The question of choosing a hosting provider is rarely decided with a single line in Excel. Behind the attractive landing pages and advertising slogans lie support models, data center processes, network policies, engineering culture, and the ability to communicate with customers when they have urgent issues. Hetzner is often perceived as the default option for Europe: a big brand, aggressive hardware prices, automated purchasing and billing, and lots of reviews on Reddit. But in practice, large providers have systemic limitations that become apparent when a project grows and atypical needs arise. At the other end of the spectrum are companies like 3v-Hosting – less well-known, without multi-million dollar marketing budgets, but with flexibility and attention to detail. Below, we will examine how these different approaches affect the real life of a project.
Customer service and response speed
Large providers have everything optimized for flow. This is a plus when you need a standard machine with Ubuntu and a public IPv4 address 10 minutes after payment. It’s a minus when the issue comes down to an obscure network anomaly, a strange route to your autonomous system, or a performance drop in local storage on a specific node. In a large company, you are more likely to encounter a division of support levels and first-line scripts. Requests are processed quickly, but you have to “call” a real engineer who will get to the heart of the matter by correctly wording the ticket and being patient. The response time is extended due to internal queues.
With a compact provider like 3v-Hosting, the chain is shorter. The person who reads your ticket is often the one who configured that very router and assembled the image templates by hand. Less bureaucracy, fewer “redirects” between departments, more substantive dialogue. When a project doesn’t have a big budget but has tight deadlines, this factor carries more weight than a difference of a few euros per instance.
Standardization of services versus customization
Hetzner relies on catalogs of standard configurations. This is stable and predictable, but as soon as you need to deviate from the default set, the quest begins. Simple examples include non-trivial routing schemes, setting up your own filter lists at the provider level, BYO licenses for non-standard software, distributing IP blocks under BGP with flexible policies, and special requirements for local repository mirrors. All of this is possible, but rarely fits into a template process and requires persistence.
3v-Hosting does not aim to fit all customers into a single SKU catalog. Here, it is easier to negotiate the small details that, when added up, give the feeling that “it works as it should.” Need to deploy a Kubernetes cluster with control-plane and worker nodes spread across different sites and an agreement on additional routes? No problem. Need separate SMTP filtering rules to protect the IP reputation of your mailings? We discussed it, configured it, and documented it.
Automation and template quality
For large sites, automation is often perfected at the time of purchase and initial deployment. But then the compromises begin. Template images are minimal and neutral-they don’t break, but they don’t help either. From there, it’s all up to you. The problem arises when the customer expects an “almost ready” environment but receives a clean system.
3v-Hosting focuses on “ready-made VPS configurations for developers” – presets are provided for common stacks: Django, Docker, Node.js, WordPress, as well as databases and cache. This saves hours and days on the initial assembly of the environment, reduces the risk of minor human errors, and sets uniform practices. For teams where DevOps does not always keep up with development, such a start gives a noticeable advantage.
SLA transparency and incident reality
SLAs from major players sound appealing, but it is always important to read the fine print and be aware of exceptions. In the event of a major incident, statistics come into play: the more customers there are on the platform, the higher the probability of independent events intersecting, and the more conservative the recovery regulations become. Priorities are set based on the scale of impact, not the criticality of your specific project.
In the “smaller but closer” model, it is easier to achieve priority at the level of real people. Yes, formally, the SLA may sound less marketable, but in many scenarios, you gain time before recovery. When it comes to small and medium-sized businesses, predictability and responsiveness are more important than a nice number in a PDF.
Security and compliance without bureaucracy
Large providers play by the rules of major tenders. This is a plus for companies that need certificates, long chains of approvals, and legally flawless paperwork. But for startups and teams that want to move quickly, the process of agreeing on non-standard security policies turns into a protracted correspondence.
In a small company, it is easier to achieve specific things: mTLS on Node Exporter, separate ACLs for managed services, fine-tuning of firewalls at the provider level, segmentation of subnets between environments. This approach provides practical security without three weeks of back-and-forth between departments.
Migration, growth, and phasing
Hetzner is well suited as a starting point for small budgets, where the minimum price per core and gigabyte is important. But as you grow, the architecture begins to require non-standard actions: IP transfers, “landing” traffic closer to users, configuring observability, moving databases to separate circuits, hybrid with on-prem. At this stage, large providers start to escalate towards “one-size-fits-all” solutions. If you need a solution “for you,” be prepared to spend a lot of time communicating or delegate this to an integrator.
At 3v-Hosting, communication is built around stages of growth. In the first stage, you take ready-made VPS presets, in the second, you agree on a dedicated node for stateful load, and in the third, you connect BGP and backup sites. It is important that all three steps take place with the same people and within the same contact surface. This reduces operational risks during changes.
Cost of ownership versus label price
The price on the server card is just the tip of the iceberg. The total cost of ownership includes engineer hours, downtime, and the cost of errors. A cheap instance with support queues lasting several hours becomes expensive when a production outage takes away leads and KPIs. Personal support works in the opposite direction – an hour saved on joint diagnostics pays for months of difference in rates.
Mature teams consider not only the price, but also the cost of context. If you are ready to mobilize your DevOps team and live in a “do everything ourselves” paradigm, a large streaming provider will do the job. If you want to share responsibility and get help at the architecture and operations level, a smaller but more responsive provider offers financial benefits by reducing operational risks.
When to choose a large provider, and when it is better to go with 3v-Hosting
It makes sense to go with a large provider if you have a completely standardized infrastructure, minimal non-standard requirements, a very price-sensitive unit economy, and a team that handles operations independently. You understand that you will be purchasing standard servers, living with standard network policies, and agreeing to support through regulations and queues.
It makes sense to consider 3v-Hosting if speed of dialogue and the ability to “negotiate like humans” are important to you. If you have a complex stack that includes Kubernetes, queues, cache, stateful services, if a specific disk and network profile is important, if you are planning BGP, private networks between sites, and phased migration, then flexibility and access to engineers will be a critical advantage. An additional plus is ready-made VPS configurations for developers, which allow you to quickly get started and establish uniform practices for projects.
In summary, Hetzner is a well-oiled conveyor belt. The conveyor belt can quickly produce identical parts-reliably, in bulk, and predictably. But as soon as you need not a part, but an assembled mechanism with adjustments, the conveyor belt asks you to wait in line and responds with general phrases. 3v-Hosting is a workshop where the engineer’s phone is next to the workbench and the door is open for “let’s check it out right now.” The workshop doesn’t print billboards, but it does complete specific tasks that rarely fit into a nice rate table.
In industrial operations, it is not so much a big name that wins, but rather clear communication, technical flexibility, speed of response, and a willingness to share responsibility for the result with you. This is where a small provider has a chance to be better than a large and well-known one. If you need a partner who is ready to get involved in the finer details of your architecture, rather than just providing machines from a catalog, choosing 3v-Hosting is not a compromise, but a conscious strategy for sustainable growth.
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