Stop Overpaying for Cloud: High-Availability Kubernetes on Hetzner with Talos 1.11

If you are running production workloads like Mastodon, Odoo, or a fleet of WordPress sites, you might think you need to stick with the major hyperscalers. However, you don’t need to burn money on AWS or Google Cloud just to get reliability. In fact, you can build a massive, enterprise-grade Kubernetes cluster on Hetzner Cloud for a fraction of the cost.

Specifically, in this guide, we will deploy two different architectures using Talos Linux 1.11 and Cilium (managed via OpenTofu). Whether you need a beast of a cluster for databases or a cost-effective setup for static sites, we have you covered.

Grab your €20 Free Credit on Hetzner Cloud here to follow along.

The “Business Powerhouse”: 3x CX53 Converged

Best for: Production Apps, Mastodon Instances, Odoo ERP, High-Traffic WordPress Networks.

First and foremost, this is the serious setup. We are using the CX53 nodes, which are absolute monsters for the price. By running a “Converged” setup (where every node is both a control plane and a worker), we get high availability (HA). Consequently, we can use every ounce of RAM for our applications without wasting resources on idle management nodes.

The Hardware Specs

Nodes: 3x CX53 (16 vCPU, 32GB RAM, 320GB NVMe)
Networking: 1x Load Balancer (LB11) for the API and 1x Failover IP for the Gateway.
Storage: Hetzner Object Storage (S3 Compatible) for media assets.

Monthly Cost Breakdown

3x CX53 Nodes (@ €17.49/mo): €52.47
1x Load Balancer (LB11): €5.39
1x Floating IP (IPv4) for Gateway: €3.60
1x Object Storage (1TB included): ~€5.00
TOTAL: ~€66.46 / month

As a result, for roughly €66 a month, you are getting 48 vCPUs and 96GB of RAM. In comparison, if you tried getting that on AWS, you would be paying over €400.

Real-World Use Case: Mastodon & Odoo

With this much power, you can easily host a large Mastodon instance. However, the trick is to configure Mastodon to use Hetzner’s S3-compatible Object Storage for all media files. This ensures your local NVMe usage stays low. Simultaneously, you could run an Odoo ERP system with a replicated PostgreSQL cluster and still have room for 10-20 heavy WordPress sites.

The “Indie Hacker”: 1 CP + 3 Workers (CX23)

Best for: Single Page Apps (SPA), Static Sites, Dev Environments, Low-Traffic APIs.

Alternatively, if you don’t need HA for the control plane and just want a cheap place to host React/Vue apps or static sites, this tiered setup offers unbeatable value. Here, we use one node to manage the cluster while three nodes handle the actual work.

The Hardware Specs

Control Plane: 1x CX23 (2 vCPU, 4GB RAM)
Workers: 3x CX23 (2 vCPU, 4GB RAM)
Networking: Direct ingress (No Load Balancer needed for simple setups; instead, just point DNS to a worker or use a Floating IP).

Monthly Cost Breakdown

4x CX23 Nodes (@ €3.49/mo): €13.96
1x Floating IP (IPv4): €3.60
TOTAL: ~€17.56 / month

Therefore, for less than the price of Netflix, you have a 4-node Kubernetes cluster capable of hosting hundreds of static sites or SPAs.

Start your Indie Hacker journey with €20 free credit.

Infrastructure as Code: OpenTofu & Cilium

For deployment, we use OpenTofu (the open-source fork of Terraform) to provision the infrastructure. Additionally, we will enable the Gateway API feature in Cilium 1.16+ to handle traffic routing efficiently.

main.tf (Converged CX53 Example)

terraform {
  required_providers {
    hcloud = { source = "hetznercloud/hcloud", version = "~> 1.45" }
  }
}

variable "hcloud_token" { sensitive = true }
provider "hcloud" { token = var.hcloud_token }

# Private Network
resource "hcloud_network" "talos_net" {
  name     = "talos-net"
  ip_range = "10.0.0.0/16"
}

resource "hcloud_network_subnet" "talos_subnet" {
  network_id   = hcloud_network.talos_net.id
  type         = "cloud"
  network_zone = "nbg1"
  ip_range     = "10.0.1.0/24"
}

# Load Balancer for Control Plane (API)
resource "hcloud_load_balancer" "cp_lb" {
  name             = "k8s-api"
  load_balancer_type = "lb11"
  location         = "nbg1"
}

# The Powerhouse Nodes (CX53)
resource "hcloud_server" "node" {
  count       = 3
  name        = "talos-cx53-${count.index + 1}"
  server_type = "cx53"
  image       = "debian-12" # Boot Talos ISO via user_data or manual ISO mount
  location    = "nbg1"
  
  network {
    network_id = hcloud_network.talos_net.id
    ip         = "10.0.1.1${count.index}"
  }
}

# Floating IP for Cilium Gateway
resource "hcloud_floating_ip" "gateway_ip" {
  type      = "ipv4"
  home_location = "nbg1"
}

terraform {

required_providers {

hcloud = { source = "hetznercloud/hcloud", version = "~> 1.45" }

}

variable "hcloud_token" { sensitive = true }

provider "hcloud" { token = var.hcloud_token }

# Private Network

resource "hcloud_network" "talos_net" {

name = "talos-net"

ip_range = "10.0.0.0/16"

}

resource "hcloud_network_subnet" "talos_subnet" {

network_id = hcloud_network.talos_net.id

type = "cloud"

network_zone = "nbg1"

ip_range = "10.0.1.0/24"

}

# Load Balancer for Control Plane (API)

resource "hcloud_load_balancer" "cp_lb" {

name = "k8s-api"

load_balancer_type = "lb11"

location = "nbg1"

}

# The Powerhouse Nodes (CX53)

resource "hcloud_server" "node" {

count = 3

name = "talos-cx53-${count.index + 1}"

server_type = "cx53"

image = "debian-12" # Boot Talos ISO via user_data or manual ISO mount

location = "nbg1"

network {

network_id = hcloud_network.talos_net.id

ip = "10.0.1.1${count.index}"

}

# Floating IP for Cilium Gateway

resource "hcloud_floating_ip" "gateway_ip" {

type = "ipv4"

home_location = "nbg1"

}

Setting up Cilium & Gateway API

Once Talos 1.11 is bootstrapped, you should install Cilium with Gateway API enabled. This step effectively replaces the legacy Ingress Controller.

helm install cilium cilium/cilium --version 1.16.0 \
   --namespace kube-system \
   --set gatewayAPI.enabled=true \
   --set kubeProxyReplacement=true \
   --set hcloud.enabled=true

helm install cilium cilium/cilium --version 1.16.0 \

--namespace kube-system \

--set gatewayAPI.enabled=true \

--set kubeProxyReplacement=true \

--set hcloud.enabled=true

Finally, you then configure the Hetzner Cloud Controller Manager to bind your Floating IP to the Cilium Gateway LoadBalancer service. This ensures that if one of your massive CX53 nodes reboots, traffic instantly shifts to another node without downtime.

Conclusion

To summarize, Hetzner Cloud combined with Talos Linux is a cheat code for infrastructure. You get the performance of bare metal with the flexibility of the cloud, and all at prices that make the hyperscalers look ridiculous.

Ready to deploy? Then don’t forget to claim your startup credits below.

Get €20 Cloud Credits & Start Building

(Valid for all Hetzner Cloud products)

Tired of Clicking “Next” on GOG Installers? Not Anymore.

If you’re like me, you love DRM-free games from GOG. But there’s one thing that drives me absolutely crazy: DLC installation.

You buy a game like Stellaris or Pathfinder, download the offline backup installers, and suddenly you’re staring at 20+ separate messy executable files. Installing them means launching each one, waiting for the wizard, clicking “Next” five times, waiting for it to finish, and repeating the process until you lose your mind.

I decided enough was enough over the weekend and wrote a solution.

Introducing the GOG Silent Installer

I’ve published a small toolkit on GitHub that automates this entire process. It’s designed to be completely foolproof.

Check it out on GitHub

How it Works

Instead of manually running each installer, you can now add a simple “Send To” shortcut to your Windows context menu.

The new workflow:

Select all your DLC installer files in Explorer.
Right-click > Send to > GOG Silent Installer.
Grab a coffee while it installs everything silently in the background.

No wizard screens. No “Click Next”. No “Exit to finish”. It just works.

For the Tech-Savvy

Under the hood, it’s a PowerShell script that wraps the standard Inno Setup silent flags (

/VERYSILENT

1	/VERYSILENT

/NORESTART

1	/NORESTART

, etc.). It intelligently filters for executables and processes them sequentially so your PC doesn’t choke on launching 50 installers at once.

It also comes with a setup script that handles the boring part of adding the shortcut to your

shell:sendto

1	shell:sendto

folder, so you don’t have to fiddle with paths manually.

Go Grab It

It’s open source, free, and available right now. If you have a backlog of GOG games you haven’t installed because it’s a hassle, give it a try!

Download GOG Silent Installer

#gog #silent #installer

blog.icod.de

Posts

High-Availability Kubernetes on Hetzner with Talos 1.11

Stop Overpaying for Cloud: High-Availability Kubernetes on Hetzner with Talos 1.11

The “Business Powerhouse”: 3x CX53 Converged

The Hardware Specs

Monthly Cost Breakdown

Real-World Use Case: Mastodon & Odoo

The “Indie Hacker”: 1 CP + 3 Workers (CX23)

The Hardware Specs

Monthly Cost Breakdown

Infrastructure as Code: OpenTofu & Cilium

main.tf (Converged CX53 Example)

Setting up Cilium & Gateway API

Conclusion

Introducing the GOG Silent Installer

Tired of Clicking “Next” on GOG Installers? Not Anymore.

Introducing the GOG Silent Installer

How it Works

For the Tech-Savvy

Go Grab It

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