Note: This is not a sponsored post. I pay for my servers with my own money to maintain total independence.
The Spark: A Professional Recommendation
I didn’t find Hetzner through a targeted ad or a generic “Top 10 Cloud Providers” list. I discovered it during an internship at Groupe AREP, on the recommendation of the Director of the Data Department.
When a seasoned Data Director tells you that for performance, price, and reliability, Hetzner is the place to be, you listen. I took the leap, set up my first VPS, and I have never looked back.
1. Opening the “Black Box” (Learning & Total Control)
Platforms like Vercel or Heroku are “black boxes.” They offer a “Gilded Cage” where everything is shiny until you need to understand why a deployment failed or how the routing actually works.
I refuse the magic. I want to know exactly what’s happening under the hood. On Hetzner, I am the master of the machine: I manage the OS, the Docker daemon, and the network layers. You don’t learn how an engine works by just driving a Tesla; you learn it by getting your hands greasy. Control is the best teacher.
2. Financial Sanity: Fixed Prices & No Surprises
We’ve all seen the AWS horror stories of hobbyists waking up to a $5,000 bill because of a small misconfiguration.
- Predictability: I know my monthly cost to the cent.
- Stable Pricing: Unlike other providers who change their pricing models or “free tiers” like the weather, Hetzner is a rock. It’s easy to project a budget for years.
- Easy Scaling: If my services need more juice, it’s two clicks away. The price increase is clear and linear, not a mathematical headache.
3. Pragmatism over Certifications
I don’t want to spend 200 hours earning an Azure or AWS certification just to understand how to open a port or manage an IAM policy.
Hetzner’s Cloud Console is “no-nonsense.” It’s clean, fast, and stays out of your way. It’s built for people who want to build, not for people who want to spend their day in a complex permission management interface.
4. Independence: The Sovereign Developer
Relying on proprietary tools from big providers is a trap (Vendor Lock-in). By building my stack on a standard VPS with Linux and Docker, I am provider-independent.
If I ever need to leave, I can take my Docker-Compose files and my backups, and be back online at any other provider in 30 minutes. My toolkit is resilient, portable, and open-source by design.
5. Resilience: Backups That Actually Work
If it’s not backed up, it doesn’t exist. Hetzner’s snapshot and backup system is integrated, affordable, and incredibly reliable. It’s the safety net that allows me to experiment, break things, and roll back in seconds.
