OVHcloud vs Google Cloud
OVHcloud is a European alternative to Google Cloud: same cloud & hosting use case, headquartered in France and governed by EU GDPR, while Google Cloud (Google) is based in the United States.
By the EU Alternatives team Last updated
Access a leading European cloud with full data sovereignty. Utilize powerful AI and GPU solutions on a sustainable, cost-effective platform. Over 80 services.
- Jurisdiction
- EU / EEA
- Primary privacy law
- EU GDPR
- US CLOUD Act exposure
- No
- Open source
- No
- Free tier
- Yes
Google Cloud is at its strongest where data meets machine learning, and BigQuery is the one service teams genuinely struggle to find a match for. Pricing is usage-based with a free tier on several services. It is operated by Google LLC in Mountain View, which puts European workloads under American jurisdiction.
- Jurisdiction
- United States
- GDPR by default
- Requires DPA + TIA
- US CLOUD Act exposure
- Yes
OVHcloud vs Google Cloud at a glance
| OVHcloud | Google Cloud | |
|---|---|---|
| Headquarters | France | United States |
| Data jurisdiction | EU / EEA | United States |
| Primary privacy law | EU GDPR | Requires DPA + transfer assessment |
| US CLOUD Act exposure | No | Yes |
| Best for | Teams that need cloud & hosting built for European data-protection requirements | Teams already invested in the Google ecosystem |
Choose OVHcloud if…
- You want a provider governed by a European privacy regime
- GDPR or public-sector data-protection requirements apply to you
- You want to start free and scale up later
- You'd rather back the European tech ecosystem
Stick with Google Cloud if…
- You depend on integrations only available in the Google ecosystem
- Your organisation has no EU data-residency constraints
- Migration costs outweigh the jurisdiction benefits for now
About OVHcloud
OVHcloud is Europe's flagship cloud infrastructure provider. Founded in Roubaix, France in 1999, it now operates 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 covering compute, object/block/file storage, and managed PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB
- Kubernetes and container orchestration
- AI & ML with AI Endpoints, AI Training, AI Notebooks, and managed model hosting
- Private cloud running VMware, Nutanix, and SAP HANA on dedicated or shared infrastructure
- Bare metal across Kimsufi, Advance, Game, Scale, and High Grade tiers
- VPS from €5.52/month with transparent pricing
- Web hosting spanning shared hosting, managed WordPress, email, and VoIP
- Domains with ~900 TLDs available through an ICANN-accredited registrar
- Data sovereignty promising "your data is not sold, used, or transferred" without consent
- No egress fees, a reversible cloud built on 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.
Why choose OVHcloud over Google Cloud?
The decisive argument is data jurisdiction. Google Cloud is headquartered in the United States, which means personal data processed through it can be subject to non-EU legal regimes: the US CLOUD Act, FISA 702, or similar laws depending on the provider. After the 2020 Schrems II ruling, EU organisations must carry out a transfer impact assessment for every such data flow.
OVHcloud removes that overhead. As a France-based provider, it operates under EU GDPR, and data stays inside the EU/EEA by default. For regulated sectors such as health, public administration, and finance, that's not a nice-to-have but a requirement. For everyone else, it's concentration-risk insurance: you avoid depending on a single jurisdiction that can change the rules without warning.