An Azure alternative from Germany: centron vs. Azure

What sets centron apart

Four reasons to take a closer look

Proven strengths rather than marketing hyperbole – verified in audits, experienced by customers.

Sovereignty rather than US law

As a US provider, Microsoft is subject to US legislation such as the CLOUD Act. centron is a German company with data centres located exclusively in Germany – data sovereignty without any legal constructs.

Costs that make sense

Instead of hundreds of pricing tiers and egress charges: billing by the hour, inbound traffic free of charge, S3 traffic included. Customers such as Flowmium report significantly lower, predictable costs following the switch.

Support without a support plan

At centron, 24/7 expert support is included free of charge for all customers – provided in German and with dedicated contact persons, rather than through paid support tiers.

German compliance out of the box

BSI C5:2020 Type 1 (unrestricted), ISO 27001 on the basis of IT-Grundschutz, GDPR (excluding third-country issues) – the compliance debate is brief rather than endless.

Head-to-head comparison

centron and Microsoft Azure at a glance

centron figures are taken from the price list, price calculator and service specification and can be verified. Information on Microsoft Azure reflects the publicly available position as of August 2026 (pricing region “Germany West Central”); only the provider’s current information is authoritative. The Geekbench value comes from our own measurement under identical conditions (4 GB RAM, single core).

Criterion	centron	Microsoft Azure
Data centres	Own data centre in Hallstadt near Bamberg, further locations in Nuremberg, Coburg and Frankfurt am Main – exclusively Germany	More than 60 regions worldwide and over 150 data centres
Data sovereignty	GDPR; ISO/IEC 27001 based on IT-Grundschutz (BSI-IGZ-0773); ISO 9001; ISO 14001; unqualified BSI C5:2020 Type 1 attestation	Extensive compliance frameworks in place; as a US corporation, the CLOUD Act remains a consideration
Performance	NVMe storage, enterprise-grade hardware; single-core score 1,487 (Geekbench, own measurement)	High scalability, performance varies by region and instance type
Availability	99.5 % worker/power, 99.8 % HA pool, 99.9 % storage – contractually assured in the service specification	SLA varies by service and selected tier
Support	24/7 expert support included, German-speaking, personal contacts	Support at all locations with varying service hours, primarily via the support portal; higher tiers chargeable
Flexibility	Individually scalable solutions, managed services up to Premium Full Managing	Very large service portfolio, requires specialist expertise
Customer proximity	Personal contact, direct line to engineers	No personal contact in the standard offering
Sustainability	ISO 14001 certified, green electricity, cold/warm aisle containment, outside-air cooling, recycling	LEED Gold certification, sustainability targets for 2030 and 2050; high overall resource consumption due to the global infrastructure
Billing	Hourly, no minimum term; inbound and S3 traffic free of charge; VMs from €3.12/month	Pay as you go; discounts of up to 80 % only with long-term reservations; VMs from €5.24/month (Germany West Central region)

The change in practice

From Azure to centron – tried and tested rather than risky

“We switched from Azure to centron’s managed servers three months ago. Since then, we’ve had no more performance issues – and at a significantly lower price,” says Robert Lassen (Flowmium GmbH). How they got there: workload analysis, migration in phases, with the option of operation as a managed service – supported by centron experts.

erprobtMigration to Azure as a standard project

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Workload analysis – what moves on, what stays behind
Wave migration – without any disruption to operations
Cost reconciliation – Your Azure bill vs. centron’s quote
Supervised operation – Managed Services thereafter

FAQ on Comparison

Frequently asked questions about the comparison

Will we lose hyperscaler functions when we make the switch?

Most workloads utilise only a fraction of the Azure catalogue: VMs, containers, storage, databases, networking – centron covers all of these, often in a simpler way. We review specialised PaaS services during the assessment and honestly identify which ones need to be replaced.

What does the CLOUD Act mean for our data held by US service providers?

The US CLOUD Act requires US companies, under certain conditions, to hand over data to US authorities – regardless of where it is stored. Your data protection team will carry out the legal assessment for your specific case; as centron is a German provider with data centres in Germany, this is not an issue.

How long does an Azure migration take?

Depending on the scope, this can take anywhere from a few days to a few months: standard VMs and containers can be migrated quickly, whilst complex interdependencies are migrated in planned phases. Following the assessment, you will receive a detailed project plan with milestones.

Note: Information on competitors reflects the publicly available position as of August 2026 and does not claim to be exhaustive; features and prices may have changed since. Only the current information provided by the respective providers is authoritative. The trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners; there are no partnerships. centron prices: entry-level prices plus VAT; details can be found on the product and pricing pages.

centron vs. Azure