Scaleway vs Netlify
Scaleway is a European alternative to Netlify — same cloud & hosting use case, built under EU data-protection law.
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
Netlify by Netlify.
- Jurisdiction
- US
- GDPR by default
- Requires DPA + TIA
- US CLOUD Act exposure
- Yes
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 — 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.
Why choose Scaleway over Netlify?
The decisive argument is data jurisdiction. Netlify 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 — health, public administration, 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.