Comparison – European cloud providers

Alternatives to the big US cloud providers

There are more European alternatives to AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud than many shortlists suggest – from German mid-sized companies with their own data centres to subsidiaries of European groups. This overview names the relevant providers honestly, including centron’s competitors, and explains the criteria that should guide your choice when data sovereignty and the GDPR are the deciding factors.

Why look for an alternative at all?

The most important reason is legal, not technical: as US companies, the hyperscalers are subject to the CLOUD Act and FISA Section 702 – US authorities can compel the disclosure of data even when the servers are located in Frankfurt or Dublin. With its Schrems II ruling (C-311/18, July 2020), the European Court of Justice turned precisely this tension into a GDPR problem. Practical reasons come on top: euro pricing without currency risk, German-speaking support, predictable egress costs and shorter paths in audits.

European alternatives at a glance

This overview deliberately includes centron’s competitors – a shortlist containing only one’s own name would not be one. All information: as at August 2026, sorted alphabetically.

Provider Headquarters Profile
centron Germany (Hallstadt near Bamberg) Owner-managed GmbH with its own data centre; ccloud³ VMs, managed Kubernetes, S3 object storage, GPU and managed servers. ISO 27001 based on IT-Grundschutz (BSI), unqualified C5:2020 Type 1 attestation.
Hetzner Germany (Gunzenhausen) Price-aggressive infrastructure provider with its own data centres in Germany and Finland; strong in dedicated servers and cloud VMs, self-service model.
IONOS Germany (Karlsruhe/Montabaur) Listed provider (United Internet group) with a broad portfolio from web hosting to enterprise cloud; data centres in Germany and Europe.
OVHcloud France (Roubaix) Europe’s largest cloud provider, publicly listed; its own data centres in several EU countries, broad IaaS/PaaS portfolio.
Scaleway France (Paris) Subsidiary of the Iliad group; developer-focused cloud with data centres in France, the Netherlands and Poland.
STACKIT Germany (Heilbronn) The Schwarz Group’s cloud (Lidl/Kaufland); a platform geared to enterprise and retail requirements with German data centres.
T-Systems / Open Telekom Cloud Germany (Frankfurt/Bonn) Deutsche Telekom subsidiary; OpenStack-based public cloud from German data centres, focused on large enterprises and the public sector.

Important for your assessment: a "European headquarters" is necessary but not sufficient. What counts is the complete chain – an ownership structure free of third-country control, data centres in the EU, a contract under European law and independently audited security. The 10-point data sovereignty checklist shows how to verify this.

What to look for when choosing

  1. Jurisdiction of the parent company – it is not the server location that decides, but who can legally compel access (CLOUD Act, FISA 702).
  2. Evidence instead of claims – a C5 attestation and ISO 27001 with a matching scope; how to read an attestation is explained on Understanding and vetting BSI C5.
  3. The full price calculation – include traffic, backups, snapshots and support; entry prices alone are not meaningful (see German cloud providers compared).
  4. Migration effort and exit – S3-compatible interfaces, standard APIs and documented termination paths reduce switching risk in both directions.
  5. Operating model – self-service is enough for developer teams; anyone wanting to hand over operational responsibility needs managed offerings with an SLA.

Switching in practice

A migration away from AWS, Azure or Google Cloud rarely starts with the entire estate. A proven approach is to start with a clearly delimited project – a new workload, the staging environment or object storage (S3-compatible APIs make the storage move the easiest part). Detailed head-to-head comparisons: centron vs. Microsoft Azure, centron vs. Hetzner, centron vs. IONOS, centron vs. STACKIT.

Last reviewed: 31 August 2026 · Sources: ECJ, judgment C-311/18 ("Schrems II"); US CLOUD Act (H.R. 4943); provider information according to their websites, as at August 2026.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions about cloud alternatives

What alternatives are there to the big US cloud providers?

Established European alternatives to AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud include centron, Hetzner, IONOS, STACKIT and the Open Telekom Cloud from Germany, and OVHcloud and Scaleway from France. They differ considerably in operating model (self-service to managed), portfolio and target group. Beyond price and performance, what matters for the choice is the complete sovereignty chain: European ownership, EU data centres, a contract under European law and independently audited security – for example via a BSI C5 attestation.

What are the top 5 German cloud service providers?

There is no official ranking – "top 5" depends on the yardstick (revenue, market share, segment). Frequently named are IONOS, Hetzner, STACKIT, the Open Telekom Cloud (T-Systems) and plusserver; for mid-sized businesses focused on managed services and audited sovereignty, centron also belongs on the shortlist. More useful than any ranking is matching providers against your own requirements: the portfolio you need, the operating model, evidence such as C5 and ISO 27001, and total costs including traffic and support.

Is a European cloud automatically GDPR-compliant?

No. European providers, too, must offer a data processing agreement under Article 28 GDPR, documented technical and organisational measures and a clean chain of sub-processors. Conversely, an EU data centre alone does not make a US provider compliant – what matters is whose law reaches the provider. So always check the ownership structure and the contractual basis, not just the server location.

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