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For a self-managed virtual machine, Hetzner is usually the first price-and-control alternative to investigate; OVHcloud and Scaleway are stronger when you need a broad managed-service catalog; Exoscale is worth considering when Swiss hosting and managed cloud services matter; and IONOS belongs on a wider European shortlist. The right choice depends on the workload, required jurisdiction, managed services, support expectations and how much infrastructure your team wants to operate.
This comparison concerns public-cloud infrastructure and cloud virtual machines, not ordinary shared web hosting. Infomaniak’s Public Cloud is a Swiss-hosted, OpenStack-based service with metered, on-demand resources. The alternatives below differ substantially in regions, legal entities, service models and operational responsibility, so a low VM price alone is not a meaningful winner.
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Infomaniak’s Public Cloud is built for customers who want cloud instances and related infrastructure in Switzerland. Its provider page says its staff and infrastructure are based in Switzerland, resources are self-service and metered, and customers pay for what they use at the end of the month. The platform is based on OpenStack, which can make standard compute and networking concepts familiar to teams already using that ecosystem. See the provider’s current description at Infomaniak Public Cloud.
An alternative can mean several different things:
- A cheaper or more flexible virtual machine for a website, development environment or application.
- A different European or Swiss jurisdiction for data processing.
- A larger catalog of managed Kubernetes, databases, object storage, serverless services or GPUs.
- A different balance between direct administrator access and a provider managing more of the platform.
- A route away from provider-specific services that are difficult to migrate later.
A dedicated server, a basic VPS, an OpenStack public cloud and a managed application platform are not interchangeable products. Confirm the exact product family before comparing specifications or prices.
At-a-glance comparison
| Provider | Best fit to investigate | Evidence-supported scope | Questions to answer before choosing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Infomaniak | Swiss-hosted public cloud with metered resources | OpenStack-based public cloud; provider says staff and infrastructure are in Switzerland | Swiss location, resource pricing, bandwidth terms, services required and support expectations |
| Hetzner | Self-managed VMs where price and direct control are priorities | European cloud locations, hourly billing, monthly cap and self-service instances | Exact VM and region, traffic allowance, storage, backups and administration workload |
| OVHcloud | Applications needing a broad public-cloud portfolio | Compute, containers, storage, networking, databases, AI, analytics, identity and developer tools, plus separate VPS and dedicated-server lines | Which product family, regional availability, egress and backup charges, and support tier |
| Scaleway | Teams combining instances with managed platform services | Virtual instances, object storage, managed Kubernetes, serverless functions and containers, and managed databases | Service-specific price, region, availability and operational differences from Infomaniak |
| Exoscale | Swiss or nearby European cloud with managed services and GPUs | Compute instances, GPUs, managed Kubernetes, storage and managed databases | Specific zone, jurisdiction, ownership, pricing and contractual terms |
| IONOS | A broader European shortlist with infrastructure and platform options | German-headquartered provider listed in a 2025 European comparison with cloud infrastructure and platform services | Exact product, location, any partner-operated facility, channel pricing and support |
This is a research-supported shortlist, not an independent performance ranking. No controlled speed, uptime or support test established a universal winner.
How the leading alternatives differ
Hetzner: direct control and a self-service operating model
Hetzner’s European Cloud page describes hourly billing for partial months, a monthly price cap and no minimum contract period. Its displayed VM sizes, traffic allowances, prices and regional availability are live commercial details and can change; check the current page before budgeting: Hetzner European Cloud.
Hetzner is most relevant when your team wants a conventional virtual machine and is prepared to perform the administration itself. You remain responsible for operating-system updates, firewall rules, SSH or other access controls, vulnerability response, monitoring, backups and application reliability. A low instance price does not include the engineering time needed to run a secure production system.
- Good fit: development servers, self-managed web stacks, CI workers and applications built on standard Linux or container tooling.
- Check carefully: the exact German or Helsinki location, traffic allowance, attached storage, backup design and capacity availability for your instance type.
- Do not assume: a basic VM includes the managed database, Kubernetes operations or support level you may be used to elsewhere.
OVHcloud: broad catalog, but product names matter
OVHcloud’s Public Cloud catalog lists compute, managed Kubernetes, storage, networking, managed databases, AI, analytics, identity and security, and developer tools. The same page also links to VPS, dedicated-server and hosted-private-cloud products. “OVHcloud” therefore does not describe one uniform service or pricing model.
Choose the product family first. A public-cloud instance with metered resources should not be compared directly with a VPS bundle or a dedicated server. Then price the complete deployment: instances, block or object storage, public addresses, snapshots, backups, outbound traffic, managed databases and the support plan. Regional availability and feature support can differ between products.
The 2025 iX report “Public Cloud from Europe” records €993 million in turnover for OVH in 2024. That is company-level turnover attributed to OVH, not cloud-only revenue, a performance measurement or a quality guarantee. The report is available at iX: Public Cloud from Europe.
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Scaleway’s Virtual Instances page links to a wider catalog containing compute, object storage, Kubernetes, serverless functions and containers, and managed databases. That breadth can reduce the amount of infrastructure your team operates, but every managed service has its own limits, regions, billing units and configuration model.
Scaleway is worth shortlisting when a project needs more than one VM and you want standard cloud building blocks around it. Compare the precise service required rather than assuming that an object store, Kubernetes offering or database is equivalent to Infomaniak’s implementation. For a simple server, the extra catalog may add little value; for a growing application, it can avoid a later redesign.
Exoscale: Swiss provider with a distinct footprint
Exoscale lists compute instances, GPUs, managed Kubernetes, storage and managed databases on its official site. It is a Swiss provider, but it is not simply another name for Infomaniak. The iX report describes Exoscale as a subsidiary of Austrian A1 Telekom Austria, with data centers in Switzerland, Austria, Germany and Bulgaria.
That distinction matters if your requirement is specifically Swiss processing, a particular contractual entity or a defined access-control arrangement. Select the zone and read the applicable terms rather than treating “Swiss provider” as proof that every service and every copy of data remains in Switzerland. Exoscale can be attractive for teams wanting managed services or GPU options without abandoning a European provider, but verify the exact service scope and price.
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IONOS: include it when your shortlist is broader than four providers
The iX comparison includes IONOS as a European provider headquartered in Germany with a broad set of cloud infrastructure and platform services. It is a reasonable additional candidate when German or wider European availability, a particular product family or a support arrangement is important.
IONOS offerings vary by product and channel. Confirm whether you are evaluating a public-cloud service, VPS, dedicated server or another platform; identify the actual data-center location and any partner-operated facility; and calculate recurring storage, traffic, backup and support charges. Treat it as a candidate to validate against your workload, not as an automatic replacement for Infomaniak.
Location, ownership and data sovereignty are different questions
“European hosting” can describe at least three separate facts:
- Where data is stored and processed: the selected region, zone, backups and disaster-recovery copies.
- Which legal entity provides the service: the company named in your contract and data-processing terms.
- Who can legally or operationally access the environment: provider staff, subprocessors, support channels and applicable laws.
Switzerland is in Europe but outside both the European Union and the European Economic Area. Infomaniak’s Swiss location can therefore satisfy a Swiss-hosting requirement while being a different legal and regulatory context from an EU or EEA region. Exoscale’s Swiss identity likewise does not mean every zone or service is Swiss-hosted.
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The European Commission explains that the GDPR has been incorporated into the EEA Agreement and applies throughout the EEA; see its data-protection legal framework. A European data center alone does not promise GDPR compliance. Review the provider’s legal entity, data-processing agreement, sub-processors, transfer mechanisms, support access, encryption options, retention settings and incident procedures, then document your own controller or processor obligations. A separate comparison makes the same distinction between European location, ownership and sovereignty at iTech Guides.
Rank #4
Compare the total cost, not the headline VM
Build one representative deployment for every provider. Include:
- vCPU, memory and instance uptime
- Persistent block or local storage
- Object storage and request charges, if used
- Inbound and outbound bandwidth
- Public IPv4 or other address charges
- Snapshots, backups and cross-region copies
- Managed databases, Kubernetes or serverless services
- Monitoring, security products and support
- Migration labor and ongoing operations time
Infomaniak’s provider page displays a general-use example of four CPUs, 8 GB of memory, 50 GB of storage and 1 TB of bandwidth at an estimated CHF 16.10 per month. This is Infomaniak’s own comparison example, not an independently verified benchmark; the displayed offer and conditions can change. The page says bandwidth is free except for object storage above 10 TB of consumed bandwidth. Check the live terms and price at Infomaniak Public Cloud.
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Do not compare that base example with a competitor’s managed database bundle or a VM that includes a different storage and traffic allowance. Use the same operating hours, capacity, backup policy and data-transfer assumptions for each quote.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Choose by workload and operating responsibility
Simple website or small application
A self-managed VM can be sufficient if you can patch the operating system, configure TLS, run backups and monitor disk and memory. Hetzner, Infomaniak, Scaleway or an equivalent OVHcloud instance may all fit; the deciding factors are region, traffic, support and administration time rather than a generic provider ranking.
Production application with a database
Decide whether the database runs on the VM or as a managed service. A managed database can reduce patching and backup work but introduces service-specific pricing, limits and migration considerations. Compare the actual database engine, high-availability options, backup retention, restore process and network path to the application.
Best Value
Kubernetes or container platform
Managed Kubernetes at OVHcloud, Scaleway or Exoscale can remove control-plane maintenance. Validate supported versions, upgrade windows, node pricing, load balancers, persistent volumes, ingress, registry integration and logging. A portable container image does not make the surrounding cluster configuration portable automatically.
GPU or specialized compute
Exoscale explicitly lists GPUs, while other providers may expose accelerator capacity through specific products or regions. Confirm availability, hourly or reserved pricing, driver images, quotas, interconnects and whether the workload can tolerate interruption. Do not infer GPU performance from a provider’s general VM range.
Multi-region or compliance-sensitive platform
Map every data store, backup, queue, log and support path to a region and legal entity. A provider with many services is useful only if the exact services are available where your policy permits them. Keep a written record of residency and transfer assumptions instead of relying on a country label.
Migration: separate portable components from provider-specific services
A migration estimate becomes more realistic when you inventory dependencies before selecting a destination. A migration guide from Lumineth groups several components that are often easier to move—virtual machines, containers, standard databases, S3-compatible object storage, backups and DNS—while warning that managed Kubernetes, queues and serverless services may require tooling changes or redesign. Use its guidance at Lumineth’s Swiss and European cloud-hosting alternatives guide as a planning reference, not a guarantee.
Usually more portable
- VM images and infrastructure-as-code that target standard operating systems
- OCI-compatible container images
- Databases using standard engines, provided extensions and versions match
- S3-compatible object data, after checking metadata, ACLs and lifecycle rules
- DNS zones and conventional backup archives
Often less portable
- Managed Kubernetes policies, ingress controllers and provider load balancers
- Serverless functions, event triggers and proprietary runtimes
- Managed queues, workflow engines and identity integrations
- Provider-specific databases, storage APIs, networking constructs and monitoring agents
A practical migration sequence
- Inventory compute, data, network, identity, observability and external integrations.
- Classify each dependency as standard, configurable or provider-specific.
- Record data size, acceptable downtime, recovery-point objective and recovery-time objective.
- Export a representative dataset and deploy a small parallel environment in the candidate region.
- Test application behavior, backups, restores, DNS, failover, performance under your own workload and administrative procedures.
- Measure egress, storage and support costs during the proof of concept.
- Cut over with a rollback plan, retained backups and a documented way to close the old environment.
Migration effort depends on architecture, data volume, dependencies and service design. “S3-compatible” or “Kubernetes” describes an interface, not guaranteed drop-in behavior.
A decision checklist before signing up
- Is the requirement a VM, VPS, dedicated server, OpenStack cloud or managed platform?
- Which exact region stores primary data, replicas, backups and logs?
- Which contractual entity signs the agreement, and where are subprocessors located?
- What are the recurring compute, storage, traffic, address, backup and support charges?
- Who patches the operating system, database, control plane and security tooling?
- Can you restore a backup into a new region or another provider?
- What happens if the required instance type is unavailable or quota-limited?
- How will you reach support, and what response commitment applies to your plan?
- Which APIs, queues, serverless functions or managed databases would need re-architecture later?
- Have you tested the actual workload rather than relying on a generic benchmark?
No independent support test or controlled performance comparison established a ranking among these providers. Run a proof of concept with your own traffic pattern, storage, deployment process and recovery drills before moving production data.
Quick Recap
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
