Provider, Hetzner Cloud

Hetzner Cloud (German provider) offers price/performance leadership: ~€4-5/mo for 4GB RAM. Use Direct SSH.

Recommended plan

CX22 is sufficient for ~500 MAU with managed Postgres. CX32 if self-hosting Postgres.

Setup

hcloud server create --name olympus-prod \
  --type cx22 --image ubuntu-22.04 \
  --location nbg1 --ssh-key my-key

# Firewall
hcloud firewall create --name olympus-fw
hcloud firewall add-rule olympus-fw --direction in --protocol tcp --port 22 --source-ips $YOUR_IP/32
hcloud firewall add-rule olympus-fw --direction in --protocol tcp --port 80 --source-ips 0.0.0.0/0
hcloud firewall add-rule olympus-fw --direction in --protocol tcp --port 443 --source-ips 0.0.0.0/0
hcloud firewall apply-to-resource olympus-fw --type server --server olympus-prod

EU data residency

Hetzner's locations include Nuremberg, Falkenstein (Germany), Helsinki (Finland), Ashburn (USA), Hillsboro (USA). For GDPR-sensitive deployments, choose an EU location.

Backups

Hetzner offers automated weekly snapshots for +20% of server cost. Also use rclone to push Postgres dumps to Hetzner Storage Box:

rclone copy /backups/ hetzner-storage:olympus-backups/

Storage Box pricing starts at €3.50/mo for 100GB.

Cost estimate (1k MAU)

• CX22 VPS: €4/mo
• Storage Box 100GB: €3.50/mo
• Snapshots: ~€1
• Total: €9/mo ($10)

Cheapest credible production hosting for Olympus.

Where next

• Deploy, Provider, Direct SSH
• Operate, Backups (Postgres)
• Cookbook, Single VPS deployment