Hetzner sells some of the cheapest dedicated servers you’ll find, and plenty of US developers have one. There’s a catch that’s easy to miss on the order page: Hetzner’s dedicated root servers live in Germany and Finland. Its own documentation says you can’t order dedicated root servers in its US locations, which are for cloud products only. If your users are in the US, that ocean is in every page load.
Everything about Hetzner below comes from its own website, checked on October 13, 2026. We’re GigeNET, a US dedicated server host since 1998, so weigh our side with that in mind. Every claim about us links to a page you can read yourself.
Side by side
| GigeNET | Hetzner | |
|---|---|---|
| Where dedicated servers run | Ashburn, Chicago and Los Angeles | Nuremberg and Falkenstein (Germany), Helsinki (Finland) |
| US dedicated servers | Yes, all three sites | No. US sites (Ashburn, Hillsboro) are cloud only |
| Entry dedicated server | $126/mo, Xeon E3-1230 v1, up to 32 GB RAM, 30 TB bandwidth | AX41 from €59/mo excl. VAT, Ryzen 5 3600, 64 GB DDR4, 2 x 512 GB NVMe |
| 1 Gbps unmetered | $159/mo Xeon D-1541 special, 64 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD | Unlimited traffic on a 1 Gbit/s port |
| Setup fee | $0 | €0 on AX41; €49 to €304 on larger AX models |
| Billing currency | US dollars | Euros |
| Network availability | 99.5% standard, 99.95% managed, with a published credit schedule | “min. 99.9 %” |
| Support response | 30 minutes guaranteed (15 managed), with credits | Free phone and email support; no response time on the server page |
| Hardware replacement | 2 hours guaranteed (1 hour managed), with credits | Not stated on the server page |
| Managed option | $99/mo per server ($79 with cPanel) | Not on the dedicated server page |
The latency problem
Distance costs milliseconds, and milliseconds add up on every request a page makes. We measured round trips to our own sites with RIPE Atlas probes on local ISPs: users in New York reach our Ashburn site in about 7 ms, Toronto users reach Chicago in about 14 ms, and Seattle users reach Los Angeles in about 28 ms. Users in Frankfurt took about 89 ms to reach Ashburn, and that’s roughly the gap a US visitor pays for a server in Germany, before Finland adds more.
For a European audience, a server in Germany is the right call. For a US audience, it’s a tax on every page view, API call and game tick. Our latency page has measured numbers from 29 cities so you can check your own users.
Price, in plain terms
Hetzner’s AX41 starts at €59 a month before VAT, with a Ryzen 5 3600, 64 GB of RAM and two 512 GB NVMe drives. That’s a lot of machine for the money, and we won’t pretend otherwise.
What you get from us for a little more is a server in the US, billed in dollars, with the remedies written down. Our dedicated servers start at $126 a month with $0 setup and no contract. If you want the closest match to Hetzner’s unlimited traffic, our $159 Xeon D-1541 special has 64 GB of RAM, a 1 TB SSD and a 1 Gbps unmetered port in Ashburn, Chicago or Los Angeles. Pushing a lot more? Our 10 Gbps unmetered servers start at $499 a month in Chicago.
What you get in writing
Hetzner’s server page lists network availability as “min. 99.9 %”. We didn’t find a credit schedule, a support response time or a hardware replacement window on that page.
Ours are all on our SLA page:
- Network: under 99.5% availability in a month earns a credit that steps up to 100% of the fee below 85%. Managed servers are credited from below 99.95%.
- Support: a written ticket gets a response within 30 minutes, or 15 on a managed server, with credits if we’re late.
- Hardware: a failed component is replaced within 2 hours, or 1 hour managed, with its own credits.
Every dedicated server also includes 4 Gbps of DDoS protection, with 6, 8 and 10 Gbps tiers on the order form, and new orders include R1Soft backups with 1 TB of space.
Support on US hours, and a managed option
People answer our tickets and phone calls 24/7, and we’re in the same time zones as our US customers. If you’d rather not run the OS yourself, Enterprise Server Management adds OS patching, 24/7 monitoring and troubleshooting for $99 a month per server, or $79 on a server with a cPanel license.
Moving from Hetzner
- Pick the site closest to your users. Our US dedicated servers page compares Ashburn, Chicago and Los Angeles.
- In-stock servers go online the same day or the next day. Custom builds take a week or less.
- If you’re on cPanel, we migrate cPanel accounts from your old host for free.
- Run both servers side by side, then move DNS once the new box has carried real traffic. Hetzner lists no minimum contract period, so you won’t be paying twice for long.
So which one?
If your users are in Europe, a European server makes sense. If they’re in the US, put the server in the US. Tell us what you’re running and we’ll quote a server sized to it.
FAQ
Does Hetzner have dedicated servers in the US?
No. Hetzner’s documentation says dedicated root servers can’t be ordered in its Ashburn or Hillsboro locations, which are for cloud products only. Its dedicated servers run in Germany and Finland.
What’s a good US alternative to Hetzner dedicated servers?
A US host with data centers near your users. We run dedicated servers in Ashburn, Chicago and Los Angeles from $126 a month, with $0 setup, no contract and a published SLA.
Is Hetzner cheaper than GigeNET?
On the sticker price, yes: its AX41 started at €59 a month before VAT on October 13, 2026. Compare where the server runs, the currency, and what the SLA promises before deciding.
Does GigeNET include DDoS protection?
Yes. Every dedicated server includes 4 Gbps of protection, with higher tiers on the order form.
