_          _                            _    _____
| |__   ___| |_ _____ __   ___ _ __     | | _|___ / ___
| '_ \ / _ \ __|_  / '_ \ / _ \ '__|____| |/ / |_ \/ __|
| | | |  __/ |_ / /| | | |  __/ | |_____|   < ___) \__ \
|_| |_|\___|\__/___|_| |_|\___|_|       |_|\_\____/|___/

hetzner-k3s.com

• Why hetzner-k3s?
  • How It Works
• Why Hetzner Cloud + k3s?
  • Sample Monthly Costs
• What Gets Installed
• Quick Start
• Who Uses hetzner-k3s?
• How It Compares
• Key Features
• Documentation
• Who am I?
• Sponsors
• Contributing
• License

hetzner-k3s is a CLI tool that creates production-ready Kubernetes clusters on Hetzner Cloud in minutes, not hours. No Terraform to learn, no management cluster required, no third-party access to your credentials.

• 3-node HA cluster in 2-3 minutes — masters, workers, networking, and essential components all configured
• 500-node cluster in under 11 minutes — tested with 3 masters and 497 workers (possibly a world record!)

• Single CLI tool — no Terraform, Packer, Ansible, or existing Kubernetes cluster required
• One YAML config file — human-readable configuration, version-controllable
• Batteries included — Cloud Controller Manager, CSI driver, System Upgrade Controller, and Cluster Autoscaler installed automatically

• Your credentials stay local — Hetzner API token never leaves your machine
• No third-party access — unlike managed services, no one else can see your clusters or workloads
• Open source (MIT License) — inspect, modify, and contribute to the code
• No recurring platform fees — you only pay Hetzner for infrastructure

No Terraform. No Packer. No Ansible. No management cluster. No third-party account. Your API token never leaves your machine.

Hetzner Cloud offers the best performance-to-cost ratio in the industry:

• Up to 80% lower costs than AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure
• Transparent pricing — traffic, IPv4/IPv6, DDoS protection, and firewalls included
• Global presence — data centers in Germany (Nuremberg, Falkenstein), Finland (Helsinki), USA (Ashburn, Hillsboro), and Singapore
• Flexible instance types — x86 and ARM architectures, including cost-effective ARM instances (CAX) for budget-friendly clusters
• Proven reliability — trusted by companies worldwide for over 25 years

k3s by Rancher is a certified Kubernetes distribution optimized for resource efficiency:

• Lower resource footprint — uses less memory and CPU, leaving more for your workloads
• Single binary — fast to deploy and upgrade
• Production-ready — 99.8% successful automated updates in community benchmarks

Real infrastructure costs for common cluster configurations (December 2025 pricing):

Includes load balancer (~€5.50/month). No management fees, no per-user fees—just infrastructure.

Compare to managed alternatives:

• Equivalent AWS EKS: 3-5x higher infrastructure cost + $0.10/hour cluster fee (~$73/month)
• Managed Hetzner services (e.g. Cloudfleet): Infrastructure + platform fees that scale with cluster size and add up quickly

When you run hetzner-k3s create, you get a complete, production-ready cluster:

All integrated with Hetzner's private networking and firewall. Traefik, ServiceLB, and metrics-server are available as optional add-ons.

Homebrew (macOS/Linux):

brew install vitobotta/tap/hetzner_k3s

Linux binary (amd64):

wget https://github.com/vitobotta/hetzner-k3s/releases/download/v2.4.4/hetzner-k3s-linux-amd64
chmod +x hetzner-k3s-linux-amd64
sudo mv hetzner-k3s-linux-amd64 /usr/local/bin/hetzner-k3s

See Installation Guide for all platforms.

Create cluster.yaml:

hetzner_token: <your-token>
cluster_name: my-cluster
kubeconfig_path: "./kubeconfig"
k3s_version: v1.32.0+k3s1

networking:
  ssh:
    port: 22
    use_agent: false
    public_key_path: "~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub"
    private_key_path: "~/.ssh/id_ed25519"
  allowed_networks:
    ssh:
      - 0.0.0.0/0
    api:
      - 0.0.0.0/0

masters_pool:
  instance_type: cpx22
  instance_count: 3
  locations:
    - fsn1
    - hel1
    - nbg1

worker_node_pools:
- name: workers
  instance_type: cpx32
  instance_count: 3
  location: hel1

See Creating a Cluster for a complete configuration example with all available options.

hetzner-k3s create --config cluster.yaml

In 2-3 minutes, your cluster is ready. The kubeconfig is saved automatically.

export KUBECONFIG=./kubeconfig
kubectl get nodes

• Startups running cost-efficient production workloads
• Development teams spinning up ephemeral test clusters
• Agencies and consultants deploying client infrastructure quickly
• Companies in regulated industries requiring data sovereignty
• Platform engineers who want simplicity without sacrificing control

Join an active community with 3,100+ GitHub stars and regular contributions.

*Managed services (Cloudfleet, Edka, etc.) require signing up for their platform in addition to Hetzner Cloud.

For a detailed comparison, see Why hetzner-k3s Stands Out.

Deploy masters and worker pools across multiple locations for regional resilience.

Define min/max instances per node pool. The Cluster Autoscaler handles the rest.

worker_node_pools:
- name: autoscaled
  instance_type: cpx32
  location: fsn1
  autoscaling:
    enabled: true
    min_instances: 1
    max_instances: 10

Mix instance types and locations for different workloads. Hetzner offers x86 and ARM instances at various performance levels—including cost-effective ARM instances (CAX) ideal for budget-friendly clusters.

Cluster communication over Hetzner's private network by default.

Choose Flannel (simple) or Cilium (advanced networking features).

Tested with 500 nodes and designed to scale beyond. Clusters over 100 nodes require some configuration changes (see Recommendations).

Full documentation: vitobotta.github.io/hetzner-k3s

• Installation
• Creating a Cluster
• Setting Up a Complete Stack
• Cluster Maintenance
• Recommendations for Production
• Troubleshooting

I'm Vito Botta, Lead Platform Architect at Brella, an event management platform based in Finland. I handle infrastructure, coding, and support for the development team.

I also spend time as a bug bounty hunter, finding and responsibly reporting security vulnerabilities.

Connect with me at vitobotta.com. I'm available for consultancies around hetzner-k3s and Kubernetes on Hetzner.

Your support helps keep this project actively maintained. Consider sponsoring development.

A special thank you to Alamos GmbH for sponsoring the development of key features!

Thanks to @deubert-it, @jonasbadstuebner, @ricristian, @QuentinFAIDIDE for their support!

Contributions are welcome! See Contributing and Support for guidelines.

Everyone interacting in this project is expected to follow the code of conduct.

Open source under the MIT License.