Providers

Providers: Lightsail vs Hetzner

PullPreview supports two providers:

• lightsail
• hetzner

Both providers support both deployment targets:

• compose
• helm

At a glance

Item	Lightsail	Hetzner
Provider input	lightsail	hetzner
Deployment target support	compose, helm	compose, helm
Default instance_type in PullPreview	small	cpx21
Default region/location	us-east-1	nbg1
Default image used by provider	Amazon Linux 2023	ubuntu-24.04
Default SSH username	ec2-user	root
Required secrets	AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID, AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY	HCLOUD_TOKEN, HETZNER_CA_KEY

Lightsail

• best if you want an AWS-only setup
• default provider when provider is unset
• defaults region to us-east-1
• supports the Lightsail bundle names: nano, micro, small, medium, large, xlarge, 2xlarge

Hetzner

• best if you want lower entry pricing or more size choices
• defaults location to nbg1
• defaults image to ubuntu-24.04
• defaults server type to cpx21
• uses SSH certificate authentication backed by HETZNER_CA_KEY

When using Hetzner, instance_type: small and instance_type: micro are normalized to cpx21.

Practical recommendation

• Keep Lightsail if you already have AWS credentials, IAM, and networking conventions in place.
• Use Hetzner if you want lower costs and direct server-type control.
• Set provider, region, image, and instance_type explicitly if you want predictable runtime and cost.