Scaleway vs Amazon Web Services
Scaleway is a European alternative to Amazon Web Services: same cloud & hosting use case, headquartered in France and operating under GDPR by default, while Amazon Web Services (Amazon) is based in the United States.
By the EU Alternatives team Last updated
European sovereign cloud with 100+ products — GPU clusters, managed Kubernetes, serverless, S3-compatible storage, and AI inference across four multi-AZ regions.
- Jurisdiction
- EU / EEA
- GDPR by default
- Yes
- US CLOUD Act exposure
- No
- Open source
- No
- Free tier
- No
Amazon Web Services is the largest cloud provider, renting out computing, storage and databases on a pay-as-you-go basis to everyone from startups to governments. A limited free tier exists, after which costs scale with usage. AWS belongs to Amazon, headquartered in Seattle, and even its EU regions remain subject to the US CLOUD Act.
- Jurisdiction
- US
- GDPR by default
- Requires DPA + TIA
- US CLOUD Act exposure
- Yes
Scaleway vs Amazon Web Services at a glance
| Scaleway | Amazon Web Services | |
|---|---|---|
| Headquarters | France | US |
| Data jurisdiction | EU / EEA | US law applies |
| GDPR by default | Yes | Requires DPA + transfer assessment |
| US CLOUD Act exposure | No | Yes |
| Open source | No | — |
| Free tier | No | — |
| Best for | Teams that need cloud & hosting with EU data residency | Teams already invested in the Amazon ecosystem |
Choose Scaleway if…
- You want your data to stay under EU law without extra legal paperwork
- GDPR compliance or public-sector requirements apply to you
- You'd rather back the European tech ecosystem
Stick with Amazon Web Services if…
- You depend on integrations only available in the Amazon ecosystem
- Your organisation has no EU data-residency constraints
- Migration costs outweigh the jurisdiction benefits for now
About Scaleway
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, making it the 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, it is the go-to European cloud for teams that need hyperscaler-grade infrastructure under European jurisdiction.
Why choose Scaleway over Amazon Web Services?
The decisive argument is data jurisdiction. Amazon Web Services is headquartered in US, 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.
Scaleway removes that overhead. As a France-based provider, it operates natively under 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 non-EU jurisdiction that can change the rules without warning.