If it is possible to run a hosting service as cheap as this, why is there none like it in the US? I thought the labour, tax and VAT costs in Germany should make it less competitive but this is just way cheaper than anything you can find in the US. Does anyone know of any similar offerings in the States?
Yes, 1and1 - they offer pretty much everything Hetzner has and more (250 GB free backup, unlimited 100 Mbps traffic, which is about 30 TB per month if I'm not mistaken, and fully automated OS recovery and reinstallation, as well as serial console, which is basically KVM-over-IP.
Their tech support is pathetic though, and the worst thing is that it takes them quite a while if any hardware fails - you could be out for days, with no possibility to even pay a premium fee for emergency repair... But of 5 servers I've had with them, only 1 (the cheapest) had issues (hanged on reboot)...
Yes, they're owned by a German company, which is interesting. They are the cheapest in the US/Canada, though, and the hardware is pretty high quality...
From what I know the cost of cooling and power in Germany are much lower than in the US, Hetzner is also very long-term oriented, the equipment they buy only becomes profitable after running for a couple of years.
RAM allocation is the baseline for determining monthly pricing and their product page specifically mentions DDR3 RAM, which generally costs 50% the price of DDR2 RAM.
