The part they never tell you is how Hetzner has a substantially higher unfair risk of account termination without warning. If you are okay with your account being terminated like that with zero notice or reason, then Hetzner is cheap.
Do you have a substantiated source for the "12x the unfair risk of account termination without warning". I tried looking for it but all I could find were unsubstantiated grapevine (I heard they ...) posts with lots of people stating the opposite.
They're cheap, so I'd expect they get a substantially higher proportion of users who might think their account termination is unfair, but that were actually flouting the rules, so I wouldn't be surprised if there were a higher proportion of claims of unfair account termination... I've recommended Hetzner to people since 2008-2009, and know lots of people who use it, and I've never heard first-hand accounts of termination of any kind. But anecdotes vs. data and all that.
If you haven't read first-hand reports, then you haven't read all that much. If you search on Reddit, you may see many reports. It happened to me personally after I started using their CPU at nearly 100% for about two months. That's a report for you. They're cheap because they don't actually want people using what they're paying for. This is a theme that I have seen with German services.
Speaking of their rules, those are a bit insane too. Speaking of "flouting rules", any prospective user should think about whether it's okay for a cloud vendor to keep spying on which processes the user is running, even without a court order; it is not okay.
If you keep moving the goalpost, then you will understand nothing. You might as well be an employee of Hetzner.
I've maxed out lots of CPUs at Hetzner over many years, and across multiple companies, and had clients do the same, so I find your claim to be dubious unless you're talking about shared CPU cloud instances in which case I wouldn't be surprised but also wouldn't consider it unfair.
So let me revise that to say I haven't seen any reports I can 1) verify are first hand, and 2) know accurately reflect an actual unfair termination. That is also why I don't bother going around reading accounts on Reddit.
Maxing out a CPU for a day or a week doesn't count. It has to stay maxed out close to for a month, maybe more.
There are no "fair" terminations except without a court order. You will understand when it happens to you. Also, there is no way for you to determine if a report of a a termination is "unfair". In this way, you will continue reveling in your limited worldview.
I have seen this multiple times with German providers. They promise to serve, then when the user really genuinely exercises the service, they cancel the user.
I notice you've avoided addressing the issue of whether you were on a shared instance, where the point very much is that they're not meant for workloards that will pin the resources on an ongoing basis. On the dedicated servers they won't know whether you max it out or not.
That you're being evasive makes it very much sound like you used them in ways you should have expected would be treated accordingly.
If you've run into this multiple times, it very much sounds like a "you problem".
I have not run into this multiple times. You said that, not me. I said something different. Hetzner is the only cloud provider that cut me off. The other provider was not a cloud vendor.
Even if it was a shared instance, people don't hire a 48 core server just to use 1 or 2 cores. It makes no sense to rent out a big shared server and then expect users to not use it. Someone would rent it out only if they have exhausted smaller instances.
Something tells me that your idea of computing is communist computing, where someone shouldn't use too much even when paying for it. That's a mental roadblock for which there is no fix.
Someone with your communist mental model would be okay a cloud provider spying on their activities very closely, but most people are not.
> I have not run into this multiple times. You said that, not me. I said something different. Hetzner is the only cloud provider that cut me off. The other provider was not a cloud vendor.
So, you have been cut off multiple times.
> Even if it was a shared instance, people don't hire a 48 core server just to use 1 or 2 cores.
No, but that is also not what is happening.
> Something tells me that your idea of computing is communist computing, where someone shouldn't use too much even when paying for it.
No, my idea of it is that Hetzner operates in a capitalist economy where they at their sole discretion are free to choose who they want to do business with.
If you don't like that, then clearly you don't like a free market model. That's fine. But this is a direct consequence of Hetzner being free to choose not to want your business.
That you resort to implying this is down to politics makes it clear you're not prepared to engage with this in good faith.
Let's not make it more complicated than it is. Hetzner is a scammer that gets off on people that use it lightly. You too are one because you reject all assertions that you don't like without regard to their truth. That you are down to gaslighting makes it clear you're not prepared to engage in good faith. It is obvious that you have much to lose with Hetzner being exposed for the fraud that it is. This has been one of the most dishonest conversations I have witnessed on your part, all so you can continue to peddle it to clients without telling them of the risks.
Just curious: Was this a colo, dedicated server, managed server or VPS? And since you mention "CPU at nearly 100% for about two months", was this potentially crypto mining?
There was no crypto mining involved whatsoever. There was some crypto analysis involved, among unrelated other analyses, but no mining.
If you think about it, Hetzner had to be spying on my activities in very close detail to see what I am doing. Such unnecessary spying (without a court order) alone should detract anyone from using them. Assuming they copied my disk image and subjected it to a scan, it's very possible that they retained my confidential data without my permission. Is this the kind of cloud provider that anyone should use?
As for the type of server, it really shouldn't matter. The service exists to be used. People don't rent say 24 core or 48 core servers just to pass the time and pay money for nothing.
Hetzner just like every major other server/cloud rental out their does prohibit crypto related activities in their products. This is not limited to "mining".
They do not need to access you disk to determine that. They can just observe behavioural patterns and use heuristics.
E.g. 24/7 100% cpu, low data, port traffic on typical crypto related protocols to known crypto endpoints will raise red flags.
They can terminate you for any or no reason with 30 days notice, and terminate service immediately for suspected abuse or non compliance.
Seems this already happened twice to you. You can try any non specialized cloud or server renting provider, and the result will be the same.
The type of server, dedicated vs shared, very much does matter. If you grab a shared resource for 100%, you deny all other shared users their usage opportunity. Bursting upto 100% occasionally is very different from 100% sustained. You know this very well, and you are reasoning from a bad faith pov. Using a shared resource 100% by definition makes it not shared.
Stop right there. It is completely false that major cloud providers in general prohibit crypto activities. I was not running any endpoint. I was not even serving or mining anything. Hetzner terminated me simply for high CPU usage. No other cloud provider does this.
The heuristics you note are of garbage quality, full of errors in classification, with a faulty classification being their default case. It's when someone is first found guilty of being a witch, then a dumb association is noted to label them as such.
If a user is using a shared CPU all of the time, then it's the job of a good cloud vendor to throttle the user when resources are needed for other users. Hetzner simply does not have this technical capability which goes to show how weak it is.
The sheer number of blatant lies in your comment go to show that it is you who has extremely bad faith all around. You are a bad person who has much to lose with Hetzner being exposed for what it is, a fraud.
Edited. Not only have I read numerous reports of it both on this site and on Reddit, but it personally happened to me around 2022. The number of such reports that I have read is easily 12x that of AWS. In contrast, AWS or any other cloud never did anything like this to me.
This is risked if the CPU or another resource is using close to 100% for a couple of months. Hetzner likes customers that pay for what they don't use.
Reddit is a prime platform for users to report problems with pretty much any service. Reports from moderate to high karma users who're not newly registered will carry more weight. If you haven't used it for this purpose, then you're absolutely in the minority. Typically people don't pay attention until they themselves become a victim, and then they learn the hard way.
To label it an "anecdote" is to gaslight it. It is lived experience.
