Cloudflare vs Hetzner
A source-aware comparison of pricing, documented capabilities and workflow fit.
Short answer
- Price: not directly comparable — Cloudflare is free tier available, Hetzner is usage-based pricing.
- How to start: Cloudflare is free tier available, Hetzner is usage-based pricing.
- Where they differ: only Cloudflare has mobile app and sso (saml); both offer public api.
These lines are generated from the pricing we track, not from a paid placement. How we score tools.
What Cloudflare is
What Cloudflare isCloudflare is the world's leading web infrastructure and security company. It acts as a protective shield and an accelerator for millions of websites. By routing traffic through its massive global network, it blocks DDoS attacks, speeds up content delivery via its CDN, and provides a 'serverless' environment through Cloudflare Workers. It is the most accessible way to make your website faster, safer, and more reliable with just a simple DNS change.
Who it is for: almost any site owner, because the free plan gives DNS, a global CDN, TLS certificates and DDoS protection at no cost, and most small sites never need more. Developers get a second product family on top: Workers for edge code, Pages for static hosting, R2 for object storage with no egress fees, and D1 and KV for data at the edge.
Where it falls short: the more of that family you adopt, the harder it is to leave, because Workers and its bindings do not run anywhere else. The Pro and Business plans add image optimisation, a WAF ruleset and better analytics, but some features that look free have paid tiers once traffic grows, and Enterprise pricing is by negotiation. Support on free and Pro plans is community and ticket based. Bunny is cheaper for pure CDN traffic; Fastly is stronger for programmable caching at scale; Cloudflare wins on breadth and on the price of getting started.
What Hetzner is
What Hetzner isHetzner sells cloud instances and dedicated servers from European data centres at prices well below the large clouds. The economics are the reason to use it, especially for bandwidth-heavy or always-on workloads where hyperscaler egress dominates the bill. What you give up is breadth: far fewer managed services and regions, so anything beyond compute, storage and networking you build yourself.
Side by side
| Cloudflare | Hetzner | |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Hosting | Hosting |
| How to start | Free tiernot a monthly price | Usage-basednot a monthly price |
| Public API | Yes | Yes |
| Mobile app | Yes | No |
| Open source / self-hostable | No | No |
| SSO (SAML) | Yes | No |
| Visit | Cloudflare ↗ | Hetzner ↗ |
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What Cloudflare is built to do
- DDoS Protection
- Automatically detect and block sophisticated attacks before they reach your server.
- Global CDN
- Cache your static content on hundreds of servers worldwide for instant loading.
- Cloudflare Workers
- Run JavaScript/Rust code at the network edge to modify requests and responses.
- Zero Trust
- Secure your internal team's access to apps without needing a traditional VPN.
What Hetzner is built to do
- Cloud and dedicated servers
- Offers virtual instances and bare-metal machines from the same account.
- European data centres
- Hosts in German and Finnish sites, with a US region added later.
- Generous included traffic
- Bundles substantial outbound traffic instead of billing every gigabyte.
Choose Cloudflare if
- Sites that need CDN, DNS, universal SSL, unmetered DDoS protection and a WAF at no cost — all are on the free plan
- Small sites where community-forum support is acceptable
- Stepping up gradually: Pro is $20/mo billed annually, not an enterprise contract
Skip Cloudflare if
- You need an uptime SLA — the 100% uptime SLA starts at Business, $200/mo billed annually
- You want image optimization; lossless image optimization begins at Pro, not Free
- You cannot move DNS management to Cloudflare, which the platform requires
Choose Hetzner if
- Teams that can run their own stack and want European data centres with GDPR-compliant hosting
- Bandwidth-heavy or always-on workloads: firewalls, private networks and the REST API are included at no extra charge
- Projects that outgrow shared vCPUs — the Dedicated (General Purpose) line assigns unshared vCPUs for sustained high CPU load
Skip Hetzner if
- You want managed databases, queues or serverless — Hetzner Cloud covers compute, storage and networking, you assemble the rest
- You need many regions or an edge footprint; the location list is short compared with the hyperscalers
- You need a published USD figure before deciding — the site prices per location and currency, and the plan table renders client-side
Evidence and freshness
Where a claim on this page comes from a vendor page, it is linked here.
Cloudflare: pros & cons
- Global Speed: Massive edge network ensures your site loads fast anywhere on earth.
- Best DDoS Protection: Industry-leading security that stops even the largest attacks.
- Free Tier: Extremely generous free plan that covers most small site needs.
- Serverless Power: Run code at the edge with 'Workers' for near-zero latency.
- Complex Pro Features: Advanced settings like Page Rules can be tricky to configure.
- Support: Free users mostly rely on community forums for technical help.
- DNS Dependence: Requires you to move your DNS management to their platform.
Hetzner: pros & cons
- Price per unit of compute is hard to beat
- European data residency
- Dedicated hardware available
- Fewer managed services than AWS or GCP
- Support is documentation-first
- Account verification can be strict
Our verdict on Cloudflare
The pragmatic first layer for speed and security: Free for most sites, Pro at $20/mo, Business at $200/mo when WAF depth matters.
Our verdict on Hetzner
Excellent value if you can run your own stack. If you need managed everything, you will assemble it yourself here.
Published plans, side by side
Every figure below was read from the vendor's own pricing page and is shown with the sentence it came from. Where a vendor publishes no plan prices, we say so rather than guess.
Cloudflare
- Free$0/mo billed annually
Free $0, Pro $20/mo annual ($25 monthly), Business $200/mo annual ($250 monthly)
- Pro$20/mo billed annually
Free $0, Pro $20/mo annual ($25 monthly), Business $200/mo annual ($250 monthly)
- Business$200/mo billed annually
Free $0, Pro $20/mo annual ($25 monthly), Business $200/mo annual ($250 monthly)
Hetzner
No published plan prices verified. Hetzner either quotes on request or renders its prices in a way we could not read from the pricing page.
Cloudflare vs Hetzner: common questions
- Does Cloudflare or Hetzner have a free plan?
- Cloudflare has a free tier with limits, while Hetzner has no free plan listed.
- What is the difference between Cloudflare and Hetzner?
- On the criteria we check, only Cloudflare has mobile app and sso (saml); both offer public api. The table above lists every criterion side by side.