Alternatives to AWS

Cloud infrastructure from Germany, France, Finland and Switzerland under a European legal framework. Compare pricing, data center locations and data protection guarantees for teams migrating from AWS.

7 European providers GDPR compliant

Context

AWS compared to European cloud providers

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc. headquartered in Seattle, Washington, USA. As a US company, AWS is subject to the CLOUD Act (2018), which compels US providers to hand over data to authorities on request, regardless of whether that data is stored in EU data centers. The presence of AWS data centers in Frankfurt or Dublin does not change this legal accessibility, since the company is incorporated in the United States.

AWS customer agreements use standardised data processing addenda (DPAs) that rely on the EU-US Data Privacy Framework (DPF). This framework was assessed as inadequate by the Court of Justice of the EU in the Schrems II ruling (2020), since US surveillance laws such as FISA Section 702 conflict with the GDPR. Public agencies, healthcare organisations and companies handling personal data are obliged to examine the legal basis for their cloud usage.

AWS uses a complex pricing model with over 200 services, egress costs (bandwidth when leaving the network) and variable charges that are difficult for companies to plan. European providers such as Hetzner, Scaleway and UpCloud offer more transparent pricing models, in some cases significantly cheaper. Hetzner VPS instances start at €3.49 per month, Scaleway waives hidden egress fees, and OVHcloud offers pay-as-you-go rates without minimum spend.

Several European cloud providers have positioned climate-neutral operations as a core feature: Scaleway operates a CO2-neutral data center in Paris, Infomaniak Hosting claims to be fully climate-neutral using 100 percent renewable energy, Hetzner uses green electricity at all German facilities, and UpCloud relies exclusively on renewable energy in its European data centers. AWS has communicated climate targets for 2040 but operates data centers worldwide with varying energy sources.

Quick Compare

Provider	Country	Top Feature	Price (From)
Hetzner	Germany	VPS from €3.49/month	VPS from €3.49/mo · Dedicated Server from €39/mo
IONOS	Germany	Over 12 million customers, established European provider	Web hosting from 1 €/month · VPS from 2 €/month · Cloud from 0.0028 €/hour
OVHcloud	France	Europe's largest cloud provider with 400,000+ servers	VPS from €6.57/month (VPS 2026) · Bare Metal from €49/month · Public Cloud pay-as-you-go
Scaleway	France	Developer-first approach with documented API	VPS (PLAY2) from 0.0033 €/hour · Object Storage from 0.015 €/GB/month · Free trial available
UpCloud	Finland	MaxIOPS: up to 3x faster disk I/O than standard SSDs	VPS from $7/month · High-Memory from $24/month · Object Storage from $0.02/GB/month
Infomaniak Hosting	Switzerland	Data centres exclusively in Switzerland	From €24.92/month (VPS Cloud)
Bunny.net	Slovenia	Over 100 points of presence worldwide	CDN from $0.01/GB (Standard Network EU/NA) · Edge Storage from $0.01/GB/month · Stream from $0.005/GB

European alternatives

7 alternatives in detail

Hetzner

Germany

German cloud infrastructure and hosting services

VPS from €3.49/month
Data centers in Germany and Finland
Cloud, bare metal, web hosting and storage

VPS from €3.49/mo · Dedicated Server from €39/mo

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IONOS

Germany

European cloud and hosting provider for businesses

Over 12 million customers, established European provider
Low entry price from 1 €/month
Domains, web hosting, email and cloud in one platform

Web hosting from 1 €/month · VPS from 2 €/month · Cloud from 0.0028 €/hour

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OVHcloud

France

Cloud infrastructure with European data centers

Europe's largest cloud provider with 400,000+ servers
Bare metal, VPS and public cloud
Proprietary fiber-optic infrastructure

VPS from €6.57/month (VPS 2026) · Bare Metal from €49/month · Public Cloud pay-as-you-go

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Scaleway

France

CO₂-neutral cloud computing infrastructure from Europe

Developer-first approach with documented API
ARM-based servers with low energy consumption
CO₂-neutral data center in Paris

VPS (PLAY2) from 0.0033 €/hour · Object Storage from 0.015 €/GB/month · Free trial available

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UpCloud

Finland

Cloud hosting with MaxIOPS storage technology

MaxIOPS: up to 3x faster disk I/O than standard SSDs
SLA: 100% network availability guaranteed
Data centers in 14 cities (EU focus)

VPS from $7/month · High-Memory from $24/month · Object Storage from $0.02/GB/month

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Infomaniak Hosting

Switzerland

Swiss VPS and cloud servers with carbon-neutral operations and GDPR-compliant data centres.

Data centres exclusively in Switzerland
Carbon-neutral with 100% renewable energy
VPS and cloud servers available

From €24.92/month (VPS Cloud)

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Bunny.net

Slovenia

European CDN and edge hosting with a global network

Over 100 points of presence worldwide
CDN, edge storage, DNS, video streaming and optimisation tools
Pay-as-you-go with no minimum spend

CDN from $0.01/GB (Standard Network EU/NA) · Edge Storage from $0.01/GB/month · Stream from $0.005/GB

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Frequently asked questions

Are European AWS alternatives GDPR compliant?

All providers listed here are headquartered in the EU or in countries with an adequacy decision (Switzerland). Hetzner, IONOS, OVHcloud, Scaleway, UpCloud and Infomaniak operate their data centers exclusively in Europe and are subject to the GDPR or the Swiss Data Protection Act.

Can European providers match AWS services such as S3, EC2 or Lambda?

For core cloud services (VPS, object storage, bare metal), European providers are fully competitive. OVHcloud offers a public cloud of similar breadth to AWS, Scaleway supports Kubernetes and serverless, and Hetzner has robust storage solutions. For specific AWS-managed services (e.g. SageMaker, Rekognition), the feature set of European providers is narrower.

Are the alternatives suitable for businesses?

OVHcloud is Europe's largest cloud provider and offers enterprise tiers, SLAs and managed services. IONOS explicitly targets business customers with German support and compliance documentation. Infomaniak Hosting suits SMEs with Swiss data protection requirements. Hetzner is used by numerous European start-ups and companies for production infrastructure.

How complex is a migration from AWS?

The effort depends on the use of AWS-specific services. Those using S3-compatible object storage can switch to Scaleway or OVHcloud, as both offer S3-API-compatible endpoints. VPS migrations are typically straightforward via containers or standard images. Migrating proprietary AWS services such as Lambda or DynamoDB requires more adaptation.

How much does European cloud hosting cost compared to AWS?

European providers are cheaper for many standard workloads. Hetzner VPS starts at €3.49/month, Scaleway VPS (PLAY2) from €0.0033/hour, OVHcloud VPS from €3.99/month. AWS EC2 t3.micro in Frankfurt costs around $0.011/hour. Egress costs are largely waived by Hetzner and Scaleway.

Which European providers cover CDN and edge delivery?

Bunny.net (Slovenia) runs a global CDN with competitive bandwidth pricing, edge scripting and fast purges; only-eu.eu itself is served through Bunny. Scaleway and OVHcloud ship their own CDN products alongside their cloud portfolios. For purely static delivery, Bunny.net is typically the simplest and most cost-efficient alternative to Amazon CloudFront.

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