On-Prem @ Hetzner cloud costs “DIY, but actually sane”¶

Based on this pipeline (so just a starter pipeline): Secure on-premises CI/CD pipeline (Hetzner, Finland) , these are guesstimates for comparison.

Best case – Ubuntu VMs, discipline, and cron jobs¶

€80/month

• Dedicated vCPU cloud instance: €30

• Storage (Volume + backups): €20

• Egress: €10

• CI/CD runner + firewall rules: €5

• Monitoring with Grafana, self-hosted: €10

• Misc (Ubuntu updates, small DNS costs): €5

Hetzner: like having your own datacentre, but with fewer forklifts. Everything is under your control. Gloriously cheap.

Worst case – Forgotten volumes and no firewall¶

€155/month

• Over-provisioned cloud instance: €45

• Unattached volumes still billing: €25

• Egress from open IPs and test scripts: €30

• Backups of backups of backups: €20

• No auto-shutdown: €15

• Monitoring VM left running: €20

You’re still saving money, but now you’re also worried about botnet scans and SSH brute force attempts at 3am.