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Neither host wins outright. Hetzner is the stronger starting point for price-sensitive deployments that fit its locations, and its plan page states that EU cloud servers include at least 20 TB of traffic. Akamai Cloud (Linode) makes more sense when you need one of its specific instance families, its regional footprint, or the managed services it sells alongside compute. No matched, controlled benchmark establishes that either provider is categorically faster or more reliable, so the right answer depends on comparing the exact configuration you would run.
Akamai Cloud is the current name for Linode
Linode is now part of the Akamai Cloud brand. Akamai’s official pricing and documentation use the Akamai Cloud name, while “Linode” still appears in plan names and documentation. This article uses Akamai Cloud (Linode) on first mention and Akamai Cloud afterward, although many buyers will still search for Linode.
Match instance families before comparing RAM and vCPUs
Two plans with identical vCPU and RAM counts can behave differently. Each provider sorts compute into families with different CPU sharing and different hardware generations, and those families are not automatically equivalent.
Hetzner’s families
- Cost-Optimized (shared). Hetzner describes these as running on proven older hardware generations.
- Regular Performance (shared). Hetzner positions these on newer hardware.
- Dedicated-resource offerings. Compare these only against other dedicated-resource plans, not against shared ones.
Akamai Cloud’s families
- Shared plans. Akamai documents these for lower-cost, broad workloads. Standard Linode plans sit in this group.
- Dedicated plans. Akamai documents these for workloads that need sustained CPU. Its Europe price list includes G7 Dedicated plans, and G8 dedicated Linodes are covered in the billing section below.
- Other compute types. These include GPU Linodes, which are not comparable with general-purpose web hosting plans.
These descriptions are vendor positioning, not independent performance tests. The practical rule is to compare shared with shared and dedicated with dedicated, and to confirm the family name on the live order page before you compare prices.
#1 Best Overall
What the price gap looks like
The clearest dated comparison is from Better Stack, which reflects Hetzner’s April 1, 2026 price adjustment. It pairs a Hetzner CPX22 with a Linode 4 GB plan and reports both as nominally 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM and 80 GB storage. The same comparison also pairs higher CPX tiers with larger Linode plans.
| Pairing in the comparison | Hetzner price | Akamai Cloud (Linode) price | Specification stated |
|---|---|---|---|
| CPX22 vs Linode 4 GB | €7.99/month (Germany and Finland) | $24/month | 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 80 GB storage (both, nominal) |
| Higher CPX tier vs Linode 8 GB | €13.99/month | $48/month | Not stated in the comparison |
| Higher CPX tier vs Linode 16 GB | €25.49/month | $96/month | Not stated in the comparison |
The prices are in different currencies, and the comparison does not establish VAT treatment, regional equivalence, traffic allowances or IP charges. Use it to see the size of the gap, not as a total monthly bill. Hetzner’s pricing page renders its currency figures dynamically, so read the euro price for your chosen plan at checkout.
Akamai’s Europe price list
The table below shows values listed on Akamai’s Europe pricing page at the time of writing. They apply to the European pricing shown on that page, in the currency displayed there, and should not be assumed for other regions.
| Plan (Europe page) | Price per month | vCPUs | Storage | Transfer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| G7 Dedicated 4 GB | $5 | 2 | 80 GB | 4 TB |
| G7 Dedicated 8 GB | $10 | 4 | 160 GB | 5 TB |
| G7 Dedicated 16 GB | $20 | 8 | 320 GB | 6 TB |
| Standard Linode 16 GB | $20 | 6 | 320 GB | 8 TB |
The two $20 plans show the trade-off. G7 Dedicated 16 GB gives 8 vCPUs with 6 TB of transfer, while Standard Linode 16 GB gives 6 vCPUs with 8 TB. The RAM and price match, but the CPU and bandwidth do not. Which is better depends on whether your workload is CPU-bound or transfer-bound.
Traffic is the largest difference on paper
Hetzner’s cloud server pricing page states that EU cloud servers include at least 20 TB of traffic. Its US and Singapore allowances are different, so read the figure for the location you choose. The Akamai rows above list 4 TB to 8 TB on its Europe page. Those figures are not directly comparable with Hetzner’s floor, because the plan families, regions and SKUs differ.
For a site that serves large downloads or video, the included allowance can outweigh a modest hourly price difference. To check, estimate monthly outbound transfer in TB, subtract the allowance for your exact SKU and location, and price any remainder at the overage rate published for that SKU. This comparison does not establish overage rates for either provider, so confirm them before you build the model.
Total monthly cost: what sits outside the VM price
The base VM price is the starting line. Build the full monthly figure from these items:
- Public IPv4. Hetzner’s server overview states that server prices exclude public IPs. One Primary IPv4 costs €0.50 per month excluding VAT, and IPv6 is free. Akamai bills additional IPv4 addresses on actual hours from July 1, 2026.
- Storage, snapshots and backups. Price these per product; none is part of the base VM price.
- Load balancers and managed services. Akamai’s price list includes managed Kubernetes and database options. Their price and availability depend on the product and region. This comparison does not establish an equivalent managed-service catalogue for Hetzner, so check its current product list if you need managed databases or Kubernetes.
- Transfer overage. Model it using the traffic section above.
- Tax. Add VAT for your billing country where applicable. The €0.50 IPv4 figure is quoted excluding VAT.
Billing rules differ, and one change applies now
Hetzner
Hetzner’s cloud server pricing page says server billing is hourly up to the monthly price cap, and that “Your server’s bill will never exceed its monthly price cap.” That statement describes server billing. Separate services or exceptions can follow different rules. If you delete a server before the month ends, you are billed only for the hours it ran.
Akamai Cloud (Linode)
For capped services, usage accrues hourly up to a monthly cap, and usage is rounded up to the nearest hour. Starting July 1, 2026, G8 dedicated Linodes, GPU Linodes and additional IPv4 addresses are billed for actual hours with no monthly cap. In a partial month, applicable services are charged for the time they were present on the account.
For those uncapped items, the monthly price is a rate rather than a ceiling. Model them by hours on the account, and review them regularly, especially if they run for long periods.
Location and data residency come first
Choose the locations your users and legal obligations allow before comparing prices. Hetzner’s plan page lists locations in Europe, the United States and Singapore. Check Akamai Cloud’s location list for the exact product you want, because its regional coverage for each plan is not established in this comparison. Akamai’s European price table covers only European pricing.
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Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Reliability terms are narrower than they sound
Hetzner’s Cloud and vServer agreement says it “will use commercially reasonable efforts to ensure a monthly availability of 99.9% for its Cloud Servers.” That is an effort commitment, not a guarantee of your application’s uptime. The agreement defines how availability is measured and which events are excluded, so read those definitions before quoting the figure to stakeholders. Equivalent service-level terms for Akamai Cloud are not established here, so do not infer from the wording above that one provider’s contract is stronger than the other’s.
Whichever provider you choose, measure uptime from outside the platform, from at least two locations, and keep the records for your own reporting.
How to test performance before committing
Published specifications do not settle performance. Run your own test with these steps:
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- Shortlist exact SKUs with the same family type, vCPU count, RAM and region. Shared plans go against shared plans, and dedicated plans go against dedicated plans.
- Deploy the same OS image, application build and configuration on each candidate.
- Measure response times from the regions your users are in, and record median and 95th-percentile latency.
- Test storage I/O on each VM with a mixed random read/write run. For example:
fio --name=randrw-test --filename=/var/tmp/fio.test --size=4G --rw=randrw --rwmixread=70 --bs=4k --iodepth=32 --numjobs=4 --runtime=300 --time_based --group_reporting - Run sustained CPU load for at least an hour, and watch the steal column with
vmstat 5. Thestcolumn shows CPU time the hypervisor takes away from your VM. Sustained non-zero values under load mean your VM is competing for CPU. - Divide the monthly cost, including transfer, by the number of requests or jobs you process. Compare that figure across candidates.
Choose Hetzner if
- Your users and data rules fit one of Hetzner’s locations, and Europe is your main deployment area.
- Your outbound traffic is high enough that the EU allowance described above changes the bill.
- You want lower monthly cost and can accept Cost-Optimized plans on older hardware generations for workloads that tolerate that trade-off.
- You are comfortable monitoring availability yourself, because the SLA is an effort commitment.
Choose Akamai Cloud (Linode) if
- You need a dedicated family such as G7 Dedicated, and your CPU-heavy workload benefits from the extra vCPUs at that price point.
- Akamai’s regions match your users and data rules better than Hetzner’s do.
- You want managed Kubernetes or database services from the same provider, and you are prepared to price them as separate line items.
- Your monthly outbound transfer sits within the allowance of the plan you choose.
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
