Scaleaway vs DigitalOcean vs Vultr vs Hetzner benchmark (March 2019)

This month I needed to host a new project that could be both reliable, and perform well, at a competitive price. I have tested and recorded the results of the entry-level offering that all of these hosts provide in my benchmark to determine the best performers.

Pricing and specifications

Benchmark Results

The tool used for the benchmark is nench.

Click images for full-size version.

Conclusion

I’ll let you draw your own conclusions from the findings. In my opinion the Hetzner server is likely the best all-rounder, although they suffer slightly in disk writes. Both DigitalOcean and Hetzner are solid choices if you require the best CPU performance at a 5USD or lower price range. The network stats can’t really be compared, because in my tests the servers are in different locations.

I could have made the test fairer with network performance by attempting to use NL for all locations (apart from Hetzner which is DE), as it stands they are a little spread out.

Update October 2019: For a more accurate / fair benchmark which uses consistent network locations, check out my newer Scaleaway vs DigitalOcean vs Vultr vs Hetzner benchmark (Revised) (October 2019) post.