

Is Hetzner still cheaper than Contabo after the 2026 augmentation des prix?

Not on resources. A l'entrée, both sit near EUR 5.50, but Contabo gives 8 GB of RAM to Hetzner's 4 GB. For dedicated cores the gap widened after June 15: Contabo's VDS S (EUR 34.40, 24 GB) now undercuts Hetzner's CCX13 (EUR 42.99, 8 GB). Hetzner is only "moins cher" if you count ARM value or the stability you get per euro, not the gigabytes.

Does Contabo or Hetzner have less CPU steal?

Hetzner, clairement. Contabo runs shared cores, and users report steal climbing to 20-40% during busy hours, which shows up as uneven response times. Hetzner's shared cores are steadier, and its dedicated-vCPU CCX plans remove steal entirely. If your app is latency-sensitive, that consistency is the main reason to pay Hetzner's higher 2026 des prix.

Which is better for hosting in Asia or Australia, Contabo ou Hetzner?

Contabo, by reach. It runs data centers in Tokyo, Sydney, Bombay, et Singapour, so you can place a server near the audience. Hetzner's only Asia-Pacific location is Singapore, and that region includes just 0.5 TB of traffic with EUR 7.40/TB overage, which punishes busy sites. For Japanese, australien, or Indian users, Contabo is the practical pick.

Can I run Docker and Kubernetes on both Contabo and Hetzner?

Yes on both, since each gives full root on an unmanaged server. The difference is tooling. Hetzner offers an API, a Terraform provider, équilibreurs de charge, and private networks that make a self-run Kubernetes cluster far less painful. On Contabo you wire all of that yourself. For hands-off container orchestration, Hetzner's cloud-native pieces save real hours.

Do Contabo and Hetzner offer refunds?

Contabo offers a 14-day money-back guarantee on new orders, though conditions apply (the auto-renewal grace period doesn't cover German customers). Hetzner offers none. It bills by the hour instead, so cancelling a server stops the meter right away. Want a trial window to bail out? Contabo's refund is the safer route. Happy to pay only for the hours you actually run? Hetzner's model fits better.

Verdict final

Il n'y a pas un seul gagnant, and anyone who names one hasn't read the June price list. Contabo takes raw value: double the RAM at entry, cheaper dedicated cores after Hetzner's hike, trafic illimité, and data centers across Asia and Australia. Buy it when raw capacity is the point and you can live with shared-core variance. Hetzner takes consistency and tooling: steadier cores, a genuine cloud API, ARM servers, et 20 TB of EU traffic. Buy it for EU-region production apps where predictable performance beats headline gigabytes, and lean on the CAX11 ARM plan to sidestep the dedicated-line price shock.

Weighing other budget hosts against these two? Notre Contabo vs Linode comparison pits Contabo's cheap RAM against Akamai's network, et Kamatera contre Hetzner covers hourly-billed cloud against Hetzner's fixed plans.