European servers & VPS providers
7 of the 16 servers & VPS services we track have a parent company in Europe: Hetzner Cloud (dedicated vCPU), Hetzner Cloud CX (shared vCPU), Hetzner dedicated servers (AX), netcup root servers, OVHcloud bare metal, OVHcloud Public Cloud and Scaleway Instances. At 32 vCPUs, 128 GB RAM, 10 TB egress to internet / month, the lowest European estimate is $1,708/yr for Hetzner Cloud CX (shared vCPU), against $995/yr for the cheapest US-owned option, Contabo Cloud VPS (shared vCPU). All of them offer EU data residency on a self-serve plan.
The median estimate is $3,856/yr across European services and $12,096/yr across US-owned ones, at the same usage.
“European” means the ultimate parent company is in the EU/EEA, the UK or Switzerland. That describes ownership, not where your data is stored or every law that applies. How we define jurisdiction.
European servers & VPS services by estimated bill
| Service | Parent company in | EU residency (self-serve) | Est. yearly |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hetzner Cloud CX (shared vCPU)Shared-vCPU VPS from €5.49/month with 20 TB of traffic. The single-server stack behind many indie products. Shared CPU, so not like-for-like. | 🇩🇪 Germany | Yes | $1,708/yrCX53 · 4 × $36 + $0 egressPublished rates |
| OVHcloud bare metalDedicated Ryzen and EPYC servers from France's largest host, with unmetered bandwidth on Advance servers. | 🇫🇷 France | Yes | $1,747/yrRISE-S (Ryzen 7 9700X) · 2 × $73 + $0 egressPublished rates |
| Hetzner dedicated servers (AX)Whole AMD Ryzen/EPYC servers in Germany and Finland with unlimited traffic. A 16-thread, 64 GB server costs less than a 4-vCPU AWS instance. | 🇩🇪 Germany | Yes | $2,856/yrAX42 (Ryzen 7 PRO 8700GE) · 2 × $119 + $0 egressPublished rates |
| netcup root serversGerman host with dedicated EPYC cores on its root servers, in Germany, Austria, the US and Singapore. | 🇦🇹 AustriaAnexia | Yes | $3,856/yrRS 8000 G12 · 2 × $161 + $0 egressPublished rates |
| Hetzner Cloud (dedicated vCPU)German cloud with dedicated-vCPU CCX servers and 20–60 TB of traffic included. Prices more than doubled in 2026 but still undercut hyperscalers. | 🇩🇪 Germany | Yes | $7,561/yrCCX53 · 1 × $630 + $0 egressPublished rates |
| OVHcloud Public CloudFrench cloud whose instance prices include all outbound traffic outside Asia-Pacific. General-purpose b3 VMs at about half hyperscaler rates. | 🇫🇷 France | Yes | $8,497/yrb3-128 · 1 × $708 + $0 egressPublished rates |
| Scaleway InstancesFrench cloud (iliad group) with free egress. Production-optimised POP2 instances have dedicated vCPUs. | 🇫🇷 Franceiliad | Yes | $11,577/yrPOP2-8C-32G · 4 × $241 + $0 egressPublished rates |
At 32 vCPUs, 128 GB RAM, 10 TB egress to internet / month. On-demand list prices, Linux, the vendor’s main US or EU region (see notes). Fleets are built from one instance type. A vCPU is one hardware thread; rows marked shared sell oversubscribed vCPUs. Disks, backups and committed-use discounts (often 30–60% on hyperscalers) aren’t included. Sources last checked 2026-10-06. Change the usage to see bills for your workload.
European alternatives to US services
- AWS EC2 ($24,864/yr): Hetzner Cloud CX (shared vCPU) is estimated at $1,708/yr, $23,156/yr less.
- DigitalOcean Droplets ($12,096/yr): Hetzner Cloud CX (shared vCPU) is estimated at $1,708/yr, $10,388/yr less.
- Google Compute Engine ($21,853/yr): Hetzner Cloud CX (shared vCPU) is estimated at $1,708/yr, $20,145/yr less.
- Vultr ($9,370/yr): Hetzner Cloud CX (shared vCPU) is estimated at $1,708/yr, $7,661/yr less.
Bills leave out features, performance, support and migration work. Check the provider notes before you switch.
US-owned services with EU data residency
These offer EU data residency on a self-serve plan, but their parent company is in the US.
- Akamai Cloud (Linode) — Linode's VMs under Akamai. New G8 dedicated plans bill hourly with metered egress at $0.005/GB.
- AWS EC2 — Amazon's virtual machines. The market default, priced per second with every extra (disk, public IPv4, egress) metered separately.
- Azure Virtual Machines — Microsoft's virtual machines. Priced close to AWS, with reservations and hybrid licensing aimed at Windows shops.
- Contabo Cloud VDS — Budget German host. VDS plans give dedicated EPYC cores and unlimited traffic at a fraction of cloud prices, with fewer cloud features.
- Contabo Cloud VPS (shared vCPU) — The cheapest RAM per euro in this table, on oversubscribed shared vCPUs with unlimited traffic.
- DigitalOcean Droplets — Developer-friendly VMs with flat monthly prices that include an SSD and a pooled bandwidth allowance.
- Google Compute Engine — Google Cloud's virtual machines, with cost-optimised E2 and newer N4 families and the priciest default egress of the big three.
- Oracle Cloud Infrastructure — Oracle's cloud. Flexible VM shapes at half hyperscaler prices, the same price in every region, and 10 TB of free egress a month.
- Vultr — Global VPS and cloud provider with 30+ regions. VX1 dedicated-CPU instances bill hourly and boot from block storage.