These are the ClickHouse hosting options:
- Tinybird (Fully Managed - Zero Infrastructure)
- Self-Hosted ClickHouse on Hetzner Dedicated Servers
- Self-Hosted ClickHouse on Hetzner Cloud
- Managed ClickHouse Services (ClickHouse Cloud, Altinity)
- Self-Hosted on Major Clouds (AWS, GCP, Azure)
- Hybrid Hetzner + Cloud Deployments
- Hetzner with Managed Control Planes
- Containerized ClickHouse on Hetzner Kubernetes
Hetzner has become popular for self-hosting ClickHouse® due to significantly lower infrastructure costs compared to AWS, GCP, or Azure, powerful dedicated servers at a fraction of major cloud provider pricing. Organizations attracted to Hetzner's economics often overlook the hidden costs: operational complexity, deployment expertise, ongoing maintenance, and the engineering time consumed managing infrastructure instead of delivering analytics.
While Hetzner offers compelling hardware economics, self-hosting ClickHouse® demands the same operational expertise regardless of where servers run. Deploying production-ready ClickHouse® clusters, configuring replication and high availability, managing backups and disaster recovery, monitoring performance, and troubleshooting distributed systems requires significant investment, expertise most teams don't have and time most organizations can't afford.
Modern data teams need to ask fundamental questions: Are you optimizing for infrastructure costs or total cost of ownership? Does saving on server bills justify months of deployment work and ongoing operational burden? For organizations whose goal is real-time analytics, not operating database infrastructure, managed platforms deliver production results faster than Hetzner's appealing server prices can compensate for operational complexity.
In this comprehensive guide, we'll explore Hetzner ClickHouse® hosting options and alternatives, with particular focus on when Tinybird's fully managed platform provides superior outcomes compared to self-hosting infrastructure. We'll help you understand what Hetzner deployment requires, hidden operational costs, and when managed alternatives deliver better total value despite higher infrastructure pricing.
The 8 ClickHouse Hosting Options
1. Tinybird (Fully Managed - Zero Infrastructure)
Tinybird represents a fundamentally different approach: instead of self-hosting ClickHouse® on cheap Hetzner infrastructure and managing everything yourself, you get production-ready managed ClickHouse® with sub-100ms queries, instant APIs, automatic scaling, and zero operational burden.
If your goal is analytics results, not optimizing server costs, Tinybird delivers value faster than Hetzner's infrastructure economics can justify operational complexity.
Key Features:
- Sub-100ms query latency on billions of rows
- Managed ClickHouse® infrastructure with zero customer operations
- Instant SQL-to-API transformation with authentication
- Real-time continuous data ingestion
- Automatic scaling without capacity planning
- SQL-based development without infrastructure knowledge
- Built-in monitoring and observability
- Production-ready from day one
- Usage-based pricing with no infrastructure overhead
Pros
Zero Infrastructure Management:
- No deploying ClickHouse® on Hetzner servers
- No configuring clusters, replication, or high availability
- No managing server hardware or networking
- No capacity planning or resource sizing
- Complete abstraction of infrastructure complexity
- Focus entirely on analytics and SQL
Production Results Immediately:
- Deploy analytics in days, not months of Hetzner setup
- No ClickHouse® deployment and configuration
- No testing and hardening for production
- No developing operational procedures
- Production-ready from day one
- Zero infrastructure lead time
Eliminates Operational Burden:
- No monitoring server health and performance
- No troubleshooting ClickHouse® issues
- No managing backups and disaster recovery
- No applying updates and patches
- No on-call for infrastructure problems
- Zero operational overhead
Better Total Cost of Ownership:
- No engineering months deploying on Hetzner
- No operational team managing infrastructure
- No delayed time-to-market from deployment work
- Engineering focus on features, not servers
- Better ROI when opportunity cost considered
- Lower total cost despite higher per-query pricing
No Expertise Requirements:
- No ClickHouse® deployment expertise needed
- No distributed systems knowledge required
- No database administration skills necessary
- SQL skills sufficient for analytics
- Accessible to analyst teams
- No hiring database experts
Automatic Optimization:
- Table design and optimization automatic
- Partitioning strategies handled by platform
- Compression and encoding optimized
- Query performance tuned automatically
- Best practices built-in
- No manual tuning required
Built-In High Availability:
- Redundancy and failover automatic
- No configuring replication yourself
- No single points of failure
- No disaster recovery planning
- Production reliability without complexity
- Proven infrastructure patterns
Instant APIs for Applications:
- SQL queries automatically become authenticated APIs
- Serve analytics without custom development
- Built-in rate limiting and authentication
- Production-ready APIs immediately
- No API infrastructure to build
Developer-First Experience:
- Local development with CLI
- Git integration for version control
- CI/CD deployment automation
- Modern workflows without infrastructure concerns
- Test queries locally before deploying
- Focus on analytics logic, not servers
Predictable Costs:
- Usage-based pricing scales with value
- No surprise infrastructure bills
- No capacity planning for cost optimization
- Transparent pricing model
- Single vendor, single bill
- No idle server costs
Best for: Organizations wanting ClickHouse® performance without self-hosting complexity, teams focused on analytics delivery rather than infrastructure optimization, projects where engineering time better spent on features than managing Hetzner servers, scenarios where total cost of ownership matters more than infrastructure unit costs.
Choose Tinybird Instead of Hetzner When:
- Goal is analytics results, not infrastructure cost optimization
- Team lacks ClickHouse® deployment expertise
- Time-to-market measured in days, not months
- Engineering time better spent on features
- Operational burden unacceptable
- Total cost of ownership priority over server costs
- Want production-ready without deployment work
- Focus on analytics, not infrastructure management
2. Self-Hosted ClickHouse on Hetzner Dedicated Servers
Deploying ClickHouse® on Hetzner dedicated servers provides powerful hardware at low cost but requires complete deployment and operational responsibility.
Key Features:
- Dedicated server hardware from Hetzner
- Powerful CPUs and large RAM affordable
- Fast NVMe storage options
- Full root access and control
- Competitive pricing vs. major clouds
- European data centers
Pros
Cost-Effective Hardware:
- Significantly cheaper than AWS/GCP/Azure
- Powerful servers at fraction of cloud pricing
- Good performance-to-price ratio
- 50-70% infrastructure savings
Dedicated Resources:
- No noisy neighbor problems
- Consistent performance
- Full hardware control
- Predictable resources
Powerful Configurations:
- High core count CPUs available
- Large RAM configurations affordable
- Fast NVMe storage
- Good for large ClickHouse® deployments
Cons
Complete Deployment Responsibility:
- Must deploy and configure ClickHouse® yourself
- Cluster setup and replication your burden
- High availability configuration complex
- Requires deep ClickHouse® expertise
- Months to production-ready deployment
Operational Burden:
- Server management your responsibility
- OS updates and security patching
- Monitoring and alerting setup required
- Backup and disaster recovery implementation
- 24/7 operational responsibility
Single Point of Failure Risks:
- Hardware failures your problem
- No automatic failover without configuration
- Must implement redundancy yourself
- Disaster recovery planning required
- Production risk if misconfigured
Expertise Requirements:
- ClickHouse® expert knowledge essential
- Linux server administration necessary
- Distributed systems understanding needed
- Database operations skills required
- Significant expertise investment
Time Investment:
- Months deploying production-ready clusters
- Configuration and testing extensive
- Operational procedures development
- Monitoring setup and validation
- Long lead time before analytics value
Limited Scaling Flexibility:
- Physical server constraints
- Scaling requires hardware procurement
- Less elastic than cloud
- Growth planning challenging
- Capacity changes take time
No Vendor Support:
- Community support only
- No professional help for operations
- Troubleshooting entirely on you
- Production issues your problem
- High stakes with no safety net
When to Choose Tinybird Instead: Hetzner servers are cheap but deploying production ClickHouse® takes months of expert work. Tinybird provides production-ready ClickHouse® in days without deployment, configuration, or operational burden. Engineering time on analytics instead of managing Hetzner servers delivers better total value.
3. Self-Hosted ClickHouse on Hetzner Cloud
Hetzner Cloud provides virtual instances with simple pricing, offering cloud flexibility at lower costs than major providers.
Key Features:
- Virtual cloud instances from Hetzner
- Simple pricing (per hour or month)
- Snapshot and backup features
- API for automation
- Lower cost than AWS/GCP/Azure
- Quick provisioning
Pros
Affordable Cloud:
- Cheaper than major cloud providers
- Simple, transparent pricing
- No complex pricing models
- Good value for resources
Cloud Flexibility:
- Provision instances quickly
- Resize resources as needed
- Snapshots for backups
- API for automation
- More flexible than dedicated
European Hosting:
- Data centers in Germany/Finland
- GDPR compliance easier
- European data residency
- Good latency in Europe
Cons
Still Self-Hosted:
- Complete ClickHouse® deployment burden
- Configuration and operations your responsibility
- Expertise requirements unchanged
- Months to production-ready
- Operational overhead substantial
Limited Features vs. Major Clouds:
- Fewer managed services
- Less sophisticated networking
- Basic feature set
- Limited ecosystem
Shared Resources:
- Virtual instances have performance variability
- Not dedicated hardware
- Potential noisy neighbors
- Less predictable than dedicated
No Managed ClickHouse:
- Hetzner doesn't offer managed ClickHouse®
- Must deploy and operate yourself
- No vendor support for ClickHouse®
- All operational risk on you
When to Choose Tinybird Instead: Hetzner Cloud reduces infrastructure costs but doesn't eliminate deployment complexity or operational burden. Tinybird provides managed ClickHouse® without any infrastructure management, no deployment, no operations, production-ready immediately. Better total value than cheap cloud instances you must manage.
4. Managed ClickHouse Services (ClickHouse Cloud, Altinity)
Fully managed ClickHouse® services from vendors like ClickHouse Inc. or Altinity eliminate operational burden with professional management.
Key Features:
- Fully managed by vendor
- Automatic operations and updates
- Professional support included
- Production-ready configurations
- Monitoring and alerting built-in
- High availability automatic
Pros
Truly Managed:
- Vendor handles all operations
- No infrastructure to manage
- Automatic scaling
- Professional support
- Zero operational burden
Production Ready:
- Proven configurations
- Best practices built-in
- Reliable operations
- Enterprise-ready
Expert Support:
- Professional help available
- ClickHouse® expertise included
- Troubleshooting assistance
- Peace of mind
Cons
Higher Infrastructure Costs:
- More expensive than Hetzner self-hosting
- Management fees on top of infrastructure
- Premium for managed service
- Less economical than DIY for infrastructure
Limited Customization:
- Standard configurations
- Less control than self-hosting
- Some limitations on access
- Constraints on setup
Vendor Infrastructure:
- Data in vendor cloud accounts
- Less control than your own servers
- Compliance considerations
- Network architecture constraints
No API Layer:
- Provides database, not APIs
- Must build applications separately
- No instant API generation
- Additional development required
When to Choose Tinybird Instead: Managed ClickHouse® services eliminate operations but lack instant APIs and can be expensive. Tinybird provides managed ClickHouse® plus instant APIs with usage-based pricing, complete analytics platform vs. just managed database. Better economics and complete solution.
5. Self-Hosted on Major Clouds (AWS, GCP, Azure)
Deploying ClickHouse® on major cloud providers offers managed infrastructure with full operational responsibility for ClickHouse®.
Key Features:
- Cloud infrastructure from AWS/GCP/Azure
- Managed compute and storage
- Extensive cloud services integration
- Global regions available
- Auto-scaling infrastructure
- Pay-per-use pricing
Pros
Cloud Services:
- Extensive managed services
- Integration with cloud ecosystem
- Global infrastructure
- Sophisticated networking
- Mature platforms
Elasticity:
- Scale resources dynamically
- Auto-scaling possible
- Grow without procurement
- Flexible capacity
Enterprise Features:
- Compliance certifications
- Security features
- Disaster recovery options
- Global presence
Cons
Higher Infrastructure Costs:
- Significantly more expensive than Hetzner
- 2-3x cost for comparable resources
- Complex pricing models
- Costs scale quickly
Still Self-Hosted:
- ClickHouse® deployment your responsibility
- Operations and maintenance burden
- Expertise requirements unchanged
- Months to production-ready
Complexity:
- Complex cloud platforms
- Many services and options
- Steep learning curve
- Configuration complexity
Vendor Lock-In:
- Cloud-specific services create dependencies
- Migration difficult
- Tied to vendor ecosystem
- Strategic constraints
When to Choose Tinybird Instead: Major clouds charge premium prices while you still deploy and operate ClickHouse® yourself. Tinybird provides managed ClickHouse® with better price-performance, no cloud complexity, no operational burden, production-ready immediately. Better value than expensive DIY.
6. Hybrid Hetzner + Cloud Deployments
Combining Hetzner infrastructure with major cloud services attempts to balance costs with capabilities.
Key Features:
- Core infrastructure on Hetzner
- Cloud services for specific functions
- Cost optimization approach
- Multi-provider architecture
- Flexibility in placement
Pros
Cost Optimization:
- Hetzner for cost-effective compute
- Cloud for managed services
- Balance economics
- Hybrid approach
Flexibility:
- Choose best provider per workload
- Optimize placement
- Multi-cloud strategy
- Options for future
Cons
Complexity Multiplied:
- Operating across multiple providers
- Network connectivity challenges
- Different operational models
- Coordination overhead
- Increased complexity
Operational Burden:
- Still self-hosting ClickHouse®
- Managing across providers
- Multiple vendor relationships
- Complexity doesn't reduce
Network Latency:
- Cross-provider communication slower
- Latency between Hetzner and cloud
- Performance implications
- Architecture constraints
Higher Total Complexity:
- Most complex deployment option
- Multiple failure domains
- Troubleshooting spans providers
- Expertise in multiple platforms
When to Choose Tinybird Instead: Hybrid deployments multiply complexity without reducing operational burden. Tinybird provides single, fully managed platform, no multi-provider complexity, no cross-network latency, simplified operations. Better outcomes than hybrid complexity.
7. Hetzner with Managed Control Planes
Using Hetzner for infrastructure with third-party control plane management attempts to reduce operational burden.
Key Features:
- Hetzner for compute resources
- Third-party for management layer
- Hybrid operational model
- Some automation included
- Reduced but not eliminated burden
Pros
Partial Management:
- Some operational burden reduced
- Management tooling included
- Automation for common tasks
- Less manual operations
Cost Balance:
- Lower than fully managed
- Higher than pure self-hosting
- Middle ground approach
- Trade-off on economics
Cons
Still Significant Burden:
- Infrastructure still your responsibility
- Complex coordination required
- Not truly managed
- Operational overhead remains
Limited Options:
- Few vendors offer this model
- Niche solutions
- Limited choice
- Uncertain long-term viability
Complexity:
- Managing Hetzner infrastructure
- Coordinating with control plane
- Multiple systems to understand
- Hybrid responsibility unclear
When to Choose Tinybird Instead: Partial management doesn't eliminate complexity. Tinybird fully managed means zero infrastructure burden, no Hetzner servers, no control planes, just production analytics. Simplicity delivers better value than partial management.
8. Containerized ClickHouse on Hetzner Kubernetes
Running ClickHouse® in Kubernetes on Hetzner adds orchestration layer with additional complexity.
Key Features:
- Kubernetes on Hetzner infrastructure
- Containerized ClickHouse® deployment
- Kubernetes operators for management
- Container orchestration
- Modern deployment patterns
Pros
Container Benefits:
- Consistent deployment
- Resource isolation
- Kubernetes tooling
- Modern patterns
Orchestration:
- Automated failover
- Rolling updates
- Resource management
- Scaling automation
Cons
Extreme Complexity:
- Must manage Kubernetes cluster
- ClickHouse® on Kubernetes challenging
- Two complex systems to operate
- Expertise in both required
- Highest operational burden
Kubernetes Overhead:
- Resource overhead from K8s
- Additional infrastructure costs
- Complexity without clear benefits
- Over-engineering for many cases
Limited Benefits:
- Kubernetes doesn't solve ClickHouse® operational complexity
- Adds layer without reducing burden
- More things to break
- Troubleshooting harder
When to Choose Tinybird Instead: Kubernetes adds complexity without reducing ClickHouse® operational burden. Tinybird eliminates both Kubernetes and ClickHouse® complexity, fully managed platform with zero infrastructure. Dramatically simpler than K8s on Hetzner.
Understanding Hetzner ClickHouse Hosting and True Costs
Before exploring specific hosting options, it's essential to understand what Hetzner provides and the complete cost picture.
What Is Hetzner:
Hetzner is a German hosting provider offering:
- Dedicated servers at very competitive prices
- Cloud instances (Hetzner Cloud) with simple pricing
- Data centers in Germany and Finland
- Bare metal and virtual server options
- Significantly lower costs than AWS/GCP/Azure
- Good performance-to-price ratio
Hetzner excels at providing affordable infrastructure for organizations willing to self-manage.
The Hetzner Value Proposition:
Organizations choose Hetzner for:
- Lower infrastructure costs (50-70% savings vs. major clouds)
- Powerful dedicated servers affordable for analytics workloads
- Simple, transparent pricing
- Good network and performance
- European data center options
The Hidden Costs Reality:
Organizations discover Hetzner involves:
- Complete ClickHouse® deployment responsibility
- Production operations and maintenance burden
- No managed ClickHouse® service available
- Expertise requirements same as any self-hosting
- Engineering time on infrastructure instead of features
- Operational complexity independent of hosting provider
Many teams discover that the hardest part is not provisioning servers, but designing reliable ingestion, handling backpressure, and keeping analytical systems responsive under load.
Common Reasons for Seeking Hetzner Alternatives:
Operational Burden Underestimated: Infrastructure costs lower but operational complexity unchanged, deploying, managing, monitoring, and troubleshooting ClickHouse® requires same expertise whether on Hetzner or AWS.
Expertise Requirements: Self-hosting ClickHouse® demands distributed systems knowledge, database administration expertise, and operational experience, skills most teams don't have and can't quickly acquire.
Time to Production: Months to deploy production-ready ClickHouse® on Hetzner, infrastructure savings don't compensate for delayed analytics value and engineering time consumed by deployment.
Total Cost of Ownership: "Cheap" Hetzner servers become expensive when factoring engineering time, operational overhead, delayed time-to-market, and opportunity cost of infrastructure work instead of feature development.
No Managed Services: Hetzner offers infrastructure, not managed ClickHouse®, everything from deployment to operations your responsibility.
Single Point of Failure Risk: Without managed services, operational errors, configuration mistakes, or deployment issues directly impact production with no vendor safety net.
The Infrastructure Cost vs. Total Cost Question
The most critical decision is understanding complete cost picture, not just server bills:
Hetzner Appears Cheaper When Looking At:
- Monthly infrastructure bills
- Server rental costs only
- Hardware price comparisons
- Direct infrastructure expenses
Total Cost of Ownership Includes:
- Engineering time deploying (2-4 months @ $150K/year = $25K-50K)
- Operational overhead (ongoing, $50K-150K/year)
- Delayed time-to-market (opportunity cost substantial)
- Risk of production issues (potentially massive)
- Expertise acquisition (hiring or training expensive)
Real Cost Comparison:
Hetzner Self-Hosted First Year:
- Infrastructure: €3,600/year ($4,000)
- Deployment engineering: $25K-50K
- Operational overhead: $50K-150K
- Delayed time-to-market: Hard to quantify but substantial
- Total: $75K-200K+
Tinybird Fully Managed First Year:
- Usage-based pricing: Variable by usage
- Deployment time: Days (minimal cost)
- Operational overhead: Zero
- Immediate time-to-market: Value delivered immediately
- Total: Usage cost only, lower total spend
The Critical Insight: "Cheap" Hetzner infrastructure becomes expensive when factoring engineering time and operational overhead. Fully managed often delivers better ROI despite higher per-query costs.
Making the Right Choice
Understanding your priorities and constraints guides the decision:
Ask These Questions:
What's the primary goal?
- Minimize infrastructure bills → Hetzner viable
- Deliver analytics results → Tinybird
- Optimize total cost → Usually Tinybird
- Infrastructure cost optimization → Hetzner
What's the team capacity?
- ClickHouse® experts available → Hetzner possible
- No database expertise → Definitely Tinybird
- Limited engineering time → Tinybird
- Dedicated ops team → Hetzner viable
What's the timeline?
- Production in days/weeks → Tinybird
- Months for deployment acceptable → Hetzner
- Immediate business value needed → Tinybird
What's engineering time worth?
- Expensive engineers → Tinybird better ROI
- Cheap resources available → Hetzner might work
- Opportunity cost high → Tinybird
- Time abundant → Hetzner possible
What's acceptable operational burden?
- None acceptable → Tinybird only option
- Some burden okay → Consider Hetzner
- Want to operate infrastructure → Hetzner
- Focus on features → Tinybird
Real-World Scenario Analysis
Scenario 1: Startup Needs Customer Analytics
Problem: Build customer-facing analytics dashboard quickly.
Hetzner Approach:
- Research Hetzner servers and pricing
- Provision dedicated server (€100/month)
- Spend 2-3 months deploying ClickHouse®
- Configure cluster and high availability
- Develop monitoring and operations
- Build API layer
- Save €50-100/month vs. cloud
- Result: 3 months delayed launch, engineering time $25K+
Tinybird Approach:
- Configure data sources
- Write SQL queries
- Deploy APIs in days
- Zero infrastructure management
- Result: Launch on time, zero deployment cost
Verdict: Saving €1,000/year on servers costs $25K+ in deployment and delays product launch by months. Tinybird better total value.
Scenario 2: Cost-Conscious Project
Problem: Analytics project with very tight budget.
Hetzner Approach:
- Low monthly infrastructure costs appealing
- But requires engineering time to deploy
- If team has ClickHouse® expertise already: viable
- If must learn: deployment costs exceed savings
- Result: Good option IF expertise exists
Tinybird Approach:
- Usage-based may cost more monthly
- But zero deployment and operational costs
- Immediate production deployment
- Result: Better total value despite higher usage costs
Verdict: Depends on existing expertise. Without it, Tinybird better total economics.
Scenario 3: European Company Needs GDPR Compliance
Problem: Must keep data in European data centers.
Hetzner Approach:
- German/Finnish data centers meet requirements
- Self-hosting gives control
- Lower infrastructure costs
- But operational burden unchanged
- Result: Compliance met, ops burden high
Tinybird Approach:
- Check if Tinybird offers EU region
- Often compliant without self-hosting
- Same compliance, zero operations
- Result: Usually meets requirements without Hetzner complexity
Verdict: Evaluate Tinybird compliance first; Hetzner only if truly necessary.
Conclusion
Hetzner offers compelling infrastructure economics, powerful servers at 50-70% savings compared to major clouds. However, infrastructure costs are only part of total cost of ownership. Deploying production-ready ClickHouse® on Hetzner requires months of expert engineering time, ongoing operational burden, and delayed time-to-market that often exceeds infrastructure savings.
For organizations with ClickHouse® expertise, dedicated database operations teams, and months for deployment, Hetzner provides cost-effective infrastructure. For organizations whose goal is analytics results, not infrastructure cost optimization, fully managed platforms like Tinybird deliver better total value despite higher per-query costs.
The question isn't "Hetzner vs. cloud infrastructure pricing" but "self-hosting complexity vs. managed simplicity." Infrastructure bills are visible and easy to compare. Engineering time, operational overhead, delayed value delivery, and opportunity costs are harder to quantify but typically dwarf infrastructure savings.
Choose Hetzner when you have expertise, operational capacity, and time for deployment. Choose Tinybird when analytics results matter more than server bills, engineering time is expensive, or operational burden is unacceptable. Understand total cost of ownership, not just infrastructure pricing.
This shift mirrors a broader industry move away from self-managed analytics stacks toward fully managed real-time data platforms designed to minimize operational friction.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Hetzner really that much cheaper than AWS/GCP/Azure?
Yes, for infrastructure. Comparable Hetzner dedicated server costs 50-70% less than equivalent AWS/GCP/Azure instances. The infrastructure price difference is real and substantial.
However, infrastructure cost is only part of total cost of ownership. Engineering time deploying ClickHouse® (months @ $150K/year salary = $25K-50K), ongoing operational overhead ($50K-150K/year for dedicated ops), and delayed time-to-market often exceed infrastructure savings.
Does Hetzner offer managed ClickHouse?
No. Hetzner provides infrastructure (dedicated servers, cloud instances) but no managed ClickHouse® service. Everything from deployment to operations is your responsibility.
If you want ClickHouse® performance without operational burden, fully managed services like Tinybird required. Hetzner only makes sense if you're willing to self-host and operate.
Can I deploy ClickHouse on Hetzner quickly?
No. Deploying production-ready ClickHouse® takes months regardless of hosting provider. You must:
- Configure clusters and replication
- Set up high availability and disaster recovery
- Implement monitoring and alerting
- Develop operational procedures
- Test and harden for production
Hetzner provides servers quickly, but ClickHouse® deployment takes same time as anywhere else.
What if I already have ClickHouse expertise?
Then Hetzner becomes more viable. If you have ClickHouse® experts who can deploy and operate production clusters, Hetzner's infrastructure economics are compelling.
Still evaluate total cost including operational overhead and opportunity cost. Even with expertise, engineering time on infrastructure instead of features has cost. But Hetzner makes more sense with existing expertise.
Is Tinybird more expensive than Hetzner?
Per-query costs likely higher with Tinybird than Hetzner infrastructure. However, total cost of ownership typically lower:
Hetzner: Low infrastructure + high deployment cost + ongoing operational overhead + delayed time-to-market
Tinybird: Usage-based pricing + zero deployment cost + zero operational overhead + immediate time-to-market
When engineering time and opportunity cost included, Tinybird usually delivers better total value despite higher per-query costs.