OVHcloud vs Hetzner: Which European Cloud Is Better for Data Sovereignty and Value?

OVHcloud fits regulated buyers and year-long servers: it offers SecNumCloud-qualified services, and its 8 GB VPS-2 costs $8.50 a month on a 12-month term, backups included.

Hetzner fits developers who want simple EU servers billed by the hour, with its 8 GB CX33 at $9.99 a month before backups.

The OVHcloud review and the Hetzner review cover each provider in full. This page focuses on where your data lives and what that costs.

OVHcloud vs Hetzner: the short verdict

OVHcloud wins on formal sovereignty, included backups, and year-long value, while Hetzner wins on hourly billing and simplicity.

OVHcloud: for public bodies, healthcare, finance, and other buyers who need a named sovereignty qualification, plus anyone who wants backups included with a VPS.

Hetzner: for developers and startups who want EU servers, hourly billing, and simple pricing.

Both suit GDPR-focused businesses that want to avoid storing data with US-headquartered cloud providers.

OVHcloud vs Hetzner at a glance

Prices exclude VAT, and Hetzner’s also exclude its IPv4 charge.

What data sovereignty means for OVHcloud and Hetzner buyers

OVHcloud and Hetzner both run European data centers, but data sovereignty goes further than location: it’s about which country’s laws can reach that data.

Data residency is simply where your data physically sits.

A server in Frankfurt run by a company headquartered outside the EU can still be subject to that company’s home-country laws.

That’s why some European buyers care about who owns the provider as well as where the server is.

For your business, this means asking two questions: where is the server, and which company, under which law, runs it?

OVHcloud SecNumCloud vs Hetzner ISO 27001: sovereignty compared

OVHcloud offers SecNumCloud-qualified services for formal sovereignty, while Hetzner relies on ISO 27001 and BSI C5 security certifications without a sovereignty label.

Both are European companies. OVHcloud is French and builds its own data centers, listing 46 datacenters across four continents on its global infrastructure page. Hetzner Online GmbH is German.

The formal label. Some OVHcloud services hold the SecNumCloud qualification from ANSSI, France’s national cybersecurity authority. Hetzner has no equivalent sovereignty qualification on the pages we checked.

Hetzner’s cloud pricing page does claim BSI C5 certification for its German and Finnish data centers. C5 is a German cloud security attestation, not a sovereignty label.

OVHcloud’s SecNumCloud page lists a qualified VMware platform and a Bare Metal Pod, with a newer SNC Cloud Platform still being qualified.

OVHcloud says that with these services, only European legislation can apply to your data.

They run in three regions with dedicated SNC zones, so the guarantee doesn’t cover every OVHcloud VPS.

Certification and data handling. Hetzner’s ISO 27001:2022 certification covers its data center parks in Nuremberg, Falkenstein, and Helsinki.

Its data protection docs say customer administrative data is always processed in the EU. Cloud data stays in whichever location you choose.

Hetzner offers a standard data processing agreement (DPA) through its customer account. It doesn’t sign individually negotiated DPAs.

Locations outside the EU. Hetzner also has cloud locations in Ashburn, Hillsboro, and Singapore, per its locations docs. It runs its own servers there in third-party data centers.

For your project, this means OVHcloud’s SecNumCloud services suit buyers who need a named qualification.

For everyday GDPR needs, Hetzner servers in Germany or Finland keep data inside its certified EU parks.

Winner: OVHcloud, for a formal sovereignty qualification. Hetzner is a strong choice for everyday GDPR needs.

OVHcloud and Hetzner VPS prices

At 8 GB, OVHcloud VPS-2 costs $8.50 a month on a 12-month term with backups, while Hetzner CX33 costs $9.99 billed hourly, or about $11.99 with backups.

OVHcloud’s prices come from its VPS page, with a 12-month commitment. Hetzner’s come from its June 2026 price adjustment for German and Finnish locations, excluding IPv4.

Prices confirmed on September 25, 2026.

Prices change often, so check OVHcloud’s current prices and Hetzner’s current prices before you buy.

OVHcloud’s VPS landing page shows only 12-month prices, not month-to-month rates or a renewal guarantee. Hetzner’s prices follow its June 15, 2026 rise, when CX33 went from $7.99 to $9.99.

Hetzner’s site showed some shared cloud plans as currently not available when we checked, and availability can vary by location.

OVHcloud includes daily backups on these VPS plans, kept on a rolling 7-day basis. Hetzner charges 20% of the server price for backups, per its billing FAQ.

With backups added, Hetzner CX33 costs about $11.99 a month against $8.50 for OVHcloud VPS-2.

For your budget, this means OVHcloud is cheaper at 4 and 8 GB for servers you’ll keep a year.

Hetzner’s 16 GB CX43 costs less than OVHcloud’s 24 GB VPS-4, but with less RAM.

Hetzner is also cheaper for servers you’ll only run for days or weeks.

Winner: OVHcloud on a 12-month term, Hetzner for short-lived servers.

OVHcloud and Hetzner bandwidth and network

OVHcloud lists unlimited VPS traffic outside Asia-Pacific, while Hetzner includes at least 20 TB of outgoing traffic a month on its European cloud servers.

OVHcloud’s port speed rises with the plan: 500 Mbit/s on VPS-1, 1 Gbit/s on VPS-2, and 3 Gbit/s on VPS-4.

In Mumbai, Singapore, and Sydney, OVHcloud VPS plans get monthly quotas from 500 GB to 3 TB. Beyond them, speed drops to 10 Mbit/s.

Hetzner doesn’t charge for incoming or internal traffic. Its US and Singapore locations include much less outgoing traffic than Europe.

For your app, both give plenty of room for most European workloads.

Winner: OVHcloud, for unlimited traffic outside Asia-Pacific.

OVHcloud and Hetzner anti-DDoS protection

OVHcloud and Hetzner both include DDoS protection at no extra cost, but only OVHcloud publishes its capacity: over 17 Tbit/s.

OVHcloud says every product comes with Anti-DDoS enabled, always on, at no extra cost regardless of attack volume, on its Anti-DDoS page.

It also says it has the proven capacity to mitigate attacks of up to 1.3 Tbit/s.

Hetzner says its DDoS protection is available to all customers without raising prices. It uses automated filtering built on Arbor and Juniper hardware.

Winner: OVHcloud, for publishing its capacity and a no-limit mitigation promise.

OVHcloud and Hetzner uptime SLAs

OVHcloud and Hetzner both promise 99.9% availability on their virtual servers, so neither has an edge on paper.

OVHcloud’s VPS page lists a 99.9% SLA. Hetzner’s cloud SLA covers 99.9% monthly availability and pays compensation as Cloud Credit.

Winner: Tie.

OVHcloud and Hetzner dedicated and cloud line-ups

OVHcloud sells a wider range than Hetzner, from VPS to SecNumCloud-qualified private cloud across 46 datacenters. Both companies started with dedicated servers and now sell cloud products too.

OVHcloud’s range also covers public cloud and bare metal.

Hetzner sells cloud servers in six locations and dedicated servers from its own German and Finnish parks.

For your roadmap, this means OVHcloud covers more enterprise needs under one provider. Hetzner keeps a smaller, simpler product range.

Winner: OVHcloud for breadth, Hetzner for simplicity.

OVHcloud vs Hetzner winners by category

OVHcloud wins six of the ten categories below, Hetzner wins two, and two end in a tie.

Our pick: OVHcloud for regulated European businesses and anyone keeping a VPS for a year or more. Hetzner for developers who want simple, hourly EU servers.

Should you choose OVHcloud or Hetzner?

OVHcloud fits regulated projects and servers kept for a year, while Hetzner fits short tests and simple EU deployments.

A public-sector or healthcare project in France should look at OVHcloud’s SecNumCloud-qualified services first.

If you’re a startup testing ideas in Europe, Hetzner’s hourly billing lets you start and stop servers cheaply.

Running a small business site you’ll keep for years? OVHcloud VPS-2 with included backups costs less over a year.

Serving mostly German or Nordic users? Hetzner’s Falkenstein, Nuremberg, and Helsinki parks are close to them.

Hetzner also faces Contabo in Contabo vs Hetzner.

For when a dedicated server makes sense, the dedicated server vs VPS breakdown helps, and wider questions sit in the VPS hosting section.

Ready to check prices? Visit OVHcloud or visit Hetzner to see today’s plans before you buy.

Frequently asked questions

How we compared OVHcloud and Hetzner

This comparison is built from official sources. For OVHcloud, we used its global infrastructure, SecNumCloud, VPS, and Anti-DDoS pages.

For Hetzner, we used its data protection docs, certification page, cloud pricing page, locations docs, and price adjustment notice.

We also used Hetzner’s billing FAQ, cloud SLA, and DDoS protection page. All details were checked on September 25, 2026.

Our Methodology and Editorial Guidelines explain how we research hosts and correct errors.