We're launching in January with a dedicated server (quad core, 32GB RAM) on which we have a single VPS (with only 8GB RAM) - this gives us plenty of options going further, either I can set up load balancing, add resources to the VPS, make more of them with distributed concerns (database, app, session...), etc. And with Hetzner, it's also very cost effective, like 60 euros per month.
Not sure that is the best way to go, but that's how we'll roll.
The issue with Hetzner is not the price of the servers. The problem is their connection. The max bandwidth I could get was around 180Mb/s, even though their marketing says 1 Gb/s port. In fact the port is shared.
I have got around 10 servers there and now I am moving away and decided to go with Amazon.
However for a startup with european market it could be a good option.
I'm not familiar with Hetzner, but another thing to consider is whether the "crazy prices" are sustainable (and they may well be -- again, I'm not familiar with the company).
Hetzner exists since 1997, it's a well known provider at least in germany for many years. So it's not like they will go bancrupt. They probably just know how to be cost efficient out of experience.
Considering how unreliable their servers and links are. And how their support responses are catastrophicly slow ... I wouldn't put anything citical on Hetzner.
You can safely move to them, I have several servers, no problems so far, every support request is answered pretty much the same day, and the prices are just ridiculously low. No provider has 100% customer satisfaction rate.
It's sad that when i'm comparing AWS to Hetzner, I'm always asking what will people say ... Hetzner isn't cloud..Cloud is "in".. Damn it.. I hate that!!!
We recently provisioned a new 32GB server from Hetzer. The server was delivered with only one of the two raid1 drives working. When I complained they said it would take a few hours to replace and then it was up to me to figure out how to rebuild the 2nd drive as part of the array. All I expected was a working server from the start, anything that went wrong after that I would have been happy to resolve myself. Very poor service, we've already moved to uk2.net. Also don't forget that Hetzner uses desktop class hardware in most of their servers.
Not sure that is the best way to go, but that's how we'll roll.