So I've narrowed it down to two options for a startup cloud setup and I keep going back and forth. We're bootstrapped, no funding, just trying to get an MVP live for maybe 200-400 users in the first few months. No containers, no Kubernetes — just a simple Node.js API with a Postgres database and some file uploads. I've read thirty blog posts and all of them contradict each other.
Option A is Hetzner's cheapest dedicated server. About 40 euros a month for an i7 with 64GB RAM and 2TB NVMe. Raw power per dollar is insane. But I'm worried about the lack of managed Postgres, no auto-scaling, and if the hard drive dies we lose everything unless I set up replication myself. I've never managed a bare metal server before. Option B is DigitalOcean's basic app platform droplet with a managed database. Costs about 60 euros a month for the smallest tier of each. Much easier to manage, built-in backups, but the CPU is shared and I've read horror stories about noisy neighbors killing performance under load. Also the storage is capped at 25GB on the cheapest blocks.
What I can't figure out is whether the convenience of DO's managed services is worth paying 50% more for hardware that's way weaker. Is Hetzner actually practical for someone who doesn't want to become a full-time sysadmin? Or will the DO platform choke as soon as we get a real traffic spike? I need to pick today and I keep re-reading the same comparisons.
Option A is Hetzner's cheapest dedicated server. About 40 euros a month for an i7 with 64GB RAM and 2TB NVMe. Raw power per dollar is insane. But I'm worried about the lack of managed Postgres, no auto-scaling, and if the hard drive dies we lose everything unless I set up replication myself. I've never managed a bare metal server before. Option B is DigitalOcean's basic app platform droplet with a managed database. Costs about 60 euros a month for the smallest tier of each. Much easier to manage, built-in backups, but the CPU is shared and I've read horror stories about noisy neighbors killing performance under load. Also the storage is capped at 25GB on the cheapest blocks.
What I can't figure out is whether the convenience of DO's managed services is worth paying 50% more for hardware that's way weaker. Is Hetzner actually practical for someone who doesn't want to become a full-time sysadmin? Or will the DO platform choke as soon as we get a real traffic spike? I need to pick today and I keep re-reading the same comparisons.
