3x performance for 1/4 of the price by migrating from AWS to Hetzner
3 days ago
- #cost-optimization
- #cloud-migration
- #kubernetes
- Migrated from AWS and DigitalOcean to Hetzner, saving 76% on cloud bills while tripling capacity.
- Used AWS for core services like DNS (Route53) and email (SES), and DigitalOcean for lightweight services via Kubernetes.
- Chose AWS for familiarity and reliability, DigitalOcean for cost-effective Kubernetes.
- AWS credits helped initially, but costs grew to $449.50/month after credits expired.
- Investigated EU-based providers like Hetzner for better pricing and data sovereignty.
- Adopted Talos Linux for Kubernetes management and CloudNativePG for PostgreSQL.
- New stack includes Hetzner ARM servers, Talos Linux, CloudNativePG, Ingress NGINX, ExternalDNS, and cert-manager.
- Monthly costs dropped from $559.36 (AWS + DigitalOcean) to $132.96 with Hetzner.
- Capacity increased from 12 vCPUs/24 GiB RAM to 44 vCPUs/88 GiB RAM.
- Faced challenges with Hetzner's network zones and migration complexity from ECS to Kubernetes.
- Used Kustomize for configuration management, improving tracking and review of changes.
- Hetzner is cost-effective but requires more hands-on management compared to AWS or DigitalOcean.