DigitalOcean

DigitalOcean popularised the "developer cloud" in 2012 and has spent the last decade adding the managed services AWS got right (Postgres, K8s, object storage) without the AWS-style billing surprises. For an indie SaaS that wants managed Postgres without setting up automated backups themselves, DO is the lowest-friction credible option.

You'll pay a premium over Hetzner — expect roughly 2× the price for the same vCPU/RAM — but the time saved on managed services often pays for itself in the first six months. The $200 sign-up credit covers 4–8 months of a starter setup, which is enough runway to validate whether a project deserves to be on a paid host at all.