Hetzner for OpenClaw: pricing, the right plan, setup, and who should not pick it
Short answer: Hetzner's CPX22 (2 vCPU, 4 GB, 80 GB NVMe) at €6.99/month plus about €1 for an IPv4 is the cheapest fast VPS in Europe that runs OpenClaw well for chat. Step up to the 8 GB tier if you will use browser automation. There is no control panel to speak of and no one-click install: you get a clean Ubuntu box and SSH. If that sentence made you happy, this is your provider. If it did not, Contabo or Hostinger will serve you better and cost about the same.
Why Reddit keeps saying Hetzner
Three reasons, and they are all real. The NVMe is consistently fast, which OpenClaw notices during Docker pulls and container restarts. Billing is hourly with no contract, so trying it costs cents. And the price per gigabyte of RAM is the lowest of any provider with European data centres that is not oversubscribing its CPUs into the ground. Developers value exactly those three things and do not value a panel, so for developers the recommendation is correct.
The trouble starts when that recommendation gets copied into guides aimed at everyone. A reader who has never used SSH picks Hetzner because a list said so, spends an evening on keys and firewalls, and concludes self-hosting is hard. It is not; Hetzner is just the version of it with the least hand-holding.
Pricing, with the bits the headline leaves out
| Plan | vCPU | RAM | NVMe | Traffic | €/month | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CX22 | 2 (shared Intel) | 4 GB | 40 GB | 20 TB | ≈ €4.50 | Cheaper, slower disk tier; often sold out |
| CPX22 | 2 (AMD) | 4 GB | 80 GB | 20 TB | ≈ €6.99 | The one people mean; chat-only OpenClaw |
| CPX32 | 4 (AMD) | 8 GB | 160 GB | 20 TB | ≈ €13.50 | Browser automation; comfortable |
| Plus ~€1/month for a primary IPv4 if you want one (you do; many channels still need it). Prices ex VAT for business, inc VAT shown to consumers in the EU. Checked 23 Aug 2026; Hetzner changes tiers a couple of times a year. | ||||||
Two things the €6.99 headline hides: the IPv4 surcharge, and the fact that the 8 GB tier you need for browser work is roughly double. At that point Contabo's 8 GB for €6 is the budget answer, with slower disk as the trade.
Which plan
- OpenClaw, chat channels only (Telegram, WhatsApp, Slack): CPX22. 4 GB is enough and 80 GB NVMe is plenty.
- OpenClaw with browser automation: CPX32. Chromium takes 2 to 4 GB per session; 4 GB total starves the agent.
- Hermes Agent, API-backed: CX22 or CPX22. Hermes is light; the cheapest box that is in stock.
- Location: Nuremberg or Falkenstein for Central Europe, Helsinki if you prefer Finland. All EU.
Setup in about 15 minutes
This assumes you have an SSH key and have used a terminal before. If not, this is the moment to be honest with yourself and go read about the one-click options.
- Create the server. Hetzner Cloud console, new project, add server: CPX22, Ubuntu 24.04, your SSH key, a primary IPv4. It is up in under a minute.
- Harden the basics. SSH in as root, create a user, give it sudo, copy your key, disable root and password login in
sshd_config, restart SSH. Thenufw allow 22,ufw allow 443,ufw enable. Hetzner also has cloud firewalls in the console; use both. - Install Docker.
curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com | sh, then add your user to the docker group and log back in. - Start OpenClaw. Clone the repository, copy
.env.exampleto.env, set your model provider key,docker compose up -d. First pull is a couple of minutes on Hetzner's NVMe. - Connect a channel. Open the gateway UI over an SSH tunnel (do not expose it raw), pair Telegram or WhatsApp, send a message. Done.
Keep the gateway UI behind the tunnel or behind Cloudflare Access. An agent that can run commands is not something you leave on a public port with a password.
Three people who should not pick Hetzner
- You have never used SSH. Hetzner gives you a root shell and nothing else. Contabo's 1-click OpenClaw add-on or Hostinger's template will have you chatting with your agent before you would have finished step two above. The price difference is a few euros; the evening is yours.
- You want someone to call at 11pm. Hetzner support is ticket-based and competent, but it is not live chat. Hostinger and Cloudways are. If that matters to you, it is worth paying for.
- You want it managed. Patching, backups, monitoring: on Hetzner that is you. If you would rather pay than patch, Cloudways exists for exactly that, at roughly five times the price.
About the referral credit
Hetzner has no affiliate programme. It has a refer-a-friend scheme: a new customer who signs up through a referral link gets €20 of credit, and the referrer gets €10 of credit once the new customer has spent a certain amount. It is credit, not cash. We do not use a referral link on this page because we would rather you trust the recommendation. If a friend uses Hetzner, ask them for their link; you both get something and nobody is paying us.
Still deciding between Hetzner and the one-click options? The chooser weighs exactly this trade-off: how hands-on you want to be against what you pay.
Sources
Hetzner Cloud pricing page and console, 23 Aug 2026; Hetzner referral terms; Kilo, Best VPS for OpenClaw for the "Reddit consensus" framing; OpenClaw repository for setup steps. Setup timing from our own box, August 2026.