Feeling stuck with rising Azure bills, unpredictable performance, and complex licensing? You’re not the only one. Across Europe, a wave of companies — from SaaS startups to mid-sized enterprises—are making a major infrastructure shift: they’re leaving Microsoft Azure for Hetzner.
Why? The answer boils down to cost, control, and compliance.
This article digs deep into this trend, breaking down the key reasons behind the Azure-to-Hetzner migration wave, with real-world examples, pricing comparisons, technical challenges, and the tools companies are using to make it happen.
We’ve also gathered insights from developers and CTOs on forums like Hacker News and tech blogs who’ve lived through the transition. So whether you're a cloud architect, DevOps lead, or tech-savvy founder, this guide will help you figure out if Hetzner is the right Azure alternative for your team in 2026.
The Cloud Cost Crisis: Azure’s Hidden Fees Explained
Let’s be honest — Azure pricing is a mess.
On paper, Microsoft offers competitive virtual machines, a robust PaaS ecosystem, and integrations galore. But once you start using their services at scale, the bill can become a financial black hole.
Here’s what many European companies are discovering:
1. Bandwidth Drain
Azure charges for every single outbound GB, often at €0.09–€0.13/GB. If you serve media-rich content or handle data replication between regions, these costs skyrocket fast. Some companies report that data transfer costs alone make up 20–30% of their monthly bill.
2. Overhead from Managed Services
Azure's managed services (like Azure SQL, Azure AD, App Services) sound great… until you realize each of them has its own cost model, scaling tiers, and usage-based pricing. Once you stack even a few essential services, your infrastructure bill becomes a patchwork of microcharges.
3. Licensing Complexity
Microsoft bundles services into licensing packages that often feel like you're paying for tools you don't use. Additionally, many businesses discover that support tiers are tied to licensing commitments, which adds even more financial pressure.
4. Price Increases Over Time
Azure pricing has not remained static. Over the past few years, various regions saw changes in currency-based pricing, licensing adjustments, and bandwidth cost restructuring—leaving companies with ever-growing cloud costs despite no architectural changes.
Meet Hetzner: Europe’s High-Performance Cloud at a Fraction of the Price
Enter Hetzner Online, a German-based infrastructure provider that’s gaining serious traction across Europe for offering blazing-fast servers, reliable infrastructure, and transparent pricing.
Unlike hyperscalers, Hetzner doesn’t overpromise PaaS magic. It gives developers and ops teams the raw power and control they need — without the billing games.
Key Hetzner Features That Stand Out:
Flat-rate pricing with 20TB bandwidth included per instance
High-performance CPUs and NVMe storage
Cloud and bare-metal servers starting under €5/month
GDPR-compliant data centers in Germany and Finland
Full support for Terraform, Ansible, Docker, Kubernetes, and more
A no-frills, no-marketing platform that just works
It’s not for everyone. But for those who know how to run infrastructure, or are willing to learn — it’s a game changer.
Let’s see what this looks like in practice.
Case Study: WZ-IT’s Migration from Azure to Hetzner
WZ-IT, a European IT services provider, recently shared their public case study of moving from Microsoft Azure to Hetzner.
They faced a familiar situation:
High recurring Azure costs
Unused licensing overhead
Complexity in resource allocation
Limited control over performance
Their goal? Simplify the stack, reduce costs, and gain ownership of their infrastructure.
Here’s how they did it:
1. Infrastructure Planning
They mapped their Azure services to Hetzner Cloud equivalents using a mix of Terraform and Ansible. No proprietary lock-in, no dependency hell.
2. Containerization
Instead of using Azure’s App Services, they containerized workloads using Docker and deployed them to Hetzner Cloud instances. This made scaling and monitoring easier.
3. Migration Execution
Moved DNS to Hetzner DNS Console and Cloudflare
Set up custom firewalls using iptables
Self-hosted their backups and monitoring with Restic + Grafana
4. Result
“After migration, our infrastructure costs dropped by over 70% while maintaining performance and uptime. We finally feel like we’re in control.” — WZ-IT team
This story mirrors what dozens of European companies are realizing: Azure is powerful, but overkill for many workloads — and Hetzner gives them exactly what they need.
What Developers Are Saying: Hacker News Insights on Azure vs. Hetzner
If you want to know what the tech community really thinks, just check Hacker News. In one thread titled “Azure to Hetzner?”, developers and DevOps engineers shared brutally honest feedback on switching from hyperscalers like Azure to leaner options like Hetzner.
Here are some standout comments and takeaways:
💬 "Hetzner is 10x cheaper and performs better for 80% of workloads."
Multiple users report massive savings after switching to Hetzner from Azure or AWS. Especially for small-to-midsize web apps, the performance difference is negligible—except the price is dramatically lower.
💬 "Azure nickel-and-dimes you for everything. Hetzner gives you control."
One common complaint about Azure is its pricing complexity. Users are frustrated with being charged for every small add-on, from load balancers to DNS queries. In contrast, Hetzner offers flat pricing with no surprise billing.
💬 "Hetzner is simpler. That's its superpower."
While Azure shines with its expansive cloud ecosystem, many devs feel it’s bloated for their needs. Hetzner doesn’t pretend to do everything. Instead, it gives you fast virtual machines, simple networking, and powerful compute—and lets you build the rest.
💬 "Support is the tradeoff. You get what you pay for."
Some users note that Hetzner's support is slower or more “hands-off” compared to Microsoft. But many also say that once you understand how the platform works, you rarely need support at all—and the savings are worth the occasional hiccup.
Hetzner vs Azure: Side-by-Side Cloud Comparison Table (2026)
FeatureMicrosoft AzureHetzner CloudCompute Pricing (4vCPU / 16GB)~€120/month (variable)€23.75/month (fixed)Bandwidth~€0.09–0.13/GB outbound20TB/month includedData Center RegionsGlobal (US, EU, Asia, etc.)EU only (Germany & Finland)GDPR ComplianceDepends on region & configNative, full EU complianceManaged ServicesExtensive (RDS, Azure AD, etc.)MinimalAutoscalingNativeManual or custom scriptedInfrastructure as CodeAzure ARM, TerraformTerraform + CLISupport OptionsTiered support (paid plans)Basic ticket systemComplexityHigh (PaaS-heavy)Low (IaaS-focused)Best ForEnterprises, global-scale appsDevOps teams, SaaS, startupsHetzner vs Azure: Side-by-Side Cloud Comparison Table (2026)
Bottom line?If you’re a European startup, DevOps team, or SME running cost-sensitive workloads, Hetzner gives you 90% of what you need at 20% of the cost—without the cloud bloat.
The Key Reasons European Companies Are Migrating to Hetzner
The shift from Azure to Hetzner isn’t just about price — it’s about alignment with business values and operational needs. Here’s why the switch is so attractive, especially across the EU:
1. Cost Efficiency at Scale
Azure might make sense when you're small and inside a Microsoft ecosystem. But once your usage grows, costs increase exponentially—especially with bandwidth-heavy or multi-region setups.
With Hetzner, pricing is flat, transparent, and predictable.
2. GDPR-First Compliance
Azure stores data across multiple global regions. For EU businesses, this can become a compliance nightmare unless you strictly enforce region locking.
Hetzner data centers are in Germany and Finland only—which means native GDPR compliance with no legal guesswork.
3. Developer Control Over Infrastructure
Azure abstracts away many operations with PaaS, but that also means less flexibility. At Hetzner, developers and DevOps teams get full access to:
VM-level provisioning
Private networking
Custom firewall rules
Any toolset they prefer (Docker, K3s, Nomad, etc.)
No vendor lock-in. No unnecessary abstraction. Just infrastructure that works.
4. Open-Source Tooling Friendly
Azure loves pushing proprietary services. Hetzner embraces open-source.
You can run:
Terraform-managed clusters
GitLab CI/CD runners
Docker Swarm or K3s for container orchestration
Prometheus/Grafana for monitoring
Custom backup solutions like Restic
It’s like building with LEGO, not IKEA furniture — you choose the parts.
Migration Strategy: How to Move from Azure to Hetzner Without Downtime
Migrating from a feature-rich platform like Azure to a leaner, infrastructure-focused cloud like Hetzner requires planning, tooling, and clean execution. While Hetzner doesn't offer all the bells and whistles of Azure, it provides the building blocks — and with the right DevOps approach, you can replicate almost everything you need.
Here’s a step-by-step migration strategy tailored for DevOps teams, SaaS startups, and mid-size businesses running common Azure workloads:
1. Audit Your Azure Environment
Start by listing all the services you rely on in Azure:
Web apps (App Service)
Databases (Azure SQL, Cosmos DB)
Storage (Blob, File Storage)
Identity (Azure AD)
Networking (Load balancers, DNS, VPNs)
Monitoring and security tools
Ask: What’s critical, and what’s replaceable?
2. Map Azure Services to Hetzner Equivalents
Azure is PaaS-heavy. Hetzner is IaaS-first. That means you’ll be self-managing more, but you gain control and customization.
Azure ServiceHetzner AlternativeAzure App ServiceDocker containers or Nginx on Ubuntu VMsAzure SQLSelf-hosted PostgreSQL/MySQL on Hetzner VMsBlob StorageHetzner Storage Boxes or S3-compatible MinIOAzure ADKeycloak or other open-source IAM toolsAzure MonitorPrometheus + GrafanaAzure FirewallUFW / iptables, managed with Ansible
3. Prepare Your Hetzner Environment
Provision servers via the Cloud Console or Terraform
Create private networking between VMs
Deploy firewalls and security groups
Set up DNS zones, or point existing DNS to Hetzner IPs
Install monitoring agents/log collectors early
4. Containerize Your Workloads
If you haven’t already moved to containers on Azure, now is the time. Most apps can be easily Dockerized and deployed to Hetzner instances.
Use Docker Compose or Kubernetes (K3s or k3sup) for orchestration
Build CI/CD pipelines using GitHub Actions or self-hosted GitLab runners on Hetzner
5. Migrate Data Safely
Use pg_dump / mysqldump or pg_basebackup for database exports
Rsync or rclone for large file stores
Always test restores in staging first
For live apps, consider replication and cutover with zero downtime
6. Configure Monitoring & Backups
Deploy Prometheus for infrastructure metrics
Add Grafana for dashboards and alerts
Automate backups with Restic, Borg, or Velero
Store backups in Hetzner Storage Boxes or external S3-compatible solutions
7. Cutover and Test
Point DNS records to Hetzner instances
Run full system tests (login, DB queries, file uploads, etc.)
Monitor closely for 24–72 hours
Decommission Azure services once stable
Recommended Tools:
Terraform – Automate infrastructure provisioning
Ansible – Configure servers with repeatable playbooks
Docker – Containerize and deploy apps easily
Cloudflare – Manage DNS and security
Uptime Kuma – Self-hosted uptime monitoring
Challenges When Leaving Azure (And How to Solve Them)
Leaving Azure’s comfy ecosystem isn’t without its friction. Here are common challenges and how to overcome them:
Challenge 1: No Managed Database Service
Solution:Use Docker or systemd-based Postgres/MySQL installations. Pair with automated backup tools (Restic, pgBackRest) and replication strategies.
Challenge 2: No Serverless or Event-Driven Functions
Solution:Use lightweight containers for background jobs, or explore open-source alternatives like OpenFaaS or Temporal.io.
Challenge 3: No Azure AD for Identity
Solution:Use Keycloak, Authelia, or OAuth2 Proxy. Integrate with your frontend/backend apps. For enterprise IAM, consider Okta or Auth0 externally.
Challenge 4: No Built-in Autoscaling
Solution:Use Prometheus metrics + custom scripts or 3rd-party tooling (e.g., Cluster Autoscaler for K3s) to build your own autoscaler logic. Hetzner now supports VM snapshots and quick provisioning.
Who Should NOT Migrate from Azure to Hetzner?
To be clear — Hetzner isn’t for everyone.
You should stay on Azure (or consider another hyperscaler) if:
You rely heavily on managed services and don’t have time to self-host alternatives
Your business depends on serverless, AI/ML, or advanced networking tools
You need global region diversity (e.g. US, Asia, South America)
Your team lacks the DevOps expertise to manage your own infrastructure stack
When Hetzner Is a Perfect Azure Alternative
You have a DevOps-friendly team with Terraform/Ansible skills
You’re a European SaaS startup aiming to cut infra costs by 50–80%
You want full control over data, networking, and performance
You don’t need a dozen PaaS tools — just fast VMs and reliable networking
You care about GDPR, data sovereignty, and EU-first cloud strategy
Final Thoughts: Should You Leave Azure for Hetzner in 2026?
If your infrastructure costs are climbing.If your app doesn’t need all of Azure’s managed services.If your team can self-manage using Terraform, Docker, or Ansible.
Then yes — now is the time to test Hetzner.
It’s not just about saving money. It’s about freedom from vendor lock-in, predictable pricing, and having full control of your infrastructure again.
You don’t have to do a big bang migration. Start with a test workload. See the performance. Run the numbers. Then decide.
You’ll probably wish you switched sooner — like many others already have.
Contact Gart Solutions for migration to Hetzner.
It’s no surprise that tech leaders are searching for alternatives to hyperscalers like AWS. Whether you're a CTO wrestling with runaway infrastructure bills or a DevOps engineer tired of managing AWS complexity, the reality is the same: AWS is powerful but expensive, and over time, you're likely paying for far more than you're using.
That’s where Hetzner enters the picture. A European cloud and dedicated server provider with transparent pricing, high-performance hardware, and no surprise billing. More and more companies — from startups to scale-ups — are migrating from AWS to Hetzner and cutting their cloud bills by up to 90%, as widely documented across forums like Reddit and Hacker News.
In this detailed guide, we’ll show you exactly how to migrate from AWS to Hetzner using a proven, step-by-step playbook. We won’t just say "move your servers" — we’ll show you:
What tools to use
What AWS services need replacements
What pitfalls to avoid
How Gart Solutions can support your migration with expert DevOps and infrastructure-as-code capabilities
Forget vendor lock-in. Forget mysterious billing surprises. Let’s walk through how to make your infrastructure leaner, cheaper, and more under your control — without sacrificing performance or reliability.
Common AWS Cost Traps:
Data Egress Fees: AWS charges up to $0.09/GB for outbound traffic — Hetzner includes 20 TB free per VM, then only ~$1/TB after.
Managed Services Premium: AWS RDS, ElastiCache, SQS, Lambda all add layers of cost and margin.
Per-Request Billing: API Gateway, CloudWatch, S3, etc. charge per request — hard to predict and scale.
Storage IOPS: EBS IOPS fees balloon costs for disk-intensive workloads.
A recent Data-Aces migration revealed Hetzner cut costs by 70–80% across compute and storage alone — and by over 90% in bandwidth fees. That’s a massive savings opportunity.
Below are some real cost savings when moving from AWS to Hetzner with the goal of cutting costs (often cited as “90 %” in real-world moves) while minimizing disruption.
Performance & Pricing Table: AWS vs Hetzner
Feature AWS EC2 (t3.medium) Hetzner CPX21 vCPUs 2 2 RAM 4 GB 4 GB Storage EBS (charged separately) 40 GB NVMe (included) Monthly Price (EU) ~$38 + storage €6.90 (all-inclusive) Bandwidth Charged separately 20 TB (included) Performance Moderate (burstable) Dedicated vCPU (Source: Data-Aces, Hetzner Pricing Docs)
Real Cost Savings: From 5x to 10x Cheaper
Let’s model a small-to-medium web app stack:
Resource AWS Monthly Hetzner Monthly Savings 2x t3.medium VMs $76 €13.80 ~82% 1x RDS db.t3.medium $75 Self-hosted DB ~90% 1 TB S3 Storage $23 €2.90 ~87% 2 TB Egress Bandwidth $180 Included ~100% Total $354 ~€20–25 ~93% (Source: Data-Aces, Hetzner Pricing Docs)
These savings are real and repeatable. You just need to plan the migration carefully — and that’s what we’re doing next.
High-Level AWS to Hetzner Migration Strategy
Before diving into detailed steps, it’s critical to pick your strategy. There are three broad approaches when migrating from AWS to Hetzner (or any non‑AWS infrastructure):
Strategy Description Pros Cons / Risks “Lift & shift” / rehost Copy your existing EC2 / EBS / file systems over to Hetzner VMs or dedicated servers with minimal re-architecture Fastest, with less refactoring Not always feasible (if you use many AWS‑native services), may carry over inefficiencies Replatform / partial refactor Migrate core (e.g., compute, storage) but rework or replace AWS-managed services (RDS → self‑hosted, Lambdas → functions on servers) Better performance/cost balance Requires effort, introduces complexity Refactor / rebuild in Hetzner-native style Re-architect for Hetzner (VPCs, Docker/Kubernetes, automation) from the ground up Maximum long-term flexibility and cost control Longest time, highest upfront risk Table: Migration strategies
Most real-world migrations are hybrid: you start with lift & shift for some parts, then gradually refactor high-cost or high-risk parts.
One recent migration project publicized their result as “cut 90 %” of AWS costs by migrating to Hetzner + OVH and replicating essential AWS features via Terraform & Ansible. (Hacker News)
But beware — that kind of saving is realistic only if:
Your usage is steady/ predictable (not huge autoscaling spikes)
You’re not heavily dependent on AWS-managed services
You’re ready to take responsibility for operations, monitoring, backups, and reliability
Gart Solutions value is that we help you evaluate that risk, determine which strategy fits you, and execute it.
1st: Pre-Migration Phase: Scoping, Auditing, Planning
Before you touch any server, scoping is everything. This is where your migration succeeds or fails. The first step? Take a full inventory of everything running in your AWS account.
Step 1: Inventory & Mapping
EC2 instances
EBS volumes
S3 buckets
IAM roles / users
Security groups / firewalls
RDS / Aurora / ElastiCache / Lambda
CloudWatch / logs / alarms
Route53 zones / DNS entries
SQS, API Gateway, Cognito, and any AWS-native services
Use AWS Config, Cost Explorer, Inframap, or Gart’s audit suite to pull this automatically.
Step 2: Group by Priority & Risk
Make a matrix:
Mission-critical vs low-risk
Stateless vs stateful
Easy to rehost vs tightly coupled to AWS
Step 3: Choose Migration Approach
Lift & Shift: Fastest, but carries AWS inefficiencies
Replatform: Move services but optimize architecture
Refactor: Best long-term, requires dev investment
Example:
AWS Service Action Hetzner Equivalent EC2 Rehost Hetzner Cloud VMs RDS Replatform Self-managed PostgreSQL Lambda Refactor Docker + cron or serverless S3 Rehost Hetzner Object Storage CloudFront Replace Cloudflare / BunnyCDN Table: Hetzner Equivalents to the main AWS services.
Gart Solutions can help design the full architecture, plan migration order, and assess downtime risk per service.
Step 4: Cost Projection Model
Build a spreadsheet estimating:
Current AWS costs (EC2, RDS, S3, etc.)
Target Hetzner resources (CPX, CAX, Storage Boxes, Object Storage)
Estimated total monthly savings
Migration effort required
Tools like infracost.io + Gart’s cost planner can help model this automatically.
2nd: Building the Foundation in Hetzner (Parallel Setup)
Once your AWS audit is complete and you’ve selected a strategy (lift, replatform, refactor), it’s time to build the new home for your infrastructure on Hetzner. This is the "foundation-laying" phase — your Hetzner infrastructure will run in parallel to your AWS environment during testing and validation.
This approach ensures zero production downtime and gives you time to test everything end-to-end before pulling the plug on AWS.
2.1 Account & Project Setup
Create your Hetzner account(s). Hetzner uses Projects inside the account for grouping (like “dev”, “prod”).
Invite users / roles, set up access controls.
Enable billing alerts, quotas, and usage dashboards.
Gart Solutions helps you bootstrap the account, governance, and security policy from day one.
2.2 Networking & VPC Topology
Design private networks, subnets, firewall rules (like AWS VPC + security groups).
Reserve floating IPs (Hetzner analog to AWS elastic IP) for failover.
Set up NAT gateways / Internet gateways, route tables.
Decide on cross‑region / cross‑site connectivity (VPN, interconnect).
Optionally deploy a load balancer (Hetzner’s LB or a custom proxy layer).
In some migrations, teams emulate LB by spinning up CX11 servers with nginx and using floating IPs & automation. This was reported in real-world Reddit migrations. (Reddit)
2.3 Base VM Images & Automation
Choose your OS base (Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS, etc).
Harden baseline images (SSH keys, firewall, logging, security).
Bake images with configuration management (Ansible, Packer) for consistency.
Deploy staging / test clusters identical to production size but scaled-down.
Gart Solutions can build golden images, implement snapshot & versioning strategy, and automate VM provisioning via Terraform + Ansible.
2.4 Storage & Block Volumes
Provision volumes / block storage equivalent to EBS.
Decide volume types (SSD, NVMe, etc).
Set up disk partitioning, LVM, RAID, or ZFS layers if needed.
Attach volumes to VMs and test I/O performance, benchmarking.
2.5 Object Storage & S3 Migration Plan
Use Hetzner Object Storage buckets (S3-compatible). Hetzner’s documentation offers a guide to migrate from another provider’s buckets. (Hetzner Docs)
Use tools like rclone, s3cmd, MinIO client (mc) for full sync; note custom metadata may be lost except with MinIO client.
For large data sets, consider multi-part uploads, parallel sync, throttling to avoid saturating network.
Gart Solutions can script and orchestrate bucket-level sync with minimal downtime and consistency checks.
2.6 Database Setup
Spin up database servers (e.g. PostgreSQL, MySQL, or your DB of choice).
Configure replication, clustering, high availability, backups, monitoring.
Optionally put in a delay replica for safety.
Preload schemas and test with sample data.
Since Hetzner has no fully managed RDS equivalent, you need to treat this carefully. Gart Solutions can help deploy resilient, scalable DB clusters, handle failover, and manage backups.
2.7 Application & Middleware Stack
Deploy your app stack (containers, runtime, web servers, API servers, caches, etc) in Hetzner staging environment.
Test end-to-end functionality, integrations, network routes.
Set up SSL/TLS (Let’s Encrypt, or your own certs).
Deploy logging, monitoring, alerting stack (Prometheus, Grafana, Loki, ELK, etc).
One migration noted they rebuilt key AWS features (hardening, monitoring, rolling deploys, TLS automation) using Terraform + Ansible. (Hacker News)
2.8 DNS, CDN, & Edge Services
If you used AWS Route 53, migrate your hosted zones / DNS records to Hetzner DNS (or a third-party DNS if you prefer).
Set up TTLs low before cutover.
If you used CloudFront or AWS CDN, evaluate replacing with Cloudflare, BunnyCDN, Fastly, or any CDN of your choice.
Validate DNS propagation, health checks, and failover behavior.
AWS-to-Hetzner Service Mapping Table
AWS Service Hetzner Equivalent / Solution Notes EC2 CPX, CAX, or dedicated servers Similar VM types, better price-perf EBS Attached volumes Use NVMe for high-speed I/O S3 Hetzner Object Storage S3-compatible with CLI tool support RDS Self-hosted PostgreSQL/MySQL Use Ansible + daily snapshot backups Route53 Hetzner DNS or Cloudflare Full DNS control, API-accessible CloudFront Cloudflare, BunnyCDN CDN options with better pricing Lambda Docker containers, Cron + Event Hooks Replace with cron jobs, containers, Nomad SQS Redis Queue, RabbitMQ, NATS Use self-hosted queues CloudWatch Grafana + Prometheus + Loki Full open-source observability stack IAM Hetzner API Tokens + Secrets Mgmt Optional Vault/Keycloak for advanced control Table: AWS-to-Hetzner Service Mapping Table
3rd. - Data Migration & Dual-Writing (Synchronization Phase)
At this point, the Hetzner staging environments are ready. Next, you must bring live data without losing consistency.
3.1 Snapshot / Disk Migration
For EC2 / EBS volumes, create a snapshot, mount it in AWS, and copy data (via rsync, dd, or file-level).
Hetzner docs provide a migration recipe: backup data, scp/rsync to new server, restore users, firewall rules, etc. (Hetzner Docs)
For entire partitions, you can replicate block devices, but be careful with UUIDs, bootloader, etc.
3.2 Database Sync / Replication
Use database replication from the source (AWS RDS or self-hosted) to the target.
Use logical replication or sync tools (e.g., pglogical, binlog replication, etc).
For the final cutover, pause writes or fail traffic to catch up.
Validate consistency, run checksums, compare counts.
3.3 Dual-Writing / Shadow Writes (if possible)
If your application allows, implement dual writes (write to both AWS and Hetzner DB) during the migration window.
Use feature flags, flags to route reads to one side, writes to both, etc.
This smooths the transition and reduces downtime risk.
3.4 Incremental File Sync
Use rsync, unison, or incremental sync scripts to keep changing files in sync.
Use a cron job or a watcher-based incremental tool.
During final cutover, run a last sync.
3.5 Object Storage Final Sync
Re-run your s3cmd / mc / rclone sync to flush any changed objects.
Validate checksums, metadata, and permissions.
3.6 Verification & Smoke Testing
Validate that data is correct (row counts, file sizes, checksums).
Run functional and integration tests in the Hetzner environment.
Monitor logs, metrics, error rates.
Compare performance between source and target.
Gart Solutions can orchestrate all these sync tasks with prebuilt scripts and verify consistency automatically.
4th. - Cutover / Switch Traffic (Switchover Phase)
With data synced and validation done, now you switch user traffic from AWS to Hetzner.
4.1 Freeze Writes / Quiesce AWS
Stop new writes on AWS (maintenance window, read-only mode, etc).
Wait for final replication, flush all queues, and ensure no lag.
4.2 DNS / Floating IP Switch
Reassign floating IPs or public IPs in Hetzner.
Update DNS records (lower TTL to speed propagation).
Use DNS failover, health checks, or weighted routing if available.
Monitor for propagation errors.
4.3 Enable Traffic & Monitor
Slowly ramp traffic to Hetzner (e.g., 10 %, 50 %, then 100 %).
Watch error rates, latencies, resource usage,and logs.
Roll back if something catastrophic happens (DNS TTL helps).
Validate stability over several hours/days.
One anecdote from Reddit:
“The migrations … implemented CX11 servers with nginx to do load balancing … floating IP automation was tricky.” (Reddit)
Gart Solutions can provide the automation and control logic for IP switching and traffic cutover to minimize human error.
4.4 Decommission AWS Resources
Once confident, shut down AWS EC2, RDS, S3 buckets, etc.
Clean up IAM, snapshots, EBS, autoscaling, etc.
Keep backups or roll-back snapshots for a grace period.
5th. - Post‑Migration, Optimization & Hardening
The cutover is not the end. You now own full operations and must optimize, mature, and ensure reliability.
5.1 Performance Tuning & Cost Optimization
Size down over-provisioned VMs.
Use autoscaling if needed (with scripts / custom logic).
Tune database, caching, and query performance.
Monitor usage and right-size volumes, storage classes.
Optimize network egress and minimize cross-DC traffic.
5.2 Monitoring, Logging, and Alerting
Implement Prometheus, Grafana, Alertmanager, logging stack (Loki, ELK, etc).
Monitor metrics: CPU, memory, disk, I/O, network, and application errors.
Add alert thresholds, SLA-based alerts, and anomaly detection.
Audit logs, access logs, and enable security monitoring.
In a published migration, they rebuilt AWS features like rolling deploys, auditing, SSH policies, monitoring, and alerting via Ansible & Terraform. (Hacker News)
Gart Solutions can provide this stack out-of-box or adapt your existing one.
5.3 Backup, Disaster Recovery, and DR Planning
Build a backup strategy: full, incremental, offsite (e.g., backup to object storage, remote region).
Test restore procedures regularly.
Spinning up a cold standby in another DC or region.
Document incident playbooks.
5.4 Security Hardening & Compliance
Enforce firewall rules, security groups.
SSH hardening, key rotation.
Implement intrusion detection, SELinux, audit, and process isolation.
Network segmentation (public vs private subnets).
Pen tests, vulnerability scans.
If you need ISO 27001, GDPR, etc, capture all controls.
The migration to European cloud (Hetzner + OVH) cited that they preserved ISO 27001 alignment using Ansible roles for hardening, alerting, deployments, etc. (Hacker News)
Gart Solutions specializes in security & compliance hardening in such migrations.
5.5 Continuous Improvement & Automation
Automate deployments (CI/CD pipelines) targeting your new Hetzner environment.
Use Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform, Ansible) for reproducibility.
Add self-healing, scaling, chaos testing.
Iteratively refine architecture, storage tiers, and caches.
6th. - Common Challenges & Pitfalls (and How Gart Solutions Helps)
Here’s where many migrations get stuck — but with proper attention, you can avoid or mitigate these issues.
Challenge Description Mitigation / Advice AWS-managed services are not present in Hetzner E.g. Lambda, Kinesis, SQS, managed RDS, EventBridge Replace with open-source equivalents, host them yourself, or use third-party services. Gart Solutions helps choose and integrate replacements. Network latency and inter-DC instability Hetzner’s backbone may be less robust across many regions Avoid cross-DC traffic when possible; architect locality; monitor network; accept in some cases lower reliability. Floating IP (elastic IP) automation complexity Reassigning public IPs during cutover is tricky Gart Solutions builds scripts/automation to manage IP reassignment, failover logic, and net rules. Consistency of data during cutover Replication lag, drift, and race conditions Use dual writes, quiesce writes carefully, and validate checksums. DNS propagation delays Slow TTL changes impact cutover Use low TTL well before, monitor propagation. Operational maturity & support burden You now manage everything on your own Gart Solutions can act as your managed services / second-line support and help mature ops. Unexpected performance bottlenecks Differences in virtualization, disk I/O, and network Benchmark early, tune, choose right VM types, work with us to profile bottlenecks. Lock‑in to AWS IaC (CloudFormation, CDK) These are not portable to Hetzner Migrate to Terraform, rewrite IaC. Gart Solutions helps port your stacks. Team knowledge / expertise gap Your team may be unfamiliar with Hetzner, managing infrastructure Gart Solutions can mentor your engineers, share playbooks, and provide operational support.
From Reddit:
“Network somewhat unstable when you operate a large microservice deployment… missing drives, servers that won’t boot … cross region sucks a bit due to network interruptions.” (Reddit)
That’s exactly the kind of issue Gart Solutions can anticipate and guard against: we can put in redundant paths, failover logic, and monitoring to catch these faults.
Why Choose Gart Solutions as a Migration Partner?
When choosing a migration partner, you want more than just a “contractor that moves VMs.” Gart Solutions offers:
End-to-end service — From assessment, architecture, building, cutover, post‑migration hardening, to long-term managed support.
Risk-aware planning — We perform failure mode analysis, build rollbacks, and stage migrations to minimize downtime.
Prebuilt modules & templates — For common stacks (web app, API, DB, caching, queueing) we have reusable Terraform + Ansible modules optimized for Hetzner.
Cost modeling & validation — We help you verify that the “cut 90%” target is realistic for your workload, and guard against surprises.
Operations transition & training — We upskill your team in the new environment and optionally act as your managed ops partner.
Security & compliance focus — We bring experience in ISO 27001, GDPR, security hardening, audit controls, so the migration doesn’t compromise your posture.
Gart Solutions is not just moving your infrastructure — we’re enabling you to run reliably, securely, and cost-effectively on Hetzner after the move.
Gart’s Case Study: Why Hetzner is a Game-Changer for High-Traffic Workloads
About: An iGaming company planned to host a platform expecting 20,000 users, offering free trials with game downloads (500MB–1GB each) and targeting 4,000 paid subscribers.
Challenge: On AWS, traffic costs from 16,000 free users (up to 10GB each) made the business model unsustainable. Projected $80,000 revenue wouldn’t cover AWS egress fees.
Solution: Gart Solutions recommended migrating to Hetzner Private Cloud, ensuring predictable, low-cost infrastructure optimized for heavy traffic workloads.
Result:
Infrastructure costs slashed
Business model became profitable & sustainable
Supported high-traffic growth without AWS cost overhead
Learn more about the case of migration to Hetzner.
Example Migration Walkthrough
Here’s a condensed example of how a migration might execute:
1. Assessment & planning (2 weeks)
Inventory AWS stack, build dependency map, choose lift & shift for compute + refactor for managed services, cost modeling, roadmap.
2. Build target infra (1 week)
Set up Hetzner projects, VPC, subnets, firewalls, base VM images, object storage, app staging stack, DNS config.
3. Initial data sync (ongoing)
Sync file servers, start DB replication, sync objects.
4. Testing & verification (3 days)
Smoke tests, integration tests, performance tests. Tweak architecture, adjust sizes.
5. Cutover (maintenance window, e.g. weekend)
Freeze writes, run final sync, switch DNS / floating IPs, bring traffic live, monitor.
6. Post‑migration ops (weeks-months)
Tune performance, enable scaling logic, set alerts, harden security, fully decommission AWS.
Actual users report:
“We migrated production in under an hour, once everything was ready; whole prep took days/weeks.” (@rameerez)
“The biggest cost saving was in bandwidth bills.” (Hacker News)
That said, every case is different; Gart Solutions sizes our involvement to your scale and risk appetite.
Summary & Key Takeaways
Migrating from AWS to Hetzner can yield massive cost savings (some report 70–90 %) especially when AWS bills are heavy for bandwidth and managed services. (Hacker News)
It’s not just copying servers — you must plan for AWS-native services, network, high availability, DNS, and operational maturity.
The success lies in rigorous planning, parallel setup, data sync and validation, smart cutover, and post-migration optimization.
Gart Solutions can serve as your end‑to‑end migration and operations partner, reducing your risk, accelerating execution, and helping you land safely.
If you follow a methodical playbook and engage expertise (whether Gart or your own), migrating to Hetzner can be practical — not just theory.
Download the Whitepaper: "Migration from AWS to Hetzner: Step-by-Step Guide to Cut Costs by 90%"
Whitepaper-Migrating-from-AWS-to-Hetzner-Gart-SolutionsDownload
AWS offers unmatched scalability, global reach, and a vast suite of services, but these come at a price. For many companies, especially startups and those with high bandwidth or compute needs, AWS becomes a budget-burning monster. That’s where Hetzner, a German cloud and dedicated server provider, starts turning heads.
Gart Solutions has been making waves by strategically shifting away from hyperscale providers like AWS to cost-effective, performance-optimized alternatives like Hetzner.
So, is Hetzner just cheaper, or actually better in some scenarios? Let’s break it all down by diving into real-world deployments, cost comparisons, and expert insights from how Gart Solutions has deployed Hetzner in production environments with striking success.
Understanding the Cloud Landscape
AWS – The Industry Giant
There’s no denying AWS is the gold standard in cloud computing. With over 200 services spanning compute, storage, networking, databases, machine learning, and more, AWS supports everything from nimble startups to multinational conglomerates. It offers enterprise-level reliability, granular security controls, and geographic coverage that stretches across every continent.
But with this enormous toolset comes equally massive complexity — and cost. AWS operates on a “pay-as-you-go” model that can seem fair in theory, but often ends up being unpredictable and overwhelming.
Egress (outbound traffic) charges, for instance, can be a nightmare for businesses that distribute large files, stream content, or run high-traffic platforms.
And while AWS excels at handling massive scale, its complexity sometimes makes it a burden for smaller teams or simpler projects.
Hetzner – The Underdog Gaining Momentum
Hetzner may not have the same market share as AWS, but it’s quietly become a favorite among developers, startups, and cost-conscious enterprises across Europe and beyond. Known for its nonsense pricing model and high-performance dedicated servers, Hetzner offers both bare-metal and cloud services at prices that often make AWS look like luxury shopping.
Where AWS offers nearly everything, Hetzner focuses on doing fewer things extremely well. It excels in areas like raw compute power, consistent bandwidth, and high-speed networking — all while charging a flat monthly fee or minimal hourly rates. And unlike AWS, Hetzner includes generous traffic allowances (often unlimited), which makes it especially appealing for applications with high outbound data needs.
And while Hetzner doesn’t match AWS in the breadth of services, it integrates smoothly with modern DevOps tooling, like Terraform, Kubernetes, Docker, and CI/CD pipelines, making it highly attractive to teams that want performance without vendor lock-in.
Why Companies Seek AWS Alternatives
The High Cost of AWS
It’s not just small businesses complaining about AWS pricing — it’s a known industry pain point.
Let’s say you’re running a content delivery app or SaaS platform — each gigabyte of outbound data gets billed separately. Now imagine 100,000 users downloading or streaming from your app. Suddenly, your monthly cloud costs double, even if your user base hasn’t changed.
This pricing structure often penalizes growth. The more successful your application, the more you pay — not because you’re consuming more compute, but because data transfer is metered heavily.
And then there’s the operational cost of managing AWS. It often takes a team of certified engineers just to maintain and optimize configurations, spot underutilized resources, and ensure security best practices. That’s a hidden cost many businesses overlook.
Performance vs. Price Dilemma
One of the major paradoxes with AWS is that while it promises performance, it charges a premium for consistency. Your EC2 instance might perform well today and lag tomorrow due to noisy neighbors (multi-tenant environments). You can pay more for “dedicated” resources, but that quickly spirals out of budget.
With Hetzner, the opposite is often true. You get powerful bare-metal servers or consistently high-performance VMs without needing to guess on pricing tiers. This predictability, both in cost and performance, is a major reason companies start looking beyond AWS.
Gart Solutions’ Cloud Philosophy
Gart Solutions specializes in helping clients modernize IT infrastructure, adopt DevOps best practices, and scale without breaking the bank. Our philosophy revolves around optimizing every layer of the cloud stack — from infrastructure provisioning to deployment pipelines, while keeping budgets in check.
Rather than defaulting to AWS because it’s the “safe choice,” Gart Solutions evaluates each client’s real needs: traffic patterns, performance requirements, cost sensitivity, and automation goals. This leads us to seek infrastructure that aligns more closely with the business model and technical demands of the project.
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Choosing Hetzner – Strategic Reasoning
For many of their client projects, Gart Solutions identified Hetzner as the perfect balance of affordability, reliability, and flexibility. The decision to go with Hetzner wasn’t just about cost (though that played a big part). It was also about control, automation, and the ability to manage infrastructure using familiar tools like Terraform, Kubernetes, and Ansible.
By choosing Hetzner, they could build resilient, scalable infrastructure that’s just as capable as AWS-hosted setups but without the headache of unpredictable billing. Whether they were optimizing CI/CD workflows or deploying complex container orchestration, Hetzner’s clean infrastructure model made it easier to build, manage, and maintain robust cloud environments.
They also appreciated that Hetzner doesn’t charge for traffic — making it a godsend for media-rich apps, SaaS tools, gaming platforms, and IoT systems.
Case Study #1 – High-Traffic Gaming Workloads
The Challenge with AWS
Imagine you're launching a gaming platform where users can download large files ranging from 500MB to 1GB. Now imagine 20,000 users doing that repeatedly during a promotional campaign. On AWS, this means enormous outbound data charges.
That’s exactly the problem one Gart Solutions client faced. They had projected annual revenues of about $80,000 from free-to-play game trials, but AWS’s pricing would have eaten up over 60% of that —just from data egress costs.
Using AWS’s EC2 instances and S3 storage initially seemed like a safe, scalable choice. But the hidden cost of bandwidth, especially when the business model relies on large, frequent downloads — was a dealbreaker. Gart quickly realized that if the client stuck with AWS, the entire revenue model would collapse under operational expenses.
Migration to Hetzner
Gart Solutions proposed a switch to Hetzner Cloud. Why? Because Hetzner offers uncapped bandwidth with minimal restrictions and flat-rate pricing, perfect for handling enormous traffic at predictable costs. They rebuilt the platform using a combination of Hetzner's dedicated servers and cloud instances, optimizing download performance through fast SSD storage and CDN acceleration.
To ensure reliability, they implemented failover systems, load balancing, and efficient caching layers. The infrastructure was containerized, making it portable, scalable, and fast to deploy. With Terraform and Docker in place, infrastructure updates could happen in seconds, ensuring seamless rollouts and minimal downtime.
Results and Metrics
Cost Reduction: data traffic expenses dropped by nearly 80% compared to AWS.
Performance: download speeds remained consistent, averaging ~200MB/s per node.
User Experience: zero downtime during traffic surges; smoother gameplay initiation.
Business Impact: client retained a much healthier margin, making the game trial monetization strategy sustainable.
Hetzner didn’t just replace AWS, it enabled a business model that AWS pricing would have killed.
Case Study #2 – Scaling a Global Environmental Platform
Elandfill.io’s Expansion Needs
ReSource International approached Gart Solutions with a clear mission: scale their landfill management software — elandfill.io from local installations in Iceland to a full-scale global SaaS platform. The challenge wasn’t just scaling users; it involved handling enormous datasets including geospatial images, gas emissions records, real-time weather monitoring, and predictive analytics across multiple time zones.
The backend involved PostgreSQL with PostGIS, map rendering, data ingestion pipelines, and alert systems for environmental safety —all of which needed to work in real-time. Doing this on AWS was certainly an option, but the potential cost and service complexity threatened to overwhelm the project in its infancy.
How Hetzner Met the Challenge
Gart Solutions architected the entire SaaS platform on Hetzner Cloud using Kubernetes for orchestration. They built modular services for monitoring, alerting, analytics, and rendering, ensuring the architecture was elastic and easy to maintain.
Key elements included:
Geoserver Optimization: efficient handling of map tile generation and caching.
CI/CD Pipelines: automated testing, deployment, and rollback.
Monitoring & Alerting: Prometheus and Grafana stack for full observability.
They made use of Hetzner’s reliable network and data centers in Germany and Finland to ensure low-latency performance across Europe. For clients outside Europe, the solution was containerized and easily deployable in hybrid-cloud models if needed.
Business Outcomes
Scalability: platform scaled from 1 to 14 countries without downtime.
Affordability: hosting cost reduced by more than 60% compared to initial AWS projections.
Real-Time Data: improved latency and faster alerts for environmental breaches.
Sustainability: the low-cost footprint aligned perfectly with the client’s green tech values.
Hetzner helped turn a local environmental tool into a global digital platform, without the AWS price tag.
Case Study #3 – DevOps in Digital Betting
Betting Platform Infrastructure Problems
A Germany-based digital betting provider was struggling with an outdated infrastructure. They were operating on bare-metal Windows servers, had no automation for deployments, and scaled poorly during live sports events. Everything was done manually — from patches to provisioning. Each code change risked downtime, and traffic spikes during major sports matches regularly crashed the system.
Their CI/CD pipeline was virtually nonexistent, and their infrastructure couldn't support high availability or disaster recovery effectively. The business risk was high and escalating.
Full DevOps Makeover with Hetzner
Gart Solutions rebuilt the architecture from the ground up, starting with a migration to Hetzner’s Linux-based virtual servers. The transformation was executed in three phases:
Mapping Service Dependencies: they audited the system’s critical services, establishing what needed to be containerized and how to break the monolith.
Infrastructure-as-Code: using Ansible and Terraform, they automated provisioning and configuration. This reduced deployment times from days to minutes.
Kubernetes & CI/CD: they rolled out Kubernetes clusters to support containerized workloads, introduced GitLab CI pipelines, and set up observability tools (Prometheus, Loki, Grafana).
Disaster recovery, blue-green deployments, and A/B testing became part of the operational DNA.
Uptime, Performance, and Deployment Success
Uptime: 99.97% availability across 12 months.
Speed: Deployment times reduced from 48 hours to under 10 minutes.
Traffic Handling: Load testing showed platform stability during 3x normal traffic.
Operational Efficiency: Engineers gained back 30+ hours/month previously spent on manual deployments.
Hetzner + Gart’s DevOps framework turned a fragile betting platform into a modern, resilient, cloud-native powerhouse.
Comparing AWS and Hetzner Head-to-Head
Cost Structure
If you have high or unpredictable outbound traffic, Hetzner wins hands down.
Performance and Reliability
While AWS offers near-100% uptime SLAs, Hetzner has proven reliability across use cases.
Benchmarks from Gart Solutions show Hetzner’s VMs and bare-metal instances match AWS in I/O speed and network throughput, especially for European users.
DevOps Compatibility
Both support modern DevOps stacks, but AWS has its own ecosystem (CodePipeline, CloudFormation) while Hetzner integrates openly with popular tools like Terraform, Ansible, and Kubernetes.
So, AWS is more integrated but less flexible. Hetzner allows full control.
When to Choose Hetzner Over AWS
Ideal Use Cases
Let’s be honest — no single cloud provider is the right answer for everyone. But if your use case aligns with one or more of the following, Hetzner might just be your secret weapon:
High-Bandwidth Applications Streaming platforms, file-sharing systems, gaming platforms, or SaaS products with large downloads benefit massively from Hetzner’s free, uncapped outbound traffic.
Budget-Conscious Startups If you're just launching a product or bootstrapping your business, AWS costs can be punishing. Hetzner’s flat-rate pricing lets you plan and scale without unpredictable bills.
Self-Managed DevOps Environments Teams that love working with Terraform, Ansible, Kubernetes, and Docker will feel right at home. Hetzner’s clean infrastructure gives you full control, no managed service lock-ins.
Edge and Regional Deployments With Hetzner’s growing global footprint (Germany, Finland, and now the U.S. and Singapore), deploying regionally for latency-sensitive apps is very feasible.
SaaS Builders Looking for Control If your app needs custom infrastructure or tight observability (without vendor APIs), Hetzner gives you the hardware feel in a cloud package.
When AWS Still Wins
However, there are situations where AWS remains the better option:
Need for Managed Services AWS offers robust managed databases, serverless architecture, AI/ML platforms, and global CDN options that Hetzner doesn’t match.
Regulatory Compliance & Certifications If your app requires SOC 2, HIPAA, FedRAMP, or other high-level certifications, AWS provides pre-approved infrastructure for compliance-heavy workloads.
Enterprise Multi-Region Scaling For companies operating across 10+ countries with users worldwide, AWS’s global data centers and traffic routing give them an edge.
If you want flexibility and control at a fraction of the cost, Hetzner is excellent. If you need managed magic and global compliance, AWS is king.
Final Thoughts – Hetzner Is a Smart, Scalable Choice
Here’s the bottom line: Hetzner is not a universal replacement for AWS, but in the right hands, it becomes a cloud powerhouse, especially when paired with smart implementation partners like Gart Solutions.
Through three real-world case studies, we’ve seen:
Case 1: How a gaming company salvaged its monetization model by eliminating bandwidth fees.
Case 2: How a green tech startup scaled globally with geospatial data, using Kubernetes and Hetzner’s compute flexibility.
Case 3: How a legacy betting platform transformed into a fast, scalable, DevOps-driven cloud app with zero AWS involvement.
Hetzner isn’t about bells and whistles. It’s about raw performance, predictable pricing, and giving engineers the tools they need without handholding. And when paired with a team like Gart Solutions, it doesn’t just save money.
So, is Hetzner a good alternative to AWS?
Absolutely. Especially when every dollar, every millisecond, and every gigabyte counts.
There are some thoughts of other users on Reddit, we’ve checked to provide you with the most complete picture on choosing a cloud provider. Link to Reddit thread.
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