Last year, I was looking for a provider I could use alongside Hetzner and DigitalOcean. Over the past few years, I’ve tried several providers, and the experience wasn’t always great in terms of performance, stability, and pricing.
Starting from Hetzner (which I’m very happy with), I was specifically looking for a European provider offering VPS solutions comparable to Hetzner Cloud.
After browsing several websites and reading recommendations on Reddit, Netcup caught my attention. They’re also a German company and offer various types of hosting. For me, only their VPS offerings are relevant, and—just like Hetzner—they provide three types of servers:
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VPS with shared ARM CPUs
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VPS with shared AMD CPUs
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“Root” servers with dedicated AMD CPUs
This article focuses on the last category. Netcup calls them “Root” servers, but in practice they are VPS instances with fully dedicated resources—comparable to Hetzner’s CCX series.
I’ve been running my first Netcup Root server for about six months now, and I have to say the performance is on par with Hetzner, and possibly even better. Did I mention that the Root servers are also cheaper?
Here’s a reference configuration:
Hetzner Cloud CCX23 – €24.49 / month
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4 dedicated vCPUs (AMD EPYC Milan, 2396 MHz)
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16 GB RAM
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160 GB NVMe SSD
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20 TB traffic / month
Netcup doesn’t offer a Root server with identical specs, so I chose a comparable configuration with the same amount of RAM:
Netcup RS 2000 G12 – €17.58 / month
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8 dedicated vCPUs (AMD EPYC 9645, 2297 MHz)
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16 GB RAM
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512 GB NVMe SSD
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Traffic limit of 3 TB / day
You get slightly less clock speed per core, but twice the number of cores and more than three times the storage capacity. And yes—you still pay about €7 less per month (depending on the contract terms; the most cost-effective option comes down to €14.58 per month).
I haven’t run formal benchmarks yet, but based on my server monitoring, the performance with Netcup looks very solid.
Are There Any Downsides?
Unfortunately, not everything is perfect (when compared to Hetzner), but nothing has been a real deal-breaker for me:
Onboarding
As mentioned earlier, Netcup is a German company and has a fairly strict onboarding process for new customers. If you read reviews, you’ll see some people are unhappy with this—but you’ll find similar complaints about Hetzner as well. My advice: be clear and accurate with the information you provide. If you’re registering as a business, make sure your company details are correct and complete. Account verification can take up to a day before you can start using your first VPS.
Server installation
Unfortunately, Netcup does not offer a server API, which means Cleavr cannot integrate with them directly. You’ll need to set up a custom server. The initial installation must be done via the Netcup CCP using an Ubuntu image. This process is more convenient with Hetzner, even when using a custom server.
Billing
As a company based in the Netherlands, I really appreciate paying via SEPA direct debit. I use this payment method with both Hetzner and Netcup. For Root servers, Netcup bills per full month and applies a notice period. This is definitely less flexible compared to Hetzner, where billing is done per minute. You’ll find complaints about this in reviews as well—which is why I initially tested with a single server for three months.
Backups
Netcup does not provide automatic server backups. You can create snapshots (as with most providers), but this is a manual process. At first, this felt a bit odd to me, but in the end it’s actually very cost-effective. Snapshot storage counts toward your server’s allocated disk space and doesn’t cost extra. The snapshots themselves are stored on a separate partition.
Final Thoughts
If you’re looking for a cost-effective alternative to Hetzner (or DigitalOcean, AWS, Linode, UpCloud, and Vultr—which are significantly more expensive), Netcup is a solid option in my opinion.
As a Netcup customer, I’m able to share coupons that give you the first month of hosting for free. Each coupon can be used once for the RS 2000 G12 configuration. If all coupons are already used or you’d like to start with a different configuration, feel free to send me a message and I’ll see if I can get another coupon for you.
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