Well, if you already know before you order the server that you are probably going to cancel it, then it does sound a bit like you would be abusing the cancellation policy. A policy like this is not meant for testing out a dedicated root server for fun -- instead, you could ask people in our customer forum about what kinds of benchmarks they tend to get. (https://forum.hetzner.com/) A lot of our customers are happy to share these kinds of details with people on the forum, and perhaps even someone here on Hacker News would be willing to do the same thing. However, if you really do plan on keeping the server, and then you try it out for a few days and are truly disappointed with the performance, of course you can cancel your order within the first 14 days. --Katie
Thanks for the reply. Don't worry, I won't be abusing the policy.
What I suggested is a feature that might win you some more customers. I'd find it useful so I imagine some other customers would as well.
As a data point, my purchase of an Ampere is contingent on gathering more knowledge about it, so that's at least one customer who's hesitating over a purchase. I would happily pay double rent during a short test period - I'm not looking for a freebie.
Unfortunately, I don't think general benchmarks and other customer experiences are likely to tell me what I'm looking for. I'm working on a new compiler focused on performance of various workloads, which is why the Amperes seem interesting, because of their unusual system architecture. They are different from other ARMs, so (for example) experience with an Apple M1 or Amazon Graviton does not translate.
I'll probably end up renting another cloud provider's Ampere VM for a few days when I'm ready; this is not a blocker for me. I just wanted to share that it's a feature I would have found useful if Hetzner offered, and the same has been true with other Hetzner servers in the past.
