Hetzner vs Pagely: guide for 2024

Hetzner vs Pagely: Final verdict

Looking over Hetzner vs. Pagely, it’s clear why both hosts are so popular. They have both hosted millions of
websites that run on WordPress for decades, building up a loyal customer base.

• 
  Pagely (Overall grade: 8.1)
  
  is an excellent choice for businesses seeking premium WordPress hosting backed by AWS infrastructure. It offers exceptional performance, advanced security features, and exemplary customer support, which justifies its higher price point. Pagely’s comprehensive managed services, tailored for high-demand environments, make it ideal for enterprises needing reliability and scalability. However, its lack of entry-level plans and core email hosting may be a drawback for some users.
• 
  Hetzner (Overall grade: 7.9)
  
  provides versatile hosting options at a competitive price, making it attractive for budget-conscious users. It offers a variety of hosting types including shared and cloud hosting, and supplies essential security measures and flexible scaling options. Despite being slightly less refined in user interface and support availability compared to Pagely, Hetzner remains a valuable option for small to mid-sized projects due to its affordability and robust feature set.

Hosting types offered

Both platforms provide a variety of hosting types, each designed to meet the different needs of users.

Although both offer a variety of hosting plans tailored to different needs, in
certain cases, one platform may prove to be more suitable.

Detailed comparison

Winner Pagely: Offering an exceptional uptime guarantee and high availability architecture, Pagely stands as the preferred choice.

Hetzner Online provides a 99.9% uptime guarantee with data centers in Germany, Finland, and the USA. They utilize Juniper backbone technology to ensure network redundancy, and offer DDoS protection free of charge. Their 24/7 monitoring ensures swift response to any issues, making them a reliable choice for hosting needs.

Pagely offers a 99.99% uptime guarantee and features 14 global data centers. Their high availability architecture is designed for scalability, security, and reliability. With disaster recovery, load balancing, and 24/7 monitoring, Pagely provides a comprehensive solution for high demand hosting environments.

🏆 Winner
Pagely: Highly configurable and managed WordPress hosting with top-tier support.

When comparing Hetzner and Pagely, it’s clear that both offer solid hosting options, but they serve different markets. Hetzner has multiple data centers across Germany, Finland, and the USA, providing broad coverage with a minimum network availability of 99.9%. Its offerings include NVMe SSDs, unlimited traffic for web hosting, and advanced network features like a redundant network with Juniper backbone technology. Pagely, on the other hand, focuses specifically on high-performance WordPress hosting with superior caching and CDN technology, running on Amazon AWS. The performance packages come with flexible configuration options, decoupled database resources, and managed DevOps support, ensuring efficiency and rapid load times.

Website Speed

Hetzner utilizes NVMe SSD disk space, which offers high read and write speeds, and provides daily backups with a 14-day retention period. This ensures quick data retrieval and website stability. Pagely, however, optimizes website speed with SSD storage and advanced network security. The superior caching and CDN technology lead to faster load times and enhanced user experiences. Given their different approaches, Pagely edges out slightly in website speed optimization thanks to its performance-driven infrastructure tailored for WordPress.

Scalability

Regarding scalability, Hetzner offers flexible invoicing for additional disk space and traffic overusage, along with options for managed and cloud servers. However, the specifics about automatic scaling are unclear. Pagely provides a highly scalable architecture with plans allowing for tailored CPU, RAM, and SSD storage configurations, especially in its Scale and High Availability packages. The process of scaling in Pagely seems more seamless, with high flexibility and dedicated resources, but comes at a premium cost. Both have strengths, but Pagely offers more built-in upscale options, albeit at a higher price point.

Winner Pagely: Pagely offers a more comprehensive suite of security features tailored for WordPress environments and regulatory compliance.

Technical security measures:

Hetzner provides robust technical security with DDoS protection, SSL certificates (Symantec Basic and Let’s Encrypt), and support for PHP versions 5, 7, and 8. Additionally, Hetzner includes PHP extensions like APCu, ImageMagick, IonCube Loader, and more. Pagely, on the other hand, uses AWS Shield Standard for DDoS protection and also supports Let’s Encrypt and custom SSL certificates. It offers long-term support for PHP versions 7.4 or newer. Pagely’s PressARMOR™ further secures WordPress environments by patching known vulnerabilities. Pagely edges out with its intuitive solution, especially for WordPress.

Operational security measures:

Hetzner’s operational security includes secure connections through SSL encryption for administration, mail, FTP, and SSH access. Mail security features such as DKIM, SPF, and anti-spam techniques, along with ClamAV virus scanning are also offered. Hetzner’s real-time system integrity checks and automated defense mechanisms against dictionary-based brute force attacks fortify its servers. Pagely offers 24/7 uptime monitoring, resource isolation, two-factor authentication (2FA), brute force protection, and a web application firewall. While Hetzner offers a wide range of secure access methods, Pagely’s use of AWS infrastructure and advanced firewall coverage position it marginally ahead in operational security.

Compliance and certifications:

Hetzner operates under GDPR regulations with ISO 27001 certification for its data centers. It offers a Data Processing Agreement (DPA) as per Article 28 of GDPR. Pagely not only complies with GDPR but also boasts SOC 2 Type I & II and PCI-DSS SAQ-A certifications. With a broader spectrum of compliance and certifications across different standards, Pagely demonstrates a higher assurance level for regulatory adherence.

🏆 Winner
Hetzner: A robust hosting solution offering versatile features and flexible pricing.

When comparing hosting providers Hetzner and Pagely, both bring impressive features to the table, though the user needs differ. Hetzner offers a well-rounded set of features including support for PHP scripts, CMS platforms like WordPress, Joomla, and Typo3, as well as the capability to handle webshop solutions such as Shopware. Its pricing model is flexible and includes various tiers based on disk space, allowing users to scale as their needs grow. Hetzner’s policy includes a free phone and email support, daily backups, and a comprehensive control interface konsoleH, which enhances usability for both beginners and advanced users. Additionally, Hetzner provides essential security measures such as SSL encryption and DDoS protection, without a minimum contract period which offers more flexibility to its users.

Pagely, on the other hand, boasts high availability with a 99.99% uptime SLA by leveraging AWS Cloud and robust dedicated AWS hardware, making it ideal for businesses requiring maximum reliability. It features advanced network security, managed WordPress upgrades, and uses superior caching technology for fast performance. Pagely also includes developer-friendly tools like SSH, GIT, and WP-CLI, which are great for tech-savvy users who prefer customization. Their plans start at a higher price point, but they include managed DevOps support and flexible configurations. Despite not offering free domains like Hetzner, Pagely’s comprehensive backup solutions and responsive expert support make it a strong candidate for demanding enterprise environments.

Both providers support a range of users from beginners to experts with user-friendly website builders and WordPress staging areas. However, in terms of developer tools, both Hetzner and Pagely offer robust options including SSH access, support for multiple programming languages, and Git for version control, thus appealing to developers looking for advanced capabilities.

Email services:

Hetzner offers comprehensive email hosting services, including large mailboxes, email forwarding, and secure SMTP for transactional emails. Additionally, users can synchronize their email accounts with multiple protocols like Exchange Active Sync. In contrast, Pagely focuses on its strong hosting capabilities and does not include built-in email hosting. However, users can manage email through third-party integrations with popular services like Google Workspace. While Hetzner provides more integrated email solutions, Pagely’s advanced hosting features might be more appealing to users whose primary concern is hosting performance rather than email.

🏆 Winner Hetzner: A budget-friendly yet feature-rich hosting provider.

Evaluating the pricing of plans among various hosting providers can be complex due to their differing pricing and renewal strategies. Additionally, certain plans require annual commitments, which adds to the difficulty of making comparisons. The prices listed are based on monthly commitments; plans requiring annual commitments are indicated. Additionally, although some providers offer identical plans for WordPress and shared hosting, we have created separate tables for each to enhance clarity.

Hetzner offers a variety of competitively priced hosting plans with rich features, while Pagely caters mostly to high-end users with excellent support and advanced features. Hetzner’s plans, starting as low as €2.09 per month, include excellent storage and traffic allowances, making it a cost-effective option. On the other hand, Pagely’s mandates a higher budget, with their entry-level plan starting at $199 per month, offering features like decoupled database resources and managed DevOps support. Both providers have unique features that cater to different customer needs, but Hetzner stands out for its affordability and extensive feature set.