Hetzner Cloud vs Scaleway
Both rent plain Linux VMs by the hour that you set up and run yourself. Hetzner Cloud adds servers in the US and Singapore and big dedicated machines, while Scaleway stays in the EU and adds GPUs, Windows Server and managed services around the machine.
The companies and products
Hetzner Cloud
Hetzner is a German hosting company founded in 1997; Hetzner Cloud rents virtual servers, storage and networking by the hour.
A Hetzner Cloud server is a Linux VM picked from shared vCPU lines (cost-optimized CX and CAX, regular CPX) or dedicated vCPU (CCX), with local NVMe disk, a public IP and up to 20 TB of traffic in the EU. You add volumes, private networks, firewalls and load balancers, and run everything yourself through the Console, the Cloud API, the hcloud CLI or Terraform. It is general infrastructure, not an agent sandbox, so this page compares the two where they overlap: giving an agent its own Linux machine.
Scaleway
Scaleway is a European cloud and AI provider, part of the iliad Group, that rents virtual machines, GPUs, storage and managed services.
Scaleway Instances are KVM virtual machines you pick from fixed shapes, from small shared-vCPU Development Instances to dedicated-vCPU and Arm64 types, running Linux or Windows Server. You get root, SSH, a public IP and security groups, and you install and run your own software next to Scaleway products like managed databases, Kubernetes, object storage and GPU Instances. It is general cloud infrastructure, not an agent sandbox, so this page compares the two where they overlap: giving an agent its own Linux machine.
Which use cases each one fits
For each use case, Battleships prices every sandbox provider on the same workload and sorts them from the cheapest monthly bill up. “51st cheapest of 364” means 50 of the other 363 providers run that workload, with every feature it needs, for less. “With limits” means the provider runs it but misses something, so it is listed after every full match. Open a use case for its whole ranking and what each provider misses.
| Use case and its workload | Hetzner Cloud: price rank | Scaleway: price rank | boat: price rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Software factory 100 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 2,200 sessions of 8 h a month Both give an agent a full VM with root and Docker, but Hetzner says nested virtualization is not possible and Scaleway does not document it; boat has /dev/kvm on every machine. | 46th of 367, with limits $287 a month | 49th of 367, with limits $322 a month | 3rd cheapest of 367 $634 a month |
| Always-on AI employees 50 machines 24/7 · 2 vCPU / 4 GB Either can run an assistant around the clock, but on both you build the agent setup, HTTPS and backups yourself; boat has them built in. | 94th of 366, with limits $325 a month | 90th of 366, with limits $208 a month | 5th cheapest of 366 $657 a month |
| Code interpreter bursts 100 at once · 1 vCPU / 2 GB · 200,000 sessions of 1 min a month | 156th of 345, with limits $649 a month | 166th of 345, with limits $893 a month | 186th of 345, with limits $2,000 a month |
| Sandboxes for your users 300 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 30,000 sessions of 23 min a month Hetzner does not publish its server limits and Scaleway caps each shape (15 DEV1-M after identity checks), so 300 user sandboxes need a support request on both; boat allows 100 to 2,000 sandboxes by plan. | 46th of 361, with limits $314 a month | 84th of 361, with limits $738 a month | Cheapest of 361 $209 a month |
| RL rollouts 1,000 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 1,000,000 sessions of 3 min a month Hetzner comes out well ahead of Scaleway for big rollout fleets on paper, but its CX servers are out of stock and both need quota raises first. | 104th of 360, with limits $6,490 a month | 176th of 360, with limits $18,254 a month | 34th of 360, with limits $2,000 a month |
| Agent evals 250 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 15,000 sessions of 20 min a month | 51st cheapest of 364 $1,010 a month | 42nd cheapest of 364 $776 a month | 10th cheapest of 364 $200 a month |
| CI runners 40 at once · 8 vCPU / 16 GB · 6,000 sessions of 12 min a month Both run Docker builds on a full VM and both bill a ten-minute job as a full hour; you run the runner software yourself on either. | 83rd cheapest of 377 $788 a month | 82nd cheapest of 377 $777 a month | 4th cheapest of 377 $86 a month |
| 24/7 dev boxes 1 machine 24/7 · 4 vCPU / 8 GB Both fit a 24/7 dev box well and land close together; a boat machine also keeps its disk with snapshots every minute. | 32nd cheapest of 368 $42 a month | 30th cheapest of 368 $41 a month | 18th cheapest of 368 $26 a month |
| Computer-use agents 50 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 20,000 sessions of 15 min a month Neither ships a desktop, so you install it, the browser and the control loop yourself; boat streams a 60fps desktop with Chromium and computer use. | 134th of 369, with limits $320 a month | 94th of 369, with limits $168 a month | 6th cheapest of 369 $200 a month |
| Browser-use agents 50 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 30,000 sessions of 10 min a month | 227th of 367, with limits $312 a month | 173rd of 367, with limits $126 a month | 7th cheapest of 367 $200 a month |
| Scraping & bots (startup scale) 50 at once · 1 vCPU / 2 GB · 100,000 sessions of 3 min a month | 157th of 346, with limits $62 a month | 149th of 346, with limits $13 a month | 6th cheapest of 346 $90 a month |
| Mass scraping & bots (undetectable) 1,000 at once · 1 vCPU / 2 GB · 3,000,000 sessions of 2 min a month | 45th of 338, with limits $1,248 a month | 34th of 338, with limits $253 a month | 71st of 338, with limits $1,800 a month |
| Parallel red teaming 200 at once · 2 vCPU / 4 GB · 5,000 sessions of 30 min a month | 114th of 360, with limits $52 a month | 103rd of 360, with limits $29 a month | 2nd cheapest of 360 $200 a month |
| GPU eval jobs 10 at once · 8 vCPU / 32 GB · 500 sessions of 30 min a month Only Scaleway rents GPUs, by the minute; Hetzner Cloud and boat have none. | Can't run it | Can't run it | Can't run it |
| macOS agents 5 at once · 4 vCPU / 8 GB · 1,000 sessions of 20 min a month | Can't run it | Can't run it | Can't run it |
Key features
| Feature | Hetzner Cloud | Scaleway | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| What you get | A general Linux VM you set up and run yourself | A general cloud VM you set up and run yourself | A sandbox API for agents, on full VMs |
| Isolation | Every server is a full VM with its own kernel | Every Instance is a full KVM VM with its own kernel | Every sandbox is a full VM with its own kernel |
| CPU speed (Node.js build-and-test, 4 vCPU / 8 GB) | 8.88 runs/s on a shared CX33; CPX and CCX were not measured | No comparable measurement; shared and dedicated vCPU types | 26.69 runs/s on dedicated AMD Ryzen 9 9950X (Zen 5) hosts |
| Docker and nested virtualization | Root and Docker; nested virtualization is "not possible on cloud server" | Root and Docker on Linux images; nested virtualization is not documented | Docker, root, systemd and /dev/kvm on every machine |
| Stopping | A powered-off server bills at the full rate until you delete it | A console or API power-off stops compute, but disks and IPs keep billing; standby bills as running | A stopped sandbox costs nothing and keeps its disk |
| Snapshots and backups | Snapshots you take yourself, or daily backups in 7 slots for 20% of the server price | Images and volume snapshots you create yourself; none automatic | Automatic snapshots every minute and on stop |
| Fork | Snapshot, then create a new server from it (disk, no memory) | Create an image, then boot new Instances from it (disk, no memory) | Fork a running sandbox in one call (disk, no memory) |
| Reaching the machine | Public IPv4 and IPv6 on any port; HTTPS needs your own certificates or a paid load balancer | Public IPv4 and IPv6 on any port; HTTPS needs your own proxy, certificates and DNS | HTTPS URLs for up to 50 ports, token-protected; raw TCP; own IP |
| Desktop and coding agents | None built in; you install a desktop and agents yourself | None built in; you install a desktop and agents yourself | 60fps desktop with Chromium and computer use; Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode and more, driven by a prompt, steer and events API |
| Keeping keys out of the machine | No credentials proxy; secrets go on the server | Secret Manager stores secrets that the machine fetches, so they end up on it | AI credentials proxy for model providers and any HTTPS API you register |
| How many at once | Per-project limits not published; raised by a support request | Quotas per shape, for example 10 DEV1-L after identity checks; more through support | 100 to 2,000 sandboxes by plan |
| Outbound rules | Free Cloud Firewalls with inbound and outbound rules by IP, port and protocol | Security groups with inbound and outbound rules by protocol, port and IP range | Open internet on every plan; no provider-side allowlist |
| GPUs, Windows and Arm | Arm64 servers (CAX); no GPUs, no Windows | GPU Instances (B300, H100, L4, L40S), Windows Server and Arm64 | No GPUs; no Windows guests (Wine for Windows apps); x86 only |
| Regions | Germany and Finland, plus Ashburn, Hillsboro and Singapore | Paris, Amsterdam, Warsaw and Milan | EU only: Germany, Finland, France |
Every feature Battleships tracks (43)
| Feature | Hetzner Cloud | Scaleway | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full VM (own kernel) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Docker inside | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Nested virtualization | No | Not published | Yes |
| Root | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Systemd | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Desktop GUI | No | No | Yes |
| Browser | No | No | Yes |
| Computer-use API | No | No | Yes |
| SSH | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Persistent disk | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Pause/resume | Yes | No | Yes |
| Automatic snapshots | No | No | Yes |
| Fork/clone | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Live fork (no pause) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Memory fork | No | No | No |
| Custom image (Docker or snapshot) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| ≥24 h sessions | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Idle auto-stop | No | No | No |
| Wake on request | No | No | No |
| HTTPS preview URLs | No | No | Yes |
| Raw TCP inbound | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Public IPv4 | Yes | Yes | No |
| Egress allowlist | Yes | Yes | No |
| Secret proxy | No | No | Yes |
| Secret proxy for any API | No | No | Yes |
| Preinstalled agents | No | No | Yes |
| Agent harness API | No | No | Yes |
| MCP server | No | No | No |
| GPU | No | Yes | No |
| Windows | No | Yes | No |
| Arm64 | Yes | Yes | No |
| Self-hosting | No | No | No |
| BYOC | No | No | No |
| Open source | No | No | No |
| Scoped API keys | Not published | Not published | Yes |
| Spend limits | No | No | Yes |
| Usage per sandbox (API) | No | No | Yes |
| Audit logs | Not published | Yes | No |
| SSO | No | Yes | No |
| SOC 2 | No | No | No |
| HIPAA | No | No | No |
| EU data residency | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Zero data retention | Not published | Not published | Yes |
Performance
In StarSling's public benchmark at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, boat did 26.69 Node.js build-and-test runs per second on its own hosts. The only Hetzner number is a shared CX33 at 8.88 runs per second, about a third of boat's speed; its CPX and CCX servers were not measured. Scaleway has no comparable measurement, so there is no fair speed answer between the two.
Node.js build-and-test loop at 4 vCPU / 8 GB, higher is better. Measured with the open hpc-sandbox-benchmarks suite. Hetzner Cloud measured on: Shared vCPU, Cost-Optimized (CX, Intel/AMD), EU. Scaleway has no published run in this suite yet, so there is no like-for-like number to compare.
Pricing in five scenarios
Each bill is priced from the providers' public price lists by the open Battleships engine, with the cheapest plan that runs the scenario.
| Scenario | Hetzner Cloud, a month | Scaleway, a month | boat, a month |
|---|---|---|---|
| One coding agent, workdays 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, 8 hours a day, 22 days a month, files kept between days | $3 · Pay-as-you-go (postpaid) · with limits | $14 · Usage account | $20 · $20/mo |
| One agent that never stops 4 vCPU / 8 GB, 50 GB disk, running 24/7 all month | $10 · Pay-as-you-go (postpaid) · with limits | $41 · Usage account | $26 · $20/mo |
| 50 agents in parallel 50 machines of 4 vCPU / 8 GB at once, 8-hour sessions, 1,100 sessions a month, Docker inside | $141 · Pay-as-you-go (postpaid) · with limits | $537 · Usage account | $317 · $20/mo × 3 seats |
| Sandboxes for your users 2 vCPU / 4 GB, 30,000 sessions of 10 minutes a month, up to 300 at once | $312 · Pay-as-you-go (postpaid) · with limits | $734 · Usage account | $200 · $100/mo × 2 seats |
| 1,000 short jobs at once 2 vCPU / 4 GB, 1,000 at once, 3 minutes each, 200,000 jobs a month | $2,080 · Pay-as-you-go (postpaid) · with limits | $4,892 · Usage account | $2,000 · $2000/mo · with limits |
Hetzner Cloud: Hetzner bills each server by the hour, rounding every started hour up, with a monthly cap, and keeps billing until you delete it, even when it is off. The prices here use the cheapest shared CX servers, which are currently out of stock, so the servers you can order today cost more.
Scaleway: Scaleway bills each CPU Instance per hour of uptime, including startup and standby, so a short job still pays a full hour. The prices leave out disks and public IPv4, which bill on top and keep billing while an Instance is powered off.
Scaleway: You pick a monthly plan from $20, and all of it becomes usage credit spent per second on running sandboxes. A stopped sandbox costs nothing and keeps its disk.
Limits in those scenarios
Every Hetzner scenario is priced on the CX line, which Hetzner's site marks as currently unavailable, so none fit as priced today. Hetzner does not publish its server limits, and Scaleway sets quotas per shape (10 DEV1-L or 15 DEV1-M after identity checks), so 50 agents, 300 user sandboxes and 1,000 jobs at once all need a support request on both. Both bill a short job as a full hour. On boat the limit is a sandbox count plus starts per minute, so the 1,000-job burst gets queued and needs more starts per day than the $2,000 plan allows.
| Scenario | Hetzner Cloud | Scaleway | boat |
|---|---|---|---|
| One coding agent, workdays |
| None that bite | None that bite |
| One agent that never stops |
| None that bite | None that bite |
| 50 agents in parallel |
| None that bite | None that bite |
| Sandboxes for your users |
| None that bite | None that bite |
| 1,000 short jobs at once |
| None that bite |
|
Which one should you use?
Use Hetzner Cloud when
you want plain long-lived Linux servers at the lowest list prices, need regions in the US or Singapore, or want big dedicated machines.
- Servers in the US and Singapore. Useful if your users are outside Europe: Hetzner Cloud also runs in Ashburn, Hillsboro and Singapore, and Scaleway does not.
- Big dedicated machines. Useful for one heavy machine: dedicated CCX servers go up to 48 vCPU and 192 GB of memory.
- Daily backups as a switch. Useful if you want backups without scripting: Hetzner keeps 7 daily backups for 20% of the server price.
Use Scaleway when
you need GPUs, Windows Server or Arm64 machines, want power-off to stop the compute bill, or want the machine next to managed databases and Kubernetes in an EU-only cloud.
- GPUs by the minute. Useful if your agents train or serve models: Scaleway rents Nvidia B300, H100, L4 and L40S GPU Instances by the minute.
- Windows Server Instances. Useful if an agent must test on Windows: Scaleway sells Windows Server Instances, and Hetzner Cloud does not.
- Power-off stops the compute bill. Useful for machines that sit idle: a console or API power-off on Scaleway stops compute billing, while Hetzner bills until deletion.
Where boat fits
Hetzner Cloud and Scaleway are general clouds, not agent sandboxes. If what you are really running is agents, each on its own Linux machine, boat gives every agent a full VM in the EU that is ready to work, with nothing to install or babysit. Keep Hetzner or Scaleway for US regions, GPUs, Windows or long-lived servers next to managed services.
/dev/kvm on every machine
Agents that run Android emulators, Firecracker or their own VMs need KVM. Hetzner says nested virtualization is not possible on a cloud server, and Scaleway does not document it, so that work moves to a machine you manage.
Idle agents keep their work for free
Agents sit idle between tasks. Hetzner bills a powered-off server in full and Scaleway keeps billing disks and IPs, so on both you pay for idle machines or script snapshot, delete and recreate, and nothing saves the disk every minute.
Agents, desktop and HTTPS already there
Both start as an empty OS image: you install each coding agent, a desktop, TLS certificates and keys yourself, and ask support before 50 or 300 machines. boat has agents, a 60fps desktop, HTTPS on 50 ports and a credentials proxy built in.
Use boat when you want each agent on its own full VM that is ready to work: /dev/kvm, coding agents, a desktop, HTTPS ports and minute-by-minute snapshots built in, fork while running, stops that cost nothing, and hundreds of sandboxes without a ticket. Compare it one to one: boat vs Hetzner Cloud and boat vs Scaleway.
Questions people ask
Is Hetzner Cloud cheaper than Scaleway?
On list prices, yes: one agent that never stops comes to $10 a month on Hetzner against $41 on Scaleway, and 50 agents in parallel to $141 against $537. But those Hetzner prices use the CX line, which is currently out of stock, and the servers you can order today cost more. boat comes to $26 and $317 for the same two.
Which is faster, Hetzner Cloud or Scaleway?
There is no fair answer yet: Hetzner's shared CX33 did 8.88 runs per second in StarSling's benchmark, and Scaleway was not measured. boat did 26.69 runs per second at the same 4 vCPU / 8 GB size.
Can Hetzner Cloud and Scaleway run Docker and nested VMs?
Both run Docker, since each machine is a full VM with root. Hetzner says nested virtualization is not possible on a cloud server, and Scaleway does not document it, so you would have to test it. On boat, Docker, systemd and /dev/kvm are documented on every machine.
Do I pay for a stopped server?
On Hetzner, yes: a server bills in full until you delete it. On Scaleway, a console or API power-off stops compute, but disks and IPs keep billing, and a shutdown from inside the machine only puts it in standby, which bills as running. On boat, a stopped sandbox costs nothing and keeps its disk.
Which one keeps my data in the EU?
Scaleway runs only in the EU, in Paris, Amsterdam, Warsaw and Milan. Hetzner Cloud runs in Germany and Finland, and also in the US and Singapore, which are outside the EU. boat runs only in the EU, in Germany, Finland and France.
Does either have GPUs?
Only Scaleway: it rents Nvidia B300, H100, L4 and L40S GPU Instances, billed per minute. Hetzner Cloud and boat have no GPUs.
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