Compare
Microsoft Azure vs Hetzner: services, regions and GPUs
Updated: · Comparison generated from structured data
Direct answer
Choosing between Microsoft Azure and Hetzner depends first on location, required services and GPU access. 12 documented capabilities are only available on Microsoft Azure and 1 only on Hetzner. Measured performance is covered on the benchmark pages.
Executive summary
Microsoft Azure and Hetzner document 21 and 10 of the same 26 criteria respectively, with 9 capabilities in common. Microsoft Azure bills mixed and Hetzner bills per-hour. Microsoft Azure has no infrastructure in Türkiye; Hetzner has no infrastructure in Türkiye. Microsoft Azure offers H100, H200; Hetzner offers none of H100/H200/L40S.
Key findings
- 01 Capabilities documented only by Microsoft Azure: Managed Kubernetes, Kubernetes node autoscaling, Kubernetes LoadBalancer integration, Kubernetes storage classes (CSI), Volume snapshots, Managed database, L4 load balancer (TCP/UDP), Virtual router with NAT, Control-plane audit logging, User identity attribution in audit events, NVIDIA H100 instances, NVIDIA H200 instances.
- 02 Capabilities documented only by Hetzner: S3-compatible object storage.
Overview
| Microsoft Azure | Hetzner | |
|---|---|---|
| Headquarters | Redmond, United States | Gunzenhausen, Germany |
| Operator | Microsoft Corporation | Hetzner Online GmbH |
| Regions | Global regions; no announced region in Türkiye. Nearest European regions include Germany West Central and Italy North. | Cloud locations in Germany (Falkenstein, Nuremberg), Finland (Helsinki), the United States and Singapore; none in Türkiye. |
| Billing model | Mixed — Usage-based pay-as-you-go with service-specific meters; reservations and savings plans available. Billing granularity for virtual machines is not recorded here as verified. | Per hour — Cloud servers are billed per started hour up to a monthly price cap. Object Storage has an hourly base price with included storage and egress quotas. |
| Documented capabilities | 21 / 26 | 10 / 26 |
| Technologies | Azure Resource Manager, Bicep, Terraform | hcloud API, Terraform (hcloud provider), Kubernetes CCM/CSI, S3 API |
Availability and regions
Microsoft Azure
- Germany West Central germanywestcentral Generally available
- Italy North italynorth Generally available
Hetzner
- Falkenstein fsn1 Generally available
- Nuremberg nbg1 Generally available
- Helsinki hel1 Generally available
Features
| Criterion | Azure | Hetzner |
|---|---|---|
| Data residency | ||
| Infrastructure located in Türkiye Generally available compute and storage capacity physically located in Türkiye (full region or local zone). | No No announced or launched region in Türkiye. | No |
| Compute & GPU | ||
| Virtual machine instances Self-service virtual machines with selectable CPU/RAM profiles. | Yes | Yes |
| Per-second or per-minute billing Standard compute billed at per-second or per-minute granularity rather than per started hour. | Unverified | No Per started hour with a monthly cap. |
| Dedicated / single-tenant resources Dedicated hosts, bare metal or organisation-dedicated cloud capacity. | Yes Azure Dedicated Host. | Yes Dedicated root servers. |
| NVIDIA H100 instances On-demand or reservable instances with NVIDIA H100 GPUs. | Yes | No |
| NVIDIA H200 instances On-demand or reservable instances with NVIDIA H200 GPUs. | Yes | No |
| NVIDIA L40S instances On-demand or reservable instances with NVIDIA L40S GPUs. | No Azure Local only. | No |
| Platform & automation | ||
| API and Terraform automation Documented API plus an available Terraform provider for infrastructure as code. | Yes | Yes |
| Open-source cloud stack (OpenStack-based) The provider publicly states that its IaaS control plane is built on OpenStack or an equivalent open-source stack. | No | No |
| Kubernetes | ||
| Managed Kubernetes Provider-operated Kubernetes control plane. | Yes | No CCM and CSI driver for self-managed clusters only. |
| Kubernetes node autoscaling Worker node count scales automatically within configured limits. | Yes | Partial Through the upstream cluster autoscaler on self-managed clusters. |
| Kubernetes LoadBalancer integration Services of type LoadBalancer provision a provider load balancer automatically. | Yes | Partial Via the Hetzner cloud-controller-manager on self-managed clusters. |
| Kubernetes storage classes (CSI) Persistent volumes provisioned dynamically through a provider storage class. | Yes | Partial Via the Hetzner CSI driver on self-managed clusters. |
| Storage & data | ||
| Block storage volumes Persistent, attachable and expandable block volumes. | Yes | Yes |
| Volume snapshots Point-in-time snapshots of block volumes. | Yes | No Server snapshots only; no volume snapshots. |
| S3-compatible object storage Object storage reachable through the S3 API or an S3-compatible API. | No Blob Storage uses its own API. | Yes EU locations; partial S3 API coverage. |
| Managed backup service Scheduled backup and restore for instances or volumes managed by the provider. | Yes | Yes Server backups. |
| Managed database Provider-operated relational database service. | Yes | No |
| Networking | ||
| L4 load balancer (TCP/UDP) Transport-layer load balancing. | Yes | Partial TCP only (no UDP). |
| L7 load balancer (HTTP/HTTPS) Application-layer load balancing with HTTP health checks. | Yes | Yes |
| Reassignable static public IP Static public addresses that can be moved between resources (Floating/Reserved/Elastic IP). | Yes Static public IP resources re-associable between NICs. | Yes |
| Private networks / VPC Isolated tenant networks with custom CIDR ranges. | Yes | Yes |
| Virtual router with NAT Managed router or NAT gateway for egress and inter-subnet routing, including static routes. | Yes Route tables and NAT Gateway. | No Network routes are supported; NAT requires a self-managed gateway server. |
| Security groups / cloud firewall Stateful, API-managed network access rules. | Yes | Yes Stateful firewalls. |
| Security & auditing | ||
| Control-plane audit logging A provider service that records management (API/console) operations against cloud resources. | Yes Azure Monitor Activity Log. | Unverified |
| User identity attribution in audit events Each audit event identifies the authenticated principal that performed the operation. | Yes | Unverified |
Pricing and GPUs
| Provider | NVIDIA H100 | NVIDIA H200 | NVIDIA L40S | Türkiye infrastructure |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Azure | Generally available NC H100 v5 / ND H100 v5 NC H100 v5 with one or two H100 NVL GPUs; ND H100 v5 with eight H100 GPUs. | Generally available ND H200 v5 Eight H200 GPUs per VM. | Not offered L40S SKUs are documented for Azure Local / Azure Stack Hub (customer-site hardware). | No |
| Hetzner | Not offered | Not offered | Not offered | No |
Prices are shown in the currency each provider publishes; no exchange-rate conversion is applied.
Benchmarks
Sources
- [1] List of Azure regions — Microsoft Official documentation accessed:
- [2] New Azure Region — Turkey (Microsoft Community Hub response) — Microsoft Official documentation accessed:
- [3] Use GPUs in AKS on Azure Local (supported GPU models) — Microsoft Official documentation accessed:
- [4] Azure Monitor activity log — Microsoft Official documentation accessed:
- [5] Hetzner Cloud — Hetzner Official documentation accessed:
- [6] Object Storage overview (Hetzner Docs) — Hetzner Official documentation accessed:
- [7] Dedicated servers with GPU (GEX) — Hetzner Official documentation accessed:
- [8] Hetzner Cloud Review 2026 — C9 Group Secondary source accessed:
Related research
Provider discovery
AWS alternatives with infrastructure in Türkiye
AWS, PortvMind Cloud, Google Cloud, Azure and the other tracked providers when a workload needs an AWS alternative in Türkiye.
Cloud security & auditing
AWS CloudTrail alternatives: audit logging on other clouds and OpenStack
CloudTrail's equivalents on Google Cloud, Azure, OpenStack-based clouds and smaller providers, compared on scope, identity, retention, export and integrity.
Provider discovery
Cloud providers in Türkiye: regions, local zones and GPU availability
Which global and regional cloud providers operate infrastructure in Türkiye, what type it is, and which services and GPUs are available locally.
Pricing
GPU cloud cost comparison: H100, H200 and L40S prices per GPU-hour
Published H100, H200 and L40S cloud prices per GPU-hour with sources, normalised per GB of memory and per TB/s of bandwidth, and what they leave out.