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Posted by tuhtah 15 hours ago

Hetzner Price Adjustment(docs.hetzner.com)
https://www.hetzner.com/pressroom/standardization-and-price-...
354 points | 511 commentspage 7
Aldipower 12 hours ago|
And the worst for my setup, there is no more ECC RAM available in their offers. At least not unless you pay an insane amount of cash..
mkesper 12 hours ago||
Server auction still features cheap servers with ECC: https://www.hetzner.com/sb/#ecc=true
Aldipower 12 hours ago||
Not reliable, from a buying/availability perspective.
elAhmo 12 hours ago||
Is ECC RAM that much valuable in day to day for non-critical usages?
Aldipower 12 hours ago|||
Short: Yes, but of course it depends. Long: I am dealing with a huge amount of fitness related health data which gets aggregated into metrics. If those metrics are wrong, for whatever reason, this is not great.

If you just run some blogs, of course, this is not important.

sph 12 hours ago||||
The risk of bit flips is a percentage. The more RAM you have, the greater the likelihood. I have experienced heisenbugs on my 64 GB desktop that I bet were because of random bit flips
Havoc 11 hours ago|||
I’ve had it catch a bunch of errors on borderline memory at home. (Despite the memory passing memtests).
Aachen 8 hours ago||
Just to throw it out there, surely we've ruled out ECC RAM gets away with worse modules because the checking bit will catch it? Because I actually tried to generate bit flips for a project once and we got nothing. Also a relatively high traffic site, registering a few bit flip variants (so like example.com -> fxample.com) got no hits whatsoever across a year. I keep seeing reports from people with ECC or people who found an available bit flip variant of a top X website, but it never happens to me on normal RAM. I can't imagine that ECC vendors are selling worse RAM with a check bit, but the more I read the more I wonder if maybe we should check just to be sure
toast0 4 hours ago||
> Just to throw it out there, surely we've ruled out ECC RAM gets away with worse modules because the checking bit will catch it?

Doubtful. With proper support, you get reports/counts per bitflip. Most people will swap out ram that has any detected bitflips or with a small number anyway. And if you have a significant number, the machine check interupts really kill perf anyway.

king_zee 13 hours ago||
I hope this doesn't hit the other servers, did they announce anything on why this increase happened? I would hate to need to move elsewhere
ilioscio 14 hours ago||
Wow this is a brutal price increase for a lot of plans, at least it appears old user instance prices are grandfathered unless you rescale them.
conradfr 13 hours ago||
I see that (new) EX44 servers are now 50% more expensive than before, ouch. Although there's none available anyway.
romaniv 11 hours ago||
AI seems to be ruining every single major thing that drove economic growth for the past 4 decades. PCs, the Web, software in general, high-capacity servers, Raspberry Pis and so on. The next thing to be affected will probably be smartphones. All of these things are foundations of profitable businesses right now and we are destroying them on the mere promise to get to some idiotic utopia in the future.
beratbozkurt0 13 hours ago||
I've only been using this a lot for a few months now. I'm sorry to see this.
zsoltkacsandi 13 hours ago||
Correct me if I am wrong, but AI made software development and operations more expensive than before. Yes, it is faster too, but the question: is it worth the price? Can the users consume new features in that pace?
andix 13 hours ago||
I start to think that AI might be a net negative on the economy. It consumes an enormous amount of resources, just to keep doing what we did before.

Laying off people also doesn't reduce cost as much as it might look like. There is a lot of hidden cost shared by everyone (also the companies that did the lay offs are hit by them). Unemployed people still have to eat and pay rent, and someone is paying for that. They spend less money on services and goods, which affects every company in the end.

AI is great, but I think it got too big.

Just my thoughts, not backed by any data. I'm not even sure I'm right.

Capricorn2481 13 hours ago||
> I start to think that AI might be a net negative on the economy. It consumes an enormous amount of resources, just to keep doing what we did before

Outside of HN, this is all people are seeing. Gamers in particular aren't seeing a benefit. They are being priced out of their hobby. The recent DDLS 5 meme is what people think of when they hear AI.

andix 13 hours ago||
Even inside the software bubble it's debatable if there is a significant benefit on productivity (judged by total cost).

But even pure software companies are hit by higher hardware prices. Their customers need to buy expensive hardware and have less budget left to spend on software.

Oras 11 hours ago||
It will clearer soon after the api pricing model enforced on enterprise accounts.

I suspect this will soon follow and no fixed subscription model, which will enforce companies/developers to be moderate and thoughtful when using AI. Also I think Microsoft will do the same for copilot

citrin_ru 13 hours ago|||
AI investors bet on the high return in the next 10-15 years, they have no reasons to care if everything which require semiconductors will become much more expensive in the process.
conradfr 13 hours ago|||
Maybe AI could now optimize all the server software made when RAM was cheap.
andix 13 hours ago||
I think we are also going to see a lot of new software that is less hungry on compute and RAM than before. Probably first with games not requiring new hardware anymore.

Because the consumers won't upgrade to new hardware as fast as before. People who buy their first gaming PC in 2027 might even get a lower spec in average than people who bought in 2025. So new games might require even lower hardware specs than before, to sell enough copies.

applfanboysbgon 13 hours ago||
This is a wishful fantasy. Vibe coded applications like ChatGPT desktop and Claude Code routinely take 1~2GB of RAM to display <1kb of text. There is zero initiative to make better software, the software industry is just saying "fuck you" to the rest of the world until the bubble pops.
andix 13 hours ago||
Sure, that's why I think it will start with games. You don't buy a game if you can't (properly) play it. Either you get a new gaming PC, or stop buying new games and keep playing old ones.
grishka 13 hours ago|||
The use of AI is still optional.
noodlesUK 13 hours ago|||
Yes but paying massively inflated prices for compute are not anymore. Even for consumer gear I am being quoted prices that are more than 2x what they were only a year ago (and availability is hard).
SoftTalker 13 hours ago||||
But its impact on new hardware costs and replacement costs is not.

A company like Hetzner probably replaces hardware on a 5 year cycle. Maybe shorter. Maybe they could try to stretch that out but they can't avoid the cost of new hardware for very long.

jnwatson 13 hours ago||
I think it is worse for Hetzner. The secret is out. Their prices have attracted a lot of demand, and they need to buy equipment to satisfy that demand.

The last Hetzner box I leased I had to poll for availability as if I was Ebay auction sniping. It took me 2 days to acquire it.

SoftTalker 13 hours ago||
Absolutely. Replacement is one thing, but there is also the need for new hardware to meet growing demand.
danesparza 13 hours ago|||
And yet the hardware cost increases caused by AI are not.
gchamonlive 13 hours ago|||
> is faster too, but the question: is it worth the price?

Those aren't the only metrics, quality and efficiency is also important. AIslop is of higher quality than devslop on average.

entropi 13 hours ago|||
> AIslop is of higher quality than devslop on average.

Is it? If by higher quality, you mean commenting properly, sticking to naming conventions etc. I can agree. But to me, AIslop looks like it lacks "intentionality" of code written by devs, no matter how bad they are at naming things and sticking to conventions.

i.e. people who are adequately good at their jobs usually do things for a reason, and they can explain it. Even if you don't find it agreeable, it usually is consistent.

gchamonlive 13 hours ago||
Is it AI that lacks intentionality or your prompts?

Just remember we are comparing slops. If you care about your code it really doesn't matter if you write it manually or with the help of a glorified typewriter.

arcatech 13 hours ago|||
> AIslop is of higher quality than devslop on average.

How did you come to that conclusion? That goes against everything I've heard from people who understand development. Every resource I can find about AI vs non-AI development comes to the exact opposite conclusion you did.

gchamonlive 12 hours ago||
Devslop is spaghetti code that grows organically. AIslop is overly complicated code that someone neglected to read. I just distrust the former more than the latter.
jvuygbbkuurx 13 hours ago|||
Prices aren't high for the current capabilities or demand. It is all a bet on the future.
Pxtl 13 hours ago|||
AI could theoretically also be used to optimize existing code instead of producing new features, allowing existing tech to run on lighter hardware. Rent me an rpi if the software is fast.
SoftTalker 13 hours ago|||
Thanks for the laugh. When has optimization ever been a priority over delivering new features? AI is going to make this problem far worse.
fluidcruft 13 hours ago|||
Raspberry Pis are also quite expensive now.
_3u10 13 hours ago|||
Not really. You can still not use AI. The solid data is that RAM is more expensive than before… so there’s a small case to be made there because of you need a new computer you can’t avoid that.
iLoveOncall 13 hours ago||
> Can the users consume new features in that pace?

It's pretty clear by now that coding productivity increases by 10-15% with AI. Given coding is only a small part of the developer's job, there's just nothing new to consume.

The only change I have noticed in software since LLMs have hit the mass market is degradation of software quality, not increase in feature releases.

Prices have increased for literally nothing.

andix 13 hours ago|||
> The only change I have noticed in software since LLMs have hit the mass market is degradation of software quality, not increase in feature releases.

Not fully true. AI is now often used to fix a lot of bugs in old and badly maintained software.

The quality of big and popular software probably decreased a bit, but the quality of niche products probably improved.

BigJono 13 hours ago|||
> It's pretty clear by now that coding productivity increases by 10-15% with AI.

Completely offtopic for this thread but I can't be the only one that would find this hilarious if it wasn't being said in earnest in every thread.

The only thing that is clear is that measuring programming is just as impossible as it has always been. In all my years of projects they've either been resounding successes or gone down in flames. The difference between good and bad is a difference in kind. Most of the bad ones didn't even know what the hell they were building and built the wrong thing.

Like, the entire idea that some omniscient manager is looking at a thousand timelines and pondering over whether to pick the $11.5M successful one or the $9.5M successful one is literally laughable. Half of them are going to make the Hindenburg look like a bit of a whoopsie and the other half you would lock in sight unseen without a second thought.

iLoveOncall 11 hours ago||
> Completely offtopic for this thread but I can't be the only one that would find this hilarious if it wasn't being said in earnest in every thread.

Sorry, I meant 10-15% at most.

If it was by more than that then we'd see the effects in an obvious way. Since we don't those 15% are already generous.

noodlesUK 13 hours ago||
This is such disappointing news. I was planning on migrating some of our workloads to hetzner specifically to take advantage of the AX162 pricing which was incredibly competitive.

Does anyone else have any suggestions for competitive pricing for this kind of thing (e.g. batch jobs)? Was this applied retrospectively to existing customers?

jonatron 13 hours ago||
From memory, OVH and Scaleway are similar to Hetzner
markvdb 13 hours ago|||
Hetzner is actually somewhat reliable, and OVH is not.
BadBadJellyBean 12 hours ago||
I know that they had a huge oopsie with their wooden datacenter burning down but apart from that I didn't notice any problems recently.
mhkool 13 hours ago|||
OVH is more expensive
Aachen 8 hours ago|||
And tells you in an FAQ to go to a competitor if you want to send emails (personal or commercial does not matter). Various bugs in the ordering systems too. Domain names run smoothly (fast and cheap) once you got the payment systems dealt with but for servers it doesn't seem great
BadBadJellyBean 13 hours ago|||
Are they though? They have their KS, SYS and RISE lines with slightly older hardware. The prices are not too bad, I think. https://www.kimsufi.com/en/
Joel_Mckay 13 hours ago||
>Was this applied retrospectively to existing customers

They are quite good at costs remaining predictable. However, a few years back they cut the low-end hosts 1Gbps unlimited data transfer down to a 20GiB/month cap, and wanted everyone to go full cloud/retard to fully leverage the hardware infrastructure.

If you serve large files, a CDN may have a very narrow use case where the budgets make sense. If you are already pushing 23 TiB/month, than cloud providers are usually not worth the effort. Some rent colocation rack space. =3

noodlesUK 13 hours ago||
> If you serve large files, a CDN may have a very narrow use case where the budgets make sense. If you are already pushing 23 TiB/month, than cloud providers are usually not work the effort. Some rent colocation rack space. =3

Unfortunately I'm needing to run a lot of batch compute jobs (for which the hyperscalers are just insanely expensive - even to have a machine that outclasses a nice laptop becomes silly very rapidly)

I'm considering buying some machines and racking them in a colo but it feels like buying right now is also insane because of current pricing.

jonatron 13 hours ago|||
Have you looked at used servers from eBay / bargain hardware / ETB tech etc?
noodlesUK 13 hours ago||
I have but it seems to me that the stuff that's actually particularly well priced is really old (2016-2018ish). Even a single DIMM of used 32G DDR4 from ETB is now > 250GBP. The used market is also blown to pieces because of the price pressure.
jonatron 11 hours ago||
Yeah it doesn't look good. Idk your requirements but this is one of the better deals I could find https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/126986603191 . For used eBay servers it's always worth making an offer rather than Buy it Now.
Joel_Mckay 13 hours ago|||
>but it feels like buying right now is also insane because of current pricing.

Indeed, never buy equipment unless all other choices were explored.

Note, we may be waiting till 2029 for GPU/ddr7/flash prices to fully normalize. =3

moomoo11 13 hours ago||
what's a good hetzner alternative for US?

i'm currently using their hillsboro instances.

i'm not going to pay 3-4x more.

miyuru 13 hours ago|
> i'm currently using their hillsboro instances.

existing VPS will have the old price.

It get increased only if it is rescaled and for new VPSs.

moomoo11 7 hours ago||
ah okay.

but do you know any alternatives to Hetzner for US?

HackerThemAll 9 hours ago|
I tried to sign up to Hetzner services once. They wanted photo of my government ID, and almost all my personal data, full dossier. So I abstained.

None of OVH, GCP, AWS, Azure wanted so much data about me, and I run my services in all of them successfully. Not in Hetzner.

Sorry Hetzner, you're too data-hungry. Nothing you say justifies that.

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