Best Hetzner Alternative: RAW vs Hetzner Cloud Console

The Hetzner Situation

Hetzner is the best-kept secret in cloud hosting. Their hardware is fast, their prices are 70-80% below AWS, and their Frankfurt/Falkenstein datacenters have excellent connectivity. Developers who discover Hetzner rarely go back to AWS or DigitalOcean.

But there's a catch: the developer experience. Hetzner Cloud Console is functional but dated. The CLI (hcloud) works but lacks polish. There's no one-command deploy, no integrated monitoring, no git-push workflows. You get cheap hardware and you build everything else yourself.

RAW runs on the same Hetzner hardware — same datacenters, same network, same NVMe drives — but wraps it in the developer experience you'd expect from a modern cloud platform.

Feature Comparison

Dashboard: Where the Difference Shows

Hetzner's Cloud Console gets the job done. But it feels like a system admin tool, not a developer tool. Creating a server means clicking through 6 pages of options, choosing between confusingly named plans (CX11? CAX11? CPX11?), and manually configuring SSH keys, firewalls, and volumes as separate steps.

RAW's dashboard is built for developers who want to deploy and move on:

• One-page server creation — pick a plan, click deploy, done in 13 seconds
• Real-time monitoring — CPU, memory, disk, and network graphs built into the server view
• Integrated terminal — SSH from your browser without configuring keys
• One-click snapshots — backup and restore without navigating to a separate page

CLI Comparison

Both platforms have CLIs. Here's how common tasks compare:

Deploy a Server

# RAW — one command
npx rawhq deploy

# Hetzner — multiple steps
hcloud server create \
  --name myserver \
  --type cax11 \
  --image ubuntu-24.04 \
  --ssh-key mykey \
  --location fsn1

List Servers

# RAW
rawhq servers

# Hetzner
hcloud server list

SSH Into a Server

# RAW — automatic SSH key management
rawhq ssh myserver

# Hetzner — you manage keys manually
ssh root@$(hcloud server ip myserver)

Pricing: Same Hardware, Similar Prices

Since RAW runs on Hetzner infrastructure, pricing is nearly identical for the hardware. Here's a direct comparison of ARM plans:

Hetzner prices in EUR converted at ~$1.08/€. RAW is slightly higher because of the additional tooling and DX layer.

The price difference is $2-12/mo depending on the plan. For that delta, you get:

• A modern dashboard that doesn't feel like 2015
• One-command deploys instead of manual CLI flags
• Built-in monitoring instead of "install Grafana yourself"
• Browser-based SSH without managing keys
• A free 7-day trial without entering a credit card

GPU Servers: Where RAW Wins Outright

Hetzner doesn't offer GPU servers. Period. If you need NVIDIA RTX 4000, RTX 6000, or any GPU for AI inference, fine-tuning, or rendering — Hetzner is not an option.

RAW offers dedicated GPU servers:

• RTX 4000 Ada (20 GB VRAM): Run Llama 3 8B, Mistral 7B, Stable Diffusion
• RTX 6000 Ada (48 GB VRAM): Run Llama 3 70B (quantized), large vision models
• Multi-GPU configurations: For distributed training and large-scale inference

All with the same one-command deploy experience and Docker pre-installed.

What Hetzner Does Better

Credit where it's due — Hetzner has legitimate advantages:

• More locations: 5 datacenters (Falkenstein, Nuremberg, Helsinki, Ashburn, Hillsboro) vs RAW's Frankfurt focus
• Slightly cheaper raw hardware: $2-12/mo less depending on plan
• Dedicated root servers: Physical (non-virtualized) servers for maximum performance
• Object storage: S3-compatible storage at €0.005/GB/mo
• Load balancers: Managed load balancers from €5.39/mo
• Longer track record: Founded 1997, 27+ years of uptime

Migration Guide: Hetzner → RAW

Moving from Hetzner Cloud to RAW takes about 15 minutes:

1. Export Your Data

# On your Hetzner server, create a snapshot of important data
tar czf /tmp/app-backup.tar.gz /opt/myapp /etc/nginx /etc/letsencrypt

# For databases, use native dump tools
pg_dump -U postgres mydb > /tmp/mydb.sql
# or
mysqldump -u root mydb > /tmp/mydb.sql

2. Deploy on RAW

# Deploy a new server
npx rawhq deploy

# SSH in
rawhq ssh myserver

3. Transfer and Restore

# Copy data from Hetzner to RAW (run on your local machine)
scp root@hetzner-ip:/tmp/app-backup.tar.gz root@raw-ip:/tmp/
scp root@hetzner-ip:/tmp/mydb.sql root@raw-ip:/tmp/

# On the RAW server, restore
tar xzf /tmp/app-backup.tar.gz -C /
psql -U postgres mydb < /tmp/mydb.sql

4. Update DNS

# Point your domain to the new RAW server IP
# In your DNS provider, update the A record:
# yourdomain.com  →  A  →  new-raw-server-ip
# www.yourdomain.com  →  A  →  new-raw-server-ip

# Verify propagation
dig yourdomain.com +short

Who Should Use What

• Choose Hetzner Cloud if you're a sysadmin who wants maximum control and minimum cost, need US datacenter locations, or want dedicated root servers
• Choose RAW if you're a developer who values DX, want one-command deploys, need GPU servers, or want built-in monitoring without configuring Grafana
• Choose AWS/GCP if you need 50+ managed services, global edge network, or enterprise compliance certifications

Try RAW Free

Same Hetzner hardware. Better developer experience. 7-day free trial, no credit card required.