Hetzner Cloud vs Linode (Akamai)
Both are alternatives to AWS (EC2 compute). Here's how they stack up — verified facts, no spin.
Hetzner Cloud
TOP PICKTwo to four times the hardware per dollar, 20 TB of traffic included.
The price-performance king of European cloud: ~€4.50/mo for 2 vCPU / 4 GB with 20 TB of included EU traffic — a spec competitors price at $24 or more, plus bandwidth. Transparent flat pricing, EU and US locations, and the provider half the self-hosting community quietly runs on. It pays Macrostack nothing, which tells you why it's the pick.
Linode (Akamai)
The veteran — two decades of straightforward VPS, now on Akamai's edge.
Linode ran dependable, plainly priced VPS for twenty years before Akamai bought it; plans from $5/mo ($12 for 2 GB) with the reliability record intact. The honest note: product pace has slowed post-acquisition, and the platform extras are thinner than DigitalOcean's.
Side by side
| Hetzner Cloud | Linode (Akamai) | |
|---|---|---|
| Sovereignty Score | 70 | 55 |
| Open source | No | No |
| Self-hostable | No | No |
| Local-first | No | No |
| License | Proprietary service | Proprietary service |
| Pricing | From ~€4.50/mo (2 vCPU / 4 GB, 20 TB EU traffic); US locations slightly higher | From $5/mo; 2 GB plan $12/mo |
Hetzner Cloud is Macrostack's recommended AWS (EC2 compute) alternative, so it's our pick here.
Hetzner Cloud
Strengths
- +Two to four times the compute per dollar of US-priced rivals
- +20 TB of included traffic — bandwidth-heavy apps save $50–100/mo
- +Transparent flat pricing with EU data-protection jurisdiction
Trade-offs
- −Smaller region map (EU, US, Singapore)
- −Fewer managed services than the big platforms
- −New-account vetting can be strict
Linode (Akamai)
Strengths
- +Twenty-year reliability track record
- +Straightforward pricing
- +Akamai's global edge network behind it
Trade-offs
- −Slower product evolution since the acquisition
- −Fewer platform extras than rivals
Facts verified 2026-07-19. Licenses and pricing change — spotted something out of date? That's a correction we want.