Hetzner vs Vast.ai: Pricing, Specs, Strengths & Weaknesses

Side-by-side comparison of GPU compute pricing, regions, billing models, and strengths for Hetzner and Vast.ai. Rates sourced from public APIs — verify current availability and billing terms before purchasing.

Overview

Attribute

Hetzner

Vast.ai

Provider type

Specialist

Marketplace

Founded

1997

2017

Headquarters

Gunzenhausen, Germany

San Francisco, CA

Billing model

On-demand, Hourly

Per-second on-demand, Interruptible, Reserved

Min commitment

None

Support tier

Standard (24/7 email)

Community → Enterprise

Regions

4 regions

Strengths & Best For

Hetzner

Hetzner is a German cloud provider renowned for exceptionally competitive pricing, offering GPU-Line dedicated servers with NVIDIA H100 NVL and RTX 4000 Ada. Cloud instances (shared and dedicated vCPUs) are available in Germany, Finland, Singapore, and the USA. Hetzner is ISO/IEC 27001 certified, BSI C5 certified, and 99.9% uptime SLA with 24/7 email support. GDPR-compliant with data centers in Germany and Finland. Known for strong price-performance in Europe — significantly cheaper egress than AWS, Azure, and GCP. Founded 1997, 25+ years of reliability.

Strengths

Among the lowest GPU prices in Europe
ISO/IEC 27001 and BSI C5 certified
GDPR-compliant — Germany and Finland data centers
Significantly cheaper egress than AWS/Azure/GCP
99.9% uptime SLA with 24/7 email support
Germany, Finland, Singapore, USA locations

Weaknesses

Limited GPU SKU selection vs specialist providers
No managed ML tooling or MLOps integrations
Smaller GPU cluster sizes — not suited for very large training runs

Best For

EU-based AI teams needing GDPR complianceBudget-conscious GPU inference workloadsSmall to mid-scale training runsDevelopers already on Hetzner infrastructure

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Vast.ai

Vast.ai is a GPU marketplace where prices are set by supply and demand across 40+ data centers. 68+ GPU types spanning Blackwell, Hopper, Ada Lovelace, Ampere, Turing, Volta, Pascal — from B300 and H200 down to RTX 3090. Three pricing tiers: On-Demand (higher availability), Interruptible (lower cost, interruptible), Reserved (committed pricing). Per-second billing, no lock-in. SOC 2 certified. Check the live table for current rates.

Strengths

B300, H200, H100 — competitive frontier pricing on marketplace rates
RTX 5090, RTX 4090 — consumer GPU inference at marketplace rates
68+ GPU types from RTX 3060 to B300 — wide selection
Per-second billing, no minimum hours, no lock-in
Interruptible tier: lower cost than on-demand
SOC 2 certified

Weaknesses

Marketplace model — hardware quality and reliability varies by host
No enterprise SLAs or uptime guarantees
Interruptible instances can be reclaimed at any time

Best For

Budget AI training and fine-tuningBatch inference on consumer GPUsTeams needing maximum GPU varietyResearchers avoiding waitlists and quotas

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Live GPU Pricing

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Region Coverage

Hetzner — 4 regions

EU (Germany)EU (Finland)SingaporeUS (Oregon, Virginia)

Vast.ai — 4 regions

USEUAPACVarious (40+ data centers)

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Provider pages

Hetzner pricing and specs Vast.ai pricing and specs

Key differences

Hetzner

Dedicated GPU servers (GPU-Line) — H100 NVL and RTX 4000 Ada — Germany, Finland, Singapore, USA

Vast.ai

B300, H200, RTX 5090 — 68+ GPU types, per-second billing

AttributeHetznerVast.ai

Provider typespecialistmarketplace

Billing modelOn-demand, HourlyPer-second on-demand, Interruptible, Reserved

Min commitmentNoneNone

Regions4 (EU (Germany), EU (Finland), Singapore, +1)4 (US, EU, APAC, +1)

Support tierStandard (24/7 email)Community → Enterprise

Best forEU-based AI teams needing GDPR compliance, Budget-conscious GPU inference workloadsBudget AI training and fine-tuning, Batch inference on consumer GPUs

Founded / HQ1997 · Gunzenhausen, Germany2017 · San Francisco, CA