The Hetzner Summit 2026 is over, and we’re taking some time to look back on this special day. There was plenty to see and a lot to take in. But above all, one thing made the day so special for us: you, our visitors.

So we’d like to take this opportunity to say thank you. Thank you for coming in such large numbers, with some of you traveling a long way from places including England, North Macedonia, the Netherlands, Denmark, and all across Germany. Thank you for the great conversations and for your enthusiasm for Hetzner. You inspired us, too, with your projects, companies, ideas, and input.

For a first video impression of the day, check out our TkkBits format, where we took you on a tour of the Hetzner Summit.

A Hetzner Summit organized in-house: from planning to the big day

For you, the Hetzner Summit began on Thursday, 17 September. For us, it started around a year earlier. We handled most of the planning and organization ourselves, too. An event for several hundred visitors takes a lot of preparation: we had to plan and organize the stage, technical equipment, data center tours, catering, sanitary facilities, and entertainment stations. And that was just the beginning. We made the table decorations from decommissioned graphics cards, and built the benches in front of the stage from retired Dell servers – do-it-yourself in its purest form.

During the week of the Hetzner Summit, the first colleagues from Gunzenhausen and Nuremberg already arrived on Monday. Together with the many employees from Falkenstein, we set everything up, decorated the venue, and put the finishing touches on the site. During the event itself, many colleagues also took on roles you might not immediately associate with their regular jobs at Hetzner: bartenders, tour guides, video and audio crew, barbecue masters, and even our DJ all came from within our own team. The event would not have been possible in this form without their commitment. We would, therefore, like to thank everyone involved once again.

Even the day before the Hetzner Summit, it was already clear how much interest there was. The first visitors arrived in their camper vans and stayed overnight in the parking lot. By the time the gates finally opened at 11 AM on Thursday, a long line had already formed at the entrance. We were, of course, very happy to see such a strong turnout.

We planned the day down to the smallest detail with one clear goal in mind: to give you a behind-the-scenes look at Hetzner and our data centers. That is why the Hetzner Summit took place not only on our data center site, but partly inside the data centers themselves. We transformed one of them into an event hall with talks, exhibition areas, seating, and a bar.

There was also a large outdoor area, along with additional stations in two other buildings. This meant there was plenty to discover across the entire site.

Welcome speech: the event begins!

Managing Director Stephan Konvickova welcomed the visitors together with our host and social media manager, Hilal Reichart, and looked back at part of our history: how we built our first self-designed data center in Falkenstein, and that we were convinced at the time that the space there would last us for a long time. We were very wrong. Today, there are more than 20 data centers at the site, and expansion is still ongoing. The first session on stage followed shortly afterwards.

The sessions: insights from the world of IT

A variety of sessions took place throughout the day, presented by both Hetzner employees and two guest speakers. The topics were as diverse as they were exciting.

One presentation focused on our new platform, Hetzner Experiments, where we provide a free Inference API for you to try out. The session offered exclusive insights into the project and the ideas behind it. We summarized the preparations and the first week of testing in this blog post.

Our Hetzner Cloud network stack was also on the agenda. We addressed questions such as: Why are we rebuilding our cloud network stack? How did we approach the project, and what will the future solution look like?

Digital sovereignty also played a major role. One session focused on digital self-determination and control over your own data. Our Product Manager, Stefan Weiberg, reflected on the role that European infrastructure and a German provider like Hetzner can play.

Our guest speaker Gergely Daróczi from Spare Cores showed how Hetzner Cloud compares with other providers. He presented benchmarks and insights into the performance of different offerings.

Our second guest presentation was given by Maximilian Schilling from Warmwind. The AI startup from Jena requires a great deal of GPU performance for its applications. And that was also the focus of his talk, in which he explored the GPU dilemma Europe is facing.

It’s awesome. The food is good, the program is nice, and of course, the best thing is always the data center tour – just to see how things run and how things are built. That was kind of the amazing part: everything is custom built.René Schwietzke, Managing Director, Xceptance Software Technologies GmbH

Data center tours: behind the scenes

Once again, the data center tours were a major attraction this year. A new tour started every ten minutes with one of our many tour guides. Some of them had even travelled from our Finnish data centers.

The tours gave you a look inside our data centers. They took you past thousands of server racks and our climate station, then on to the networking equipment and the colocation area. Our server assembly facility is also located in Falkenstein, so tour participants could see how we build servers there as well.

This gave you the chance to experience first-hand where the servers you normally manage, configure, and use from the office or from home are actually located.

A closer look at our hardware

Those who stayed in the main building could explore our various stations. At the hardware exhibition, we displayed complete rack modules just like the ones used in our data centers. These included multi-GPU racks and Custom Solutions for customers with specific requirements.

We showcased both the cooling systems and the inside of the servers, including their individual components. We manufacture some of these parts ourselves using our 3D printers, and demonstrated this live on site as well. You can read more about how we print our own server parts in this article. Visitors could also take a closer look at other server components such as RAM, SSDs, and network interface cards (NICs).

At the networking station, our teams showcased transponder systems and various types of optical equipment, among other things. One particular highlight was fiber splicing, where a colleague showed how we join individual optical fibers together. Because these fibers are extremely thin, the process requires special equipment and a microscope.

Info points: our teams on site

Various teams and departments were available here for conversations, including our 3D printing team, People & Culture, Managed Server, several Hetzner Cloud teams, and our product management team. Our colleagues answered questions, shared insights into their work, and chatted with you.

Gaming, contests, and good food

The server assembly contest was mainly about one thing: speed. Whoever assembled one of our servers in the shortest time could win a prize. At the end of the event, we held a proper award ceremony for the fastest server builder.

For a change of pace, we set up a gaming area supported by our partner crazy-eSports. There, you could try out two games specially adapted for Hetzner: our Doodle Jump version, “Hero Jump,” and Blobby Volley. Our mascot Hero featured in both games.

Burgers, fries, pasta dishes, grilled food, ice cream, and coffee were all available free of charge. After all, there had to be time to refuel during such an eventful day. And if you still had some time before your next data center tour, you could stop by our photo booth and take home a souvenir photo from the Hetzner Summit.

Conclusion

More than 750 scoops of ice cream, 500 burgers, 450 visitors, around 250 helping hands from 125 Hetzner colleagues, and 37 data center tours later, one thing is clear: the Hetzner Summit was a great success. At the same time, the event is also an opportunity for us to give something back to our community.

Above all, talking with you in person is something we continue to value greatly. You make the Hetzner Summit what it is. That is why we take your feedback seriously and appreciate your comments and suggestions for improvement just as much as the many positive responses we received.

See you at the next Hetzner Summit in 2028!