Head-to-head, indicative as of Oct 2026. Prices change — always confirm on the vendor page.
Quick read: pick Hetzner Cloud if your workload is maximum hardware per dollar, self-managed and its included egress fits your traffic shape; pick Heroku if you need no-devops deploys for small teams and shopify-style workflows. For anything latency-sensitive at the edge, cold start row is the tiebreaker.
| Hetzner Cloud | Heroku | |
|---|---|---|
| Type | VPS / cloud | PaaS (classic) |
| Free tier | None | Eco dynos ~$5/mo shared pool |
| Paid pricing (indicative) | From ~€4/mo (best price-perf in EU/US) | Basic dyno ~$7/mo each |
| Egress | 20TB included on most plans | Included allowances |
| Cold start | N/A (always-on) | Dyno boot ~seconds |
| Regions | EU + US + Singapore | US + EU |
| Best for | Maximum hardware per dollar, self-managed | No-DevOps deploys for small teams and Shopify-style workflows |
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Last reviewed 2026-10-02 · NinjaOps SEO grid · DevOps blog