A cheap VPS is only good value if it puts your application close to its users, runs your software reliably, and leaves enough room in the budget for backups and traffic. That is why choosing a Hetzner alternative takes more than comparing RAM per dollar.

LightNode is my first recommendation for projects that need broad regional coverage, Windows or Linux, and flexible billing. Vultr, DigitalOcean, Akamai Cloud, and Amazon Lightsail are also worth considering, especially when a particular compute tier or managed service matters more than location flexibility.