4 ms·

How is this possible? With the HW and operational costs they have to be in deep minus.. Eg linode.com is considered good and they seem to be more expensive by a

by supo 14y ago

How is this possible? With the HW and operational costs they have to be in deep minus.. Eg linode.com is considered good and they seem to be more expensive by an order of magnitude. Can somebody tell me what the catch is?

latch 14y ago
As long as they are charging more than their operational costs, they'll eventually turn a profit on any hardware investment. Get a discount for buying in bulk, calculate your operational cost and failure rate, and go for volume. They have years to make their money back on this..every month their investment in new hardware gets closer and closer to being profitable.
rmoriz 14y ago
Hetzner AG is highly profitable. They have to publish a balance sheet at http://www.bundesanzeiger.de/ http://www.bundesanzeiger.de/ (German only) Annual net profits: 2008: 4.077.791,31 € 2009: 4.448.824,49 € 2010: 8.925.128,81 € Accumulated profits: 2008: 9.030.980,10 € 2009: 13.479.804,59 € 2010: 22.404.933,40 € key facts: - cheap energy + human resources by building custom colocation facilities in regions where cheap cooling+power is available - cheap self-made servers, no 19" form factor for decicated servers (they have 19" racks for colocation customers) - hardware has to be refinanced in a couple of months. That's why the charge 149€ setup upfront. - growing out of cash flow - CEO and founder still CEO. Sometimes still interacts with customers regarding new ideas in their forum (German only). see http://www.hetzner.de/en/hosting/presse/center http://www.hetzner.de/en/hosting/presse/center for corporate press releases.
- nolok 14y ago
  Similar to French OVH in a lot of way
  - aes256 14y ago
    Except OVH is a haven for nefarious use (seedboxes, etc.) and Hetzner most certainly is not!
    - dspillett 14y ago
      > Except OVH is a haven for nefarious use (seedboxes, etc.) Particularly through certain resellers, including the own "budget line" (http://www.kimsufi.co.uk/ http://www.kimsufi.co.uk/). Not that I'd know anything about nefariousness, 'onest guv.
      - acous 14y ago
        Their french site has slightly better prices for some reason: http://www.kimsufi.com/fr/ http://www.kimsufi.com/fr/
        nolok 14y ago
        Kimsufi was launched to fight against french Dedibox (now online.net), which at the time had lower price than the lowest OVH server. They stayed at the same level as them since then.
        dspillett 14y ago
        Could that be due to differences in VAT? If not it might just be that they like to quote nice round figures (£14.99 and €14.99 perhaps) - this happens sometimes when the pound and the euro are (or recently have been) near parity.
    - cake 14y ago
      What makes you say that Hetzner isn't "a haven for nefarious use" ?
      - aes256 14y ago
        Hetzner specifically prohibit the use of file sharing services (see the service agreement for root servers: (http://www.hetzner.de/en/hosting/legal/system-policies-rs http://www.hetzner.de/en/hosting/legal/system-policies-rs). Not sure if it's still the case, but they also used to have a policy of blocking port 6667.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
rplnt 14y ago
Is it hardware or a virtual server?
- rmoriz 14y ago
  bare metal hardware of course: http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/405734_294418537271681_267761909937344_845328_552104232_n.jpg http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/405734_294418...
  - hencq 14y ago
    Correct me if I'm wrong but that picture doesn't really say anything. Each one of those machines could still be running 16 VMs
  - oellegaard 14y ago
    is this from an actual hetzner datacenter?
    - rmoriz 14y ago
      yes. it's linked on: http://www.facebook.com/HetznerOnline http://www.facebook.com/HetznerOnline and probably shows: http://www.datacenterpark.de/index_en.html http://www.datacenterpark.de/index_en.html Here's a list of all data centers: http://wiki.hetzner.de/index.php/Rechenzentren_und_Anbindung/en http://wiki.hetzner.de/index.php/Rechenzentren_und_Anbindung...
  - yread 14y ago
    This picture was posted from official account: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=267761909937344 https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=267761909937344 (third number) so it looks legit

by supo 14y ago

latch 14y ago

As long as they are charging more than their operational costs, they'll eventually turn a profit on any hardware investment. Get a discount for buying in bulk, calculate your operational cost and failure rate, and go for volume. They have years to make their money back on this..every month their investment in new hardware gets closer and closer to being profitable.

rmoriz 14y ago

Hetzner AG is highly profitable. They have to publish a balance sheet at http://www.bundesanzeiger.de/ http://www.bundesanzeiger.de/ (German only) Annual net profits: 2008: 4.077.791,31 € 2009: 4.448.824,49 € 2010: 8.925.128,81 € Accumulated profits: 2008: 9.030.980,10 € 2009: 13.479.804,59 € 2010: 22.404.933,40 € key facts: - cheap energy + human resources by building custom colocation facilities in regions where cheap cooling+power is available - cheap self-made servers, no 19" form factor for decicated servers (they have 19" racks for colocation customers) - hardware has to be refinanced in a couple of months. That's why the charge 149€ setup upfront. - growing out of cash flow - CEO and founder still CEO. Sometimes still interacts with customers regarding new ideas in their forum (German only). see http://www.hetzner.de/en/hosting/presse/center http://www.hetzner.de/en/hosting/presse/center for corporate press releases.

nolok 14y ago
Similar to French OVH in a lot of way
- aes256 14y ago
  Except OVH is a haven for nefarious use (seedboxes, etc.) and Hetzner most certainly is not!
  - dspillett 14y ago
    > Except OVH is a haven for nefarious use (seedboxes, etc.) Particularly through certain resellers, including the own "budget line" (http://www.kimsufi.co.uk/ http://www.kimsufi.co.uk/). Not that I'd know anything about nefariousness, 'onest guv.
    - acous 14y ago
      Their french site has slightly better prices for some reason: http://www.kimsufi.com/fr/ http://www.kimsufi.com/fr/
      - nolok 14y ago
        Kimsufi was launched to fight against french Dedibox (now online.net), which at the time had lower price than the lowest OVH server. They stayed at the same level as them since then.
      - dspillett 14y ago
        Could that be due to differences in VAT? If not it might just be that they like to quote nice round figures (£14.99 and €14.99 perhaps) - this happens sometimes when the pound and the euro are (or recently have been) near parity.
  - cake 14y ago
    What makes you say that Hetzner isn't "a haven for nefarious use" ?
    - aes256 14y ago
      Hetzner specifically prohibit the use of file sharing services (see the service agreement for root servers: (http://www.hetzner.de/en/hosting/legal/system-policies-rs http://www.hetzner.de/en/hosting/legal/system-policies-rs). Not sure if it's still the case, but they also used to have a policy of blocking port 6667.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

rplnt 14y ago

Is it hardware or a virtual server?

rmoriz 14y ago
bare metal hardware of course: http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/405734_294418537271681_267761909937344_845328_552104232_n.jpg http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/405734_294418...
- hencq 14y ago
  Correct me if I'm wrong but that picture doesn't really say anything. Each one of those machines could still be running 16 VMs
- oellegaard 14y ago
  is this from an actual hetzner datacenter?
  - rmoriz 14y ago
    yes. it's linked on: http://www.facebook.com/HetznerOnline http://www.facebook.com/HetznerOnline and probably shows: http://www.datacenterpark.de/index_en.html http://www.datacenterpark.de/index_en.html Here's a list of all data centers: http://wiki.hetzner.de/index.php/Rechenzentren_und_Anbindung/en http://wiki.hetzner.de/index.php/Rechenzentren_und_Anbindung...
- yread 14y ago
  This picture was posted from official account: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=267761909937344 https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=267761909937344 (third number) so it looks legit