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Europe is looking for alternatives to US cloud providers, but it is not replacing AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud with one European equivalent. European clouds can replace hyperscalers for many infrastructure, storage, Kubernetes and regulated workloads, while hybrid or multicloud architectures remain more realistic for advanced AI, proprietary platforms and global services.
The shift is about more than hosting servers inside the European Union. European buyers are evaluating ownership, operational control, legal jurisdiction, encryption, supply-chain dependence, portability, service breadth and total cost. The result is likely to be selective migration and stronger negotiating leverage—not an immediate break with American hyperscalers.
Key takeaways
- The European Commission awarded a sovereign-cloud procurement framework worth up to €180 million over six years in April 2026.
- European alternatives are credible for virtual machines, dedicated servers, object storage, Kubernetes, conventional databases and many regulated workloads, but no single provider matches the full global platform breadth of AWS, Azure or Google Cloud.
- Data residency, European ownership, European operations, legal sovereignty and technological portability are separate requirements; a server located in Europe does not automatically satisfy all five.
- Hetzner is strongest for cost-conscious, self-managed infrastructure, while OVHcloud and Scaleway offer broader public-cloud portfolios and STACKIT, Open Telekom Cloud and similar providers target enterprise and public-sector buyers.
- A full migration is easiest for Linux, containers, PostgreSQL, S3-compatible storage and infrastructure-as-code, and hardest for proprietary serverless, data-warehouse, identity, analytics and AI services.
- The practical strategy for many European organizations is a workload-specific hybrid or multicloud model with tested data-export paths.
Why is Europe looking for alternatives to US cloud providers?
Europe is looking for alternatives to US cloud providers because cloud infrastructure has become strategic infrastructure for government, healthcare, finance, industry, artificial intelligence, defence, research and public administration. Dependence on a small number of non-European companies creates concerns about bargaining power, legal exposure, geopolitical resilience and control over critical technology.
The European Commission describes technological sovereignty as the ability to act independently in the digital sphere by developing and controlling critical technologies, data and infrastructure while reducing dependence on non-EU providers. The Commission’s technology-sovereignty policy treats cloud as part of that broader strategic capability.
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Cloud concentration is also a commercial concern. In November 2025, the Commission opened Digital Markets Act investigations into cloud-computing services involving interoperability, business-user access to data, tying and bundling, contractual terms and switching barriers. In June 2026, the Commission said more than half of EU businesses relied on cloud services when it announced a preliminary position that AWS and Azure should be designated as gatekeepers under the DMA. That preliminary position is evidence of regulatory scrutiny, not proof that customers are abandoning those platforms.
Geopolitical resilience is another reason. Export restrictions, sanctions, trade disputes and changes in cross-border data policy can affect technology supply chains and cloud availability. These risks do not prove that a European provider is automatically safer or cheaper. They do explain why public-sector buyers and regulated companies want alternatives, negotiating leverage and the ability to move sensitive workloads.
What has the European Union done to promote sovereign cloud?
The European Commission has moved from general policy statements toward procurement and capacity-building. In April 2026, the Commission awarded a sovereign-cloud procurement framework worth up to €180 million over six years. The selected groupings included STACKIT; Scaleway; Post Telecom with Clever Cloud and OVHcloud; and Proximus with S3NS, Clarence and Mistral. Eligibility required at least the Commission’s SEAL-2 data-sovereignty level, while several successful bidders reached SEAL-3, according to the Commission procurement announcement and its official press-release document.
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The procurement is important because it demonstrates institutional demand and gives European providers a route into public-sector workloads. It is not a universal endorsement of every selected provider’s products, regions or commercial terms, and it does not mean that one provider can replace every AWS, Azure or Google Cloud service.
The proposed Cloud and AI Development Act also aims to expand European capacity. The Commission’s stated objective is to at least triple EU data-centre capacity within five to seven years while introducing four cloud-and-AI sovereignty assurance levels for public-sector risk assessment. Capacity expansion may improve Europe’s position, but building data centres does not by itself recreate the software ecosystems, global regions, AI hardware access and managed services of the largest hyperscalers.
What does “European cloud” or “sovereign cloud” actually mean?
“European cloud” and “sovereign cloud” are not interchangeable labels. A buyer should define the exact requirement before comparing providers.
| Requirement | What it means | What it does not prove |
|---|---|---|
| Data residency | Data is stored or processed in specified European data centres. | That the provider is European-owned or outside all foreign legal obligations. |
| European ownership | The provider is headquartered and controlled in Europe. | That every subcontractor, software component or support function is European. |
| Operational sovereignty | European entities and personnel operate the service, including support, administration and incident response. | That no non-European technology exists anywhere in the stack. |
| Legal sovereignty | The buyer reduces exposure to conflicting foreign laws and government-access requests. | Automatic immunity from every government request or legal risk. |
| Technological sovereignty | The workload uses open standards and can be moved without depending heavily on proprietary APIs. | Zero switching costs or identical functionality on another provider. |
The European Commission’s Sovereign Cloud Framework explanation treats operational and organisational control as distinct from simply locating servers in Europe. A contract, certification or product page must therefore be checked at service and region level.
“GDPR-compliant” is not a universal technical property of a cloud provider. Compliance depends on the customer’s processing activity, configuration, contract, access controls, data flows, subprocessors and other organizational measures. Similarly, a European company may use non-European hardware, software or partners, while a non-European company may offer European data-residency controls that satisfy a narrower requirement.
Which European cloud providers are credible alternatives?
European providers target different workloads and buyers. Treating them as interchangeable produces misleading comparisons.
OVHcloud: broad infrastructure and regulated French workloads
OVHcloud is one of the more obvious European alternatives for general-purpose infrastructure. Its portfolio includes public cloud, virtual machines, bare metal, object storage, Kubernetes, databases and data services. OVHcloud also advertises a SecNumCloud-qualified environment for sensitive workloads and describes that environment as compatible with Amazon S3, which may simplify object-storage migration.
OVHcloud is a good candidate when a buyer wants a relatively broad European infrastructure portfolio, European regions or a regulated French deployment option. The ordinary public-cloud product and a qualified sovereign environment should not be treated as the same offering. Certification, region, available services and operational model must be verified individually.
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Scaleway: developer-facing public cloud and managed services
Scaleway offers a developer-oriented European public cloud with compute, storage, Kubernetes, managed databases and AI-related infrastructure where capacity is available. Scaleway’s security and compliance material describes the company as a European cloud provider and presents controls intended to address non-European extraterritorial laws. Those statements are provider claims, not an independent legal conclusion for every workload.
Scaleway can suit European startups, container teams and developers who want more managed functionality than a basic virtual-machine provider supplies. Buyers must check whether the required service exists in the target region and whether the service’s operational and legal controls match the project’s sovereignty requirements.
Pricing is volatile. Scaleway announced a pricing change effective June 1, 2026, so an old comparison table can quickly become inaccurate. Use the live Scaleway pricing information and its dated pricing-update announcement when building a business case.
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Hetzner is strongest when the buyer needs cost-conscious virtual machines, dedicated infrastructure, development environments or self-managed Kubernetes rather than a hyperscaler-style platform. Hetzner markets its European Cloud around hourly billing, European locations, data sovereignty and German operations, and cites DIN ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certification. The provider also states that customer data is not transferred to third countries on its European Cloud page; buyers should confirm that claim against the exact product and contract.
Hetzner can be attractive for startups, agencies and experienced infrastructure teams running conventional Linux workloads. The trade-off is operational responsibility. Customers may need to design and operate databases, backups, monitoring, patching, high availability, incident response and security controls themselves. A low-cost VM is therefore not automatically a low-cost replacement for an AWS or Azure managed platform.
STACKIT: enterprise and public-sector sovereignty
STACKIT, backed by the Schwarz Group, is positioned toward enterprise and public-sector sovereignty requirements. STACKIT’s inclusion in the Commission’s 2026 sovereign-cloud procurement is meaningful evidence of institutional credibility, but it is not a blanket endorsement for every workload or commercial buyer.
Enterprise buyers should verify ordinary commercial availability, regions, certifications, support arrangements, managed-service breadth and export mechanisms. A platform optimized for large procurement processes may not be the easiest self-service option for an individual developer or small company.
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Open Telekom Cloud and T-Systems
Open Telekom Cloud and T-Systems are enterprise-oriented candidates whose relevance is likely strongest for German and European enterprise procurement, public-sector systems, managed infrastructure, compliance-heavy environments and organizations that already work with Deutsche Telekom. Buyers should verify current service availability, pricing, support terms and sovereignty certifications rather than assuming that a telecom-backed cloud is a direct substitute for every developer service on a hyperscaler.
3DS OUTSCALE and specialist sovereign offerings
3DS OUTSCALE belongs in a comparison of specialist European sovereign and regulated-cloud options. It should be evaluated for the specific enterprise or regulated workload rather than presented as a universal replacement for AWS, Azure or Google Cloud.
Proximus, S3NS and partner-based sovereignty
The Proximus grouping selected in the Commission procurement includes S3NS, a Thales–Google Cloud joint venture, alongside Clarence and Mistral. The grouping demonstrates that a sovereign cloud can involve European ownership and operations combined with technology partnerships. The Commission’s provider-grouping document is a reminder to inspect the entire control chain rather than relying only on a provider’s headquarters.
What can European cloud providers replace?
European providers can already replace hyperscalers for many core-infrastructure workloads. Replacement becomes more difficult when the application depends on proprietary platform services or global-scale AI and analytics.
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|---|---|---|
| Linux virtual machines | Low | Compare Hetzner, OVHcloud and Scaleway on resilience, support and total cost. |
| Dedicated servers | Low | Evaluate Hetzner and OVHcloud for European capacity and operational requirements. |
| Object storage | Low to medium | Check S3 compatibility, lifecycle policies, replication, egress and export testing. |
| Containerized applications | Medium | Use Kubernetes only where justified and verify networking, IAM and storage portability. |
| Managed PostgreSQL | Medium | Compare engine versions, extensions, backup recovery, replicas and migration tooling. |
| Serverless functions | Medium to high | Expect redesign if the application relies on Lambda, Azure Functions or Cloud Functions APIs. |
| Proprietary databases | High | Plan data-model changes, application rewrites and a carefully tested cutover. |
| Data warehouses and advanced analytics | High | Consider hybrid architecture if equivalent services or ecosystem integrations are missing. |
| AI training and large-scale inference | High | Check GPU availability, networking, model tooling, capacity reservations and regional limits. |
| Global edge delivery | Medium to high | Use a European provider where performance is sufficient, or retain a separate global CDN strategy. |
| Highly regulated public-sector systems | Medium | Evaluate certified, product-specific sovereign environments and operational controls. |
A 2026 European Parliament technical assessment reported that selected European providers offered broadly equivalent services across core categories such as compute, storage, networking and managed container orchestration, while also noting fewer services than the largest US hyperscalers. The assessment is summarized in the European Parliament technical document.
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The difference is infrastructure equivalence versus platform equivalence. An S3-compatible object store does not reproduce every surrounding AWS service. Managed Kubernetes does not automatically reproduce a hyperscaler’s identity, observability, service mesh, marketplace, analytics and disaster-recovery integrations. The more proprietary the current architecture, the less realistic a simple relocation becomes.
The same European technical assessment cited an indicative comparison in which OVHcloud and Scaleway offered around 80 services while AWS offered around 200. The exact counts depend on definitions and measurement date, so the figures should be treated as a dated comparison rather than a permanent ranking. The service-count discussion appears in the European cloud sovereignty assessment.
What does sovereignty cost?
Sovereignty can increase cost, but no universal “European premium” applies to every provider or service. Costs depend on region, utilization, bandwidth, support, certification tier, resilience and how much infrastructure the customer must operate.
A January 2026 comparison of six services cited by the European Parliament technical assessment found selected AWS European Sovereign Cloud services approximately 15% more expensive on average than comparable services in AWS’s Frankfurt region. That limited comparison is not a market-wide price finding; it illustrates how segregated operations and additional sovereignty controls can affect pricing. See the dated technical assessment for the comparison’s scope.
A complete total-cost-of-ownership model should include:
- Compute, storage, snapshots and backups
- Managed databases and Kubernetes control planes
- Public IPv4 addresses, load balancers and network traffic
- Data egress and cross-region replication
- Monitoring, security and logging tools
- Support plans and contractual minimums
- Migration engineering and dual-running systems
- Staff time for patching, operations, incident response and capacity planning
- Compliance reviews, audits and sovereignty-specific controls
- Disaster recovery and tested restoration
Hetzner may have a lower infrastructure price than a hyperscaler, but the customer may need to recreate services that AWS, Azure or Google Cloud would manage. Conversely, a sovereign environment may cost more while reducing legal exposure or satisfying a procurement requirement that a cheaper general-purpose region cannot meet.
How should a company assess a European cloud provider?
A provider comparison should score the exact service and region against the buyer’s requirements rather than rank companies with one overall score.
| Decision criterion | Questions to ask |
|---|---|
| Ownership and control | Who owns the provider, control plane and operating entities? |
| Geography | Where are primary data, replicas, backups and support systems located? |
| Operations | Who can administer the environment and respond to incidents? |
| Legal exposure | Which laws apply, and how does the provider handle foreign authority requests? |
| Certification | Does certification apply to this product, region, version and customer type? |
| Encryption | Can the customer control keys, and can the provider access plaintext? |
| Subprocessors | Which partners, support vendors and technology providers are involved? |
| Platform depth | Are the required databases, queues, analytics, AI and identity services available? |
| Resilience | How many availability zones or independent failure domains exist? |
| Economics | What are the costs of egress, backups, support, replicas and managed services? |
| Portability | Can data, infrastructure definitions and application state be exported and restored elsewhere? |
| Support | What response times, escalation paths and specialist skills are included? |
How can an organization prepare for migration?
Start with a workload inventory, not a provider shortlist. Classify every component as stateless compute, stateful database, object storage, Kubernetes, identity, messaging, analytics, AI, monitoring, security, backup or disaster recovery.
Next, identify proprietary dependencies. Common examples include Lambda, Azure Functions, Cloud Functions, DynamoDB, Cosmos DB, Bigtable, vendor-specific queues, proprietary IAM policies, cloud data warehouses, managed machine-learning pipelines, cloud-specific networking and monitoring agents. These components usually require redesign rather than a lift-and-shift move.
The most portable architectures often use Linux, containers, PostgreSQL, S3-compatible object storage, infrastructure-as-code and OpenTelemetry. Kubernetes can improve portability when the team can operate it effectively, but Kubernetes is not free portability: networking, storage classes, identity, ingress, observability, backup and upgrade procedures still vary by provider.
Use a small proof of concept before committing. Deploy a representative service, import realistic data, measure latency and egress, test backups and restoration, validate IAM, simulate an outage and export the workload. A provider’s claim of compatibility is less valuable than a successful restore in an independent environment.
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The best strategy depends on workload portability, sovereignty requirements and operational capacity.
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| Strategy | Best when | Main risk |
|---|---|---|
| Full European migration | The workload is portable, sovereignty is mandatory and the organization can operate a smaller service catalog. | Replatforming effort and loss of hyperscaler-specific capabilities. |
| Hybrid cloud | Sensitive data needs European control while advanced AI, analytics or global delivery remain on a hyperscaler. | More complex networking, identity and data-governance boundaries. |
| Multicloud | Resilience, bargaining power and provider substitution justify the added operational cost. | More contracts, monitoring systems, IAM relationships, skills requirements and failure modes. |
Full migration is most plausible for standard infrastructure, European-facing SaaS, internal applications, backup, staging and regulated workloads with clear certification requirements. Hybrid cloud is often more practical when the business needs both European operational controls and hyperscaler AI or analytics. Multicloud should not be adopted merely as a slogan; a second provider adds complexity unless the organization has tested how it will operate and recover across both environments.
When is a European cloud provider the better choice?
A European provider is often the better choice when European sovereignty is a hard requirement, the workload uses portable technologies, the buyer wants negotiating leverage or the application mainly needs standard infrastructure rather than proprietary platform services.
A European provider may also be commercially attractive for European workloads with predictable traffic, especially when the buyer values European support, straightforward infrastructure pricing or a dedicated compliance environment. The buyer should still compare availability, backups, recovery objectives, support and egress rather than choosing on geography alone.
When is staying with AWS, Azure or Google Cloud rational?
Staying with a US hyperscaler can be rational when an application depends on proprietary databases, serverless services, advanced analytics, global regions, large AI capacity, integrated identity or an existing enterprise agreement that lowers total cost.
European sovereignty requirements do not necessarily demand that every workload leave a hyperscaler. A company can isolate sensitive data, use European-operated infrastructure for designated workloads, maintain independent backups and require tested export paths while retaining a hyperscaler for services that have no practical European equivalent. The legal and regulatory acceptability of that design must be assessed for the specific data and sector.
What is the realistic future of European cloud?
Europe has credible alternatives for core infrastructure and many regulated workloads, but Europe does not yet have a single pan-European replacement matching AWS, Azure or Google Cloud across the full service catalog, global footprint, AI ecosystem and partner marketplace.
The likely outcome is a more plural cloud market. European providers will compete for infrastructure, sovereign workloads, public-sector procurement and portability-conscious developers. US hyperscalers will remain important for global scale, advanced managed services and AI. Buyers will increasingly separate workloads by sensitivity and portability instead of asking which provider should host everything.
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The strongest architecture is therefore not necessarily the one with the most European branding. It is the one that makes control requirements explicit, uses open interfaces where practical, measures the full operating cost and proves that data and applications can be exported before an outage, legal dispute or price change forces a move.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are European cloud providers a complete replacement for AWS, Azure and Google Cloud?
European cloud providers can replace AWS, Azure and Google Cloud for many virtual-machine, storage, Kubernetes, database and regulated workloads, but no single European provider currently matches the hyperscalers across their entire global service catalog. Proprietary AI, analytics, serverless and identity dependencies often make hybrid cloud more practical.
Does storing data in the EU make a cloud service sovereign?
No. EU data residency addresses where data is stored or processed, but sovereignty also involves ownership, operational personnel, legal jurisdiction, encryption, subcontractors and technology dependencies. A buyer must assess the exact product, region, contract and certification.
Which European cloud is best for low-cost virtual machines?
Hetzner is a strong candidate for cost-conscious, self-managed virtual machines and dedicated infrastructure, while OVHcloud and Scaleway offer broader public-cloud portfolios. The cheapest hourly instance is not necessarily the cheapest complete solution after backups, monitoring, databases, support and staff time are included.
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Can a European cloud run AI workloads?
Some European providers offer AI infrastructure and GPUs, but availability, hardware supply, networking, model tooling and scaling capacity vary by provider and region. Ordinary application hosting may move to Europe while large-scale AI training or inference remains hybrid.
The Bottom Line
Bottom line: Europe is looking for alternatives to US cloud providers, and those alternatives are real for core infrastructure and many regulated workloads. The strongest business case is usually workload-specific: move portable or sensitive systems to a suitable European provider, retain hyperscaler services where they remain materially better, and build tested portability instead of assuming that either a full break or permanent lock-in is the only choice.
