28 Best European Amazon Web Services Alternatives in 2026

Scaleway is Europe's sovereign cloud and AI provider, delivering 100+ products spanning compute, storage, networking, containers, databases, AI, and even quantum computing — all from four multi-AZ regions on European soil. Part of the iliad Group, it gives startups, enterprises, and public institutions a full-stack alternative to US hyperscalers without compromising on breadth, performance, or pricing transparency.

The platform covers every layer of the cloud stack: bare metal and elastic metal for dedicated performance, CPU and GPU instances (H100, L40S, L4) for AI training and inference, managed Kubernetes (Kapsule and multi-cloud Kosmos), serverless containers, functions and jobs, S3-compatible object storage, managed databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, MongoDB), a ClickHouse-based data warehouse, Apache Kafka and Spark clusters, IoT Hub, transactional email, domain registration, and a full networking suite with VPC, load balancers, and WAF.

Key benefits:

• 5,000+ GPUs available on-demand for AI training, inference, and research workloads
• Managed Kubernetes with Kapsule (single-cloud) and Kosmos (multi-cloud) for portable orchestration
• Serverless platform covering containers, functions, jobs, and SQL databases with pay-per-use billing
• S3-compatible object storage plus block storage and Glacier cold archival at predictable pricing
• Generative APIs and AI inference to deploy and serve models without managing GPU infrastructure
• Transparent pricing at the product level with no hidden fees, egress surprises, or commitment traps
• Startup programs offering up to €36,000 in cloud credits for early and growth-stage companies
• Quantum as a Service — first European provider to offer managed quantum computing

Scaleway operates datacenters in France, the Netherlands, and Poland with upcoming regions in Sweden and Germany. Infrastructure is GDPR-compliant and HDS-certified for healthcare data hosting. The platform runs exclusively on renewable energy, publishes real-time Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) metrics, and recycles hardware — making sovereignty and sustainability operational defaults rather than marketing claims.

Trusted by Mistral AI, Hugging Face, France TV, Photoroom, and the French Ministry of Education — the go-to European cloud for teams that need hyperscaler-grade infrastructure under European jurisdiction.

Hetzner Cloud is the cloud computing arm of Hetzner Online, one of Europe's largest data center operators, delivering high-performance infrastructure at a fraction of hyperscaler pricing since 1997. Founded in Gunzenhausen, Germany, Hetzner owns and operates every rack in its facilities — giving it full control over hardware, networking, and costs that translates directly into savings for customers.

The platform offers four server families to cover every workload profile: CX (cost-optimized Intel/AMD shared vCPU), CPX (regular-performance AMD EPYC shared), CAX (Arm64 Ampere Altra at the lowest price point), and CCX (dedicated AMD EPYC vCPU with zero noisy-neighbor risk). Alongside compute, the product catalog includes S3-compatible object storage, attachable block volumes on NVMe RAID10, managed Kubernetes (HKE) with a free control plane, load balancers, floating IPs, private networks, stateful firewalls, snapshots, DNS management, and one-click app deployments for Docker, Nextcloud, GitLab, and more.

Key benefits:

• 20 TB monthly traffic included in EU regions — 4–5x more than competitors, with no surprise egress bills
• Four server families (CX, CPX, CAX, CCX) from shared ARM instances at €3.99/mo to dedicated vCPU machines
• Managed Kubernetes (HKE) with free control plane, auto-scaling node groups, and integrated load balancers
• S3-compatible object storage built on Ceph with flat, predictable pricing and no per-operation fees
• Own-operated data centers in Nuremberg, Falkenstein, Helsinki, Ashburn, Hillsboro, and Singapore
• Full automation stack with REST API, CLI, Terraform provider, Ansible modules, and Kubernetes integrations
• NVMe local storage delivering 40k+ random IOPS and ~3 GB/s sequential throughput
• 100% renewable energy from hydropower since 2008, with PUE between 1.10–1.16 and zero water cooling

Hetzner's German and Finnish data centers hold ISO 27001 and BSI C5 certifications, and the company is EMAS-certified for environmental management. Infrastructure sits entirely outside the US CLOUD Act, making Hetzner a natural fit for teams that need GDPR-compliant hosting with genuine European data residency. Natural air cooling handles climate control for up to 98% of the year, waste heat warms office spaces, and servers average an 8-year lifecycle through refurbishment — reducing CO₂ emissions by 77,000 tonnes annually compared to standard grid power.

The go-to European cloud for developers, startups, and businesses that refuse to overpay — Hetzner proves that world-class infrastructure and transparent pricing are not mutually exclusive.

Gcore is a Luxembourg-headquartered global cloud and edge services provider offering CDN, cloud hosting, edge computing, DDoS protection, managed video streaming, and AI inference from a single platform. With 210+ points of presence across six continents and an owned network backbone, it delivers sub-20ms latency to 95% of the global internet population.

Cloud VMs and bare metal servers deploy across multiple EU and global regions. AI inference at the edge runs models close to users for real-time applications without routing to central data centres, while managed Kubernetes, S3-compatible object storage, and a Web Application Firewall complete the platform stack.

Key benefits:

• 210+ global PoPs with EU-origin traffic served from European infrastructure
• Edge CDN with real-time purge APIs, custom rules, and developer-friendly configuration
• Cloud VMs and bare metal across EU and international regions
• AI inference at the edge for low-latency model serving close to end users
• Inline DDoS protection at network-layer speeds — no traffic rerouting or latency penalty
• Managed Kubernetes with autoscaling for containerised application workloads
• S3-compatible object storage for static assets, media, and backups
• Free tier for CDN and compute to evaluate performance before committing

Gcore is headquartered at 2 Rue Edmond Reuter, Contern, Luxembourg — an EU member state. The platform holds ISO 27001 certification and is fully GDPR-compliant, with EU data residency available across all core services. Founded in 2014 with approximately 600 employees, Gcore owns its physical infrastructure and peering agreements rather than reselling third-party cloud capacity.

Trusted by gaming companies, media platforms, and enterprises globally — offering hyperscale CDN and cloud performance with genuine EU headquarters and sovereignty guarantees.

Leaseweb is a Dutch infrastructure-as-a-service provider delivering dedicated servers, cloud, colocation, and network services to businesses worldwide — built around high-bandwidth bare metal and a global backbone with built-in DDoS protection. Customers provision GPU servers, storage clusters, VMware, Kubernetes, and multi-CDN through a single portal and API.

The platform spans 28 data centres across Europe, North America, Asia, and Australia, interconnected by a proprietary 15 Tbps network with direct peering at more than 25 internet exchanges. Services cover dedicated servers, public and private cloud, object and block storage, floating IPs, private networks, and Acronis- and Veeam-based backups.

Key benefits:

• Dedicated and GPU servers with custom configurations and rapid provisioning
• Global backbone peered at 25+ IXPs for low-latency, high-bandwidth transit
• Built-in DDoS protection included on all services at no extra cost
• Colocation options from rack units to private cages in 28 data centres
• Public and private cloud plus Managed Kubernetes and VMware
• Object and block storage with Acronis and Veeam backup integrations

Leaseweb is headquartered in Amsterdam, Netherlands, founded in 1997 by Con Zwinkels and Laurens Rosenthal. Its data centres hold ISO 27001, ISO 9001, ISO 14001, PCI DSS, SOC 1 Type 2, and ISAE 3402 certifications, and the company operates under full GDPR and Dutch data protection law.

IONOS is Germany's — and arguably Europe's — largest hosting provider, operating from the Karlsruhe area with 6.5M+ customers and 30 years of hosting experience. Part of the United Internet group (alongside 1&1), IONOS covers the complete stack from domains to enterprise cloud, with DSGVO/GDPR-compliant infrastructure running on 100% renewable energy.

The platform stretches from €1/month shared hosting all the way to private cloud on VMware, with Tier IV-certified data centres in Germany, France, Spain, the UK, and the US. A real alternative to AWS, Azure, and GCP for European enterprises that need sovereign cloud.

Key features:

• Domains & security — registration, SSL, DNSSEC, domain security
• Email & office — Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Nextcloud, custom email
• Website building — MyWebsite with AI assistance, managed homepage service
• E-commerce — WooCommerce, PrestaShop, and managed online shop builder
• Hosting — shared, WordPress, and managed hosting
• Servers — VPS, dedicated, GPU, and bare metal servers
• Cloud — public cloud, private cloud (VMware), cloud storage, AI Model Hub
• AI tools — KI-Telefonassistent (AI phone receptionist) and AI writing
• Tier IV data centres — 100% renewable energy, DSGVO/GDPR compliant
• 24/7 personal advisor — named support contact for business customers

One of the deepest product stacks in European hosting — "Number 1 in Germany and Europe" per their own claims, backed by 6.5M+ customers and broad enterprise adoption.

Virtua.Cloud is a French VPS provider that turns ideas into live servers in seconds, combining pay-as-you-go hourly billing with a 99.99% SLA. It targets developers and small teams who want predictable European hosting for web apps, AI agents, dev environments, and container workloads without hyperscaler lock-in.

The platform spins up Linux, Windows, and FreeBSD instances in roughly 55 seconds across five datacenters, with a simple control panel, API access, and monthly commitment discounts of up to 15% for steady workloads. Infrastructure is operated directly by Virtua Systems, keeping the stack lean and cost-transparent.

Key benefits:

• Fast provisioning servers live in about 55 seconds from order
• Flexible billing hourly pay-as-you-go or discounted monthly plans
• Broad OS support Linux, Windows Server, and FreeBSD images
• 99.99% SLA high-availability network and hardware backing every VPS
• Affordable entry Linux VPS from €5/month, Windows from €9/month

Operated by Virtua Systems SAS, a French company founded in 2015, Virtua.Cloud runs datacenters in Paris, Lille, Frankfurt, and Amsterdam, with a further US region in Fremont for global latency. Data hosted in the EU regions stays under GDPR jurisdiction, giving French and European customers clear sovereignty over their infrastructure.

For teams looking for a nimble European alternative to US-centric VPS brands, Virtua.Cloud offers straightforward pricing, quick deployments, and a French operator accountable under EU law.

Aruba Cloud is the Italian cloud arm of Aruba S.p.A., offering a certified European IaaS platform spanning bare metal, VPS, public cloud, and VMware services for businesses running critical data and applications on sovereign infrastructure. Its portfolio is positioned as AI-ready and built for regulated workloads under EU frameworks.

The platform combines OpenStack-based public cloud, managed Kubernetes, container registry, VMware private cloud, disaster recovery, object and block storage, DBaaS, and backup services delivered through Commvault. Customers mix hybrid architectures and connect workloads through proprietary network backbones between Italian datacenters.

Key benefits:

• Full stack IaaS bare metal, VPS, OpenStack, VMware, and Kubernetes
• Certified infrastructure ISO 27001, 27017, 27018, and 27035 compliance
• Regulatory alignment DORA, NIS 2, CISPE, and ACN-qualified services
• Hybrid cloud private, public, and dedicated environments interconnected
• Managed backup Commvault-powered backup and disaster recovery

Aruba Cloud is headquartered in Ponte San Pietro, near Bergamo, Italy, and runs proprietary datacenters on Italian soil. Services are GDPR-compliant, qualified by Italy's national cybersecurity agency (ACN) for public-sector IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS, and align with the CISPE Code of Conduct, DORA, and NIS 2. Customers include Ducati Motor Holding, Tiesse, and 3BMeteo.

As one of Europe's largest independent cloud providers, Aruba Cloud gives enterprises a genuine sovereign alternative to US hyperscalers, backed by decades of Italian hosting heritage.

Combell is a Belgian hosting and web services provider operating primarily across the Benelux region, with 167,000+ customers and enterprise references including Q8, McDonald's, KBC, and IKEA. Part of the team.blue group alongside other European hosting brands, Combell delivers a full stack from domains and hosting to private cloud and managed IT services — with a 99.999% uptime guarantee.

The platform emphasises local-language support (Dutch, French, English) and free migration assistance, positioning itself as the go-to hosting partner for Belgian and Dutch SMEs and enterprises.

Key features:

• Domain registration — .be, .eu, .com, and major TLDs
• Web hosting — standard, managed WordPress, and dedicated tiers
• Email hosting and Microsoft 365 integration
• Cloud servers — public, private, and hybrid cloud
• Website builders and e-commerce platforms
• IT managed services and consulting
• GDPR compliance software and accessibility tools
• ISO-certified operations
• 99.999% uptime guarantee — enterprise-grade SLA
• 24/7 free support in Dutch, French, and English
• Free migration assistance
• 167,000+ customers including Q8, McDonald's, KBC, IKEA

Part of the team.blue group — one of Europe's largest hosting collectives. A strong Belgian alternative to GoDaddy, Bluehost, and AWS Lightsail for Benelux SMEs and enterprises.

Exoscale is a Swiss-operated European cloud offering compute, Kubernetes, GPUs, and managed databases as a straightforward alternative to US hyperscalers. It targets developers and engineering teams that want predictable pricing, strong data residency, and a clean API without the complexity of AWS or GCP.

The platform provides SSD-backed compute instances, managed Kubernetes clusters that launch in roughly 120 seconds, NVIDIA GPU servers with direct passthrough, DBaaS for PostgreSQL, MySQL, Apache Kafka, OpenSearch, and Valkey, plus S3-compatible object storage and NVME block storage. Everything is controlled through a unified API, CLI, and Terraform provider.

Key benefits:

• Managed Kubernetes production clusters ready in about 120 seconds
• NVIDIA GPUs dedicated AI inference and training hardware
• Managed databases PostgreSQL, MySQL, Kafka, OpenSearch, and Valkey
• S3-compatible storage multi-redundancy object and block storage
• Data residency workloads pinned to chosen European country

Headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland, Exoscale operates datacenters in Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Bulgaria, and Croatia, with data residency guarantees keeping workloads inside the chosen country. The platform is certified to ISO 27001 and ISO 27018, is a Cloud Security Alliance member, and complies with GDPR for all European customers.

For European developers and enterprises seeking a sovereign, no-nonsense cloud with a Swiss operator and transparent pricing, Exoscale delivers a serious regional alternative to the US hyperscalers.

Nebius is a full-stack AI cloud delivering high-performance NVIDIA H100, H200 and GB200 GPU compute, managed Kubernetes and MLOps tooling for training, fine-tuning and serving large models. Listed on Nasdaq and headquartered in Amsterdam, it operates purpose-built AI data centres in Finland, France and Iceland.

The platform combines bare-metal and virtualised GPU instances with a vertically integrated stack: own-designed servers, in-house storage, high-bandwidth InfiniBand fabric and managed services for Slurm, Kubernetes, Soperator, MLflow and vector databases. An API-first control plane lets teams provision multi-thousand-GPU clusters in minutes.

Key benefits:

• NVIDIA H100, H200 and GB200 GPUs available from hourly to multi-year reservations
• InfiniBand-connected clusters scaling to thousands of GPUs for large-model training
• Managed Kubernetes and Slurm with Soperator for auto-scaling training workloads
• Object and file storage co-located with compute for bandwidth-intensive pipelines
• MLOps tooling including managed MLflow, Triton Inference Server and vector search
• Transparent per-second billing with reserved and spot pricing tiers
• SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001 and GDPR coverage across all regions

Nebius is headquartered in Amsterdam, Netherlands, listed on Nasdaq (NBIS) and operates EU-located data centres in Mäntsälä (Finland), Paris (France) and Iceland, keeping customer workloads and training data under GDPR and EU jurisdiction.

Ideal for AI labs, foundation-model builders and enterprises who need thousands of GPUs on sovereign European infrastructure at competitive hourly economics.

Cyso Cloud is a Dutch managed cloud and hosting provider delivering managed private cloud, OpenStack public cloud, managed Kubernetes and colocation from its own data centres in the Netherlands. Founded in 1997 and headquartered in Alkmaar, it is one of the Netherlands' longest-running independent cloud operators, focused on mid-market and enterprise customers with European sovereignty requirements.

The platform pairs VMware, Nutanix and OpenStack-based infrastructure with 24/7 Dutch-speaking NOC and security operations teams, managed database services, backup, disaster-recovery and professional services. Cyso's architecture runs entirely outside the US hyperscalers and allows customers to contractually exclude any non-EU sub-processor.

Key benefits:

• Managed private cloud on VMware, Nutanix or OpenStack with dedicated resources
• Public cloud on OpenStack with pay-as-you-go VMs, object storage and networking
• Managed Kubernetes with cluster lifecycle, upgrades and observability handled by Cyso
• Disaster recovery and backup with geo-redundant replication across NL sites
• 24/7 NOC and SOC staffed by Dutch engineers with ISO 27001 and NEN 7510 processes
• Colocation and hybrid cloud from Alkmaar and Amsterdam data centres
• No US hyperscaler dependency — customers can exclude any non-EU sub-processor

Cyso Cloud is headquartered in Alkmaar, Netherlands, and operates from Dutch data centres under GDPR, the Dutch AVG and the EU Data Act. ISO 27001, ISO 9001, NEN 7510 (healthcare), ISAE 3402 and a full DPA are standard, and customers can sign SCCs that prohibit any US transfer.

Trusted by Dutch healthcare, government, finance and media organisations for decades, Cyso Cloud is the reference choice for enterprises that want fully sovereign, CLOUD-Act-free Dutch cloud infrastructure with 24/7 local support.

Gcore AI is the AI-infrastructure arm of Gcore, delivering NVIDIA H100 and A100 GPU compute, inference endpoints and Everywhere Inference edge serving for training and deploying large AI models. Headquartered in Luxembourg and built on Gcore's 180+ point-of-presence network, it brings model inference physically close to users for sub-100 ms latency worldwide.

The platform combines bare-metal and virtual GPU instances with managed inference services: one-click deployment of open-source models (Llama, Mistral, Stable Diffusion, Whisper), custom model uploads and Everywhere Inference that replicates models across Gcore's global edge footprint. Integrations with Gcore CDN, storage and security give teams a vertically integrated AI-delivery stack.

Key benefits:

• NVIDIA H100 and A100 GPUs available hourly, monthly and on multi-year reservations
• One-click inference endpoints for Llama, Mistral, Stable Diffusion, Whisper and custom models
• Everywhere Inference replicating models across 180+ edge PoPs for low-latency serving
• Bare-metal and virtual GPU instances with high-bandwidth networking
• Native integration with Gcore CDN, object storage, DDoS protection and WAF
• Usage-based billing with transparent per-second pricing and reservation discounts
• ISO 27001, ISO 27018, PCI DSS and GDPR coverage across regions

Gcore AI is headquartered in Luxembourg, with data centres across Europe, the Americas, Asia, the Middle East and Africa and EU-residency guarantees under GDPR. Customers can pin workloads to EU-only regions and receive a full DPA with SCCs for any sub-processor.

Ideal for AI product teams, foundation-model builders and enterprises that need GPU training capacity plus globally distributed inference from a Luxembourg-headquartered European cloud provider.

OVHcloud is Europe's flagship cloud infrastructure provider — founded in Roubaix, France in 1999 and now operating 46 data centres across 4 continents serving 1.6 million customers. It's Europe's most credible answer to AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, combining sovereign infrastructure, open standards, and aggressively competitive pricing.

OVHcloud holds SecNumCloud certification — France's highest cloud security standard — alongside GDPR compliance and multiple international frameworks. The platform runs on one of the world's most energy-efficient data centre designs, with 7× less water usage than competitors and a PUE of 1.24.

Key features:

• Public cloud — compute, object/block/file storage, managed PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB
• Kubernetes and container orchestration
• AI & ML — AI Endpoints, AI Training, AI Notebooks, managed model hosting
• Private cloud — VMware, Nutanix, and SAP HANA on dedicated or shared infrastructure
• Bare metal — Kimsufi, Advance, Game, Scale, High Grade tiers
• VPS — from €5.52/month with transparent pricing
• Web hosting — shared hosting, managed WordPress, email, VoIP
• Domains — ~900 TLDs available through ICANN-accredited registrar
• Data sovereignty — "your data is not sold, used, or transferred" without consent
• No egress fees — reversible cloud with open standards

Scale: 1.6M customers, 46 data centres, 100 Tbit/s global network, 44 redundant points of presence. SecNumCloud, GDPR, and ISO 27001 certified. The go-to European alternative to AWS, Azure, and GCP for sovereign cloud.

STACKIT is a European hyperscaler operated by Schwarz Digits, the IT division of Germany's Schwarz Group (parent of Lidl and Kaufland — one of Europe's largest retail conglomerates). Marketed as "100% European DNA," STACKIT is one of the most serious answers to AWS, Azure, and GCP for European enterprises that need a sovereign cloud at hyperscale.

STACKIT runs across four operational data centres plus one in development, all in Germany, and is certified for DSGVO (GDPR), ES³ (digital independence measurement), and DORA (financial services regulation). Public references include Lidl, Kaufland, FC Bayern Munich, VfB Stuttgart, ServiceNow, and Aleph Alpha.

Key features:

• European hyperscaler — enterprise-scale infrastructure with 100% European ownership
• Compute and storage — VMs, object and block storage, managed databases
• Managed Kubernetes — production-grade container orchestration
• AI & data services — data platforms and AI infrastructure (including Aleph Alpha partnership)
• Networking and security — full stack under European control
• Geographic redundancy — 4 operational German data centres + 1 upcoming
• DORA-compliant — suitable for financial services under EU regulation
• ES³ certified — third-party measurement of digital independence
• DSGVO/GDPR-native — designed for European compliance from the ground up
• 24/7 support with integration consulting

The strongest German answer to AWS and Azure for enterprises in regulated industries — banking, insurance, retail, and public sector — that need both hyperscale capacity and genuine data sovereignty.

V.PS is an Estonian VPS and cloud hosting provider offering KVM virtualisation across multiple tiers — Performance, Edge, Cloud, and Storage — targeted at developers, hosting resellers, and businesses needing predictable European infrastructure.

Operated from Estonia, V.PS runs on a full-stack hosting platform with shared hosting, domain registration, SSL certificates, and dedicated servers alongside the core VPS offering — plus a built-in affiliate program and developer API.

Key features:

• Performance KVM VPS — high-performance virtual servers for production workloads
• Edge KVM VPS — edge-optimised VPS for low-latency deployments
• Cloud KVM VPS — scalable cloud virtualisation
• Storage KVM VPS — storage-optimised servers for data-heavy workloads
• Shared hosting — entry-level for smaller sites
• Dedicated servers — full hardware for demanding workloads
• Domain registration and SSL certificates
• Full client API — programmatic account and server management
• Affiliate program and reseller tools
• 24/7 support — tickets and live chat

A competitive Estonian alternative to DigitalOcean and Linode for developers and resellers who want EU-hosted KVM infrastructure with flexible tiers.