Which European cloud providers can run Kubernetes workloads?
Several European-headquartered clouds run Kubernetes workloads. OVHcloud, Scaleway, IONOS Cloud, STACKIT, UpCloud, Exoscale and T Cloud Public (formerly Open Telekom Cloud) each sell a managed Kubernetes service. Hetzner sells the servers, networks and load balancers that Kubernetes runs on but no managed control plane of its own. They differ in regions, certifications, GPU availability and how they bill traffic; the tables below compare them as of 14 November 2026, in alphabetical order and without ranking.
What “European cloud provider” means
A provider is usually called European when its headquarters and ownership are in Europe, not just its data centers. The distinction matters because a US parent company can be subject to US law such as the CLOUD Act even for data stored in Frankfurt or Paris. The article on whether the US CLOUD Act applies to data stored in the EU explains that exposure, and what a sovereign cloud is covers how to judge a provider’s sovereignty claims.
Exoscale is headquartered in Switzerland, outside the EU, and belongs to the Austrian A1 group. All other providers in this article are headquartered in EU member states.
Headquarters, regions and managed Kubernetes
| Provider | Headquarters | Cloud regions | Managed Kubernetes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Exoscale | Lausanne, Switzerland | Geneva, Zurich, Frankfurt, Munich, Vienna, Sofia, Zagreb | SKS: free Starter tier without SLA, Pro tier with a 99.95% SLA |
| Hetzner | Gunzenhausen, Germany | Falkenstein, Nuremberg, Helsinki, Ashburn, Hillsboro, Singapore | None. Self-managed or a third-party managed service |
| IONOS Cloud | Montabaur, Germany | Frankfurt, Berlin, Paris, London, Worcester, Logroño, Las Vegas, Newark, Lenexa | Managed Kubernetes; clusters and control plane free |
| OVHcloud | Roubaix, France | Public Cloud in 15 locations in Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific, including 3-AZ regions in Paris and Milan | Managed Kubernetes Service: free tier with a 99.5% SLO, Standard tier with a 99.99% SLA in 3-AZ regions |
| Scaleway | Paris, France | Paris, Amsterdam, Warsaw, Milan | Kubernetes Kapsule: free shared control plane without SLA, dedicated control planes with a 99.5% SLA |
| STACKIT | Neckarsulm, Germany | Germany (eu01) and Austria (eu02), at least three availability zones each |
STACKIT Kubernetes Engine (SKE), billed per cluster hour |
| T Cloud Public | Bonn, Germany | Biere and Magdeburg (eu-de), the Netherlands (eu-nl); a separate Swiss offering |
Cloud Container Engine (CCE): free small non-HA clusters, paid HA control planes |
| UpCloud | Helsinki, Finland | 15 data centers in Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific | Managed Kubernetes: free development plan without HA, paid production plan with HA |
Sources: Exoscale, Hetzner, IONOS, OVHcloud, Scaleway, STACKIT, T Cloud Public, UpCloud and each provider’s Kubernetes product page.
Certifications, GPUs and traffic
| Provider | Security certifications (as claimed by the provider) | GPUs in the cloud | Outbound traffic |
|---|---|---|---|
| Exoscale | BSI C5:2020 Type 2, ISO/IEC 27001 | Yes, including NVIDIA B300 and RTX PRO 6000 | Free allowance, then per GiB |
| Hetzner | BSI C5 Type 2 for its European sites, ISO/IEC 27001:2022 | No cloud GPUs; GPU dedicated servers only | 20 TB per server included in the EU, then €1 per TB |
| IONOS Cloud | BSI C5:2020 Type 1, ISO 27001 based on IT-Grundschutz | NVIDIA H200 | First 2 TB a month free, then per GB |
| OVHcloud | SecNumCloud for specific offers (not standard Public Cloud), BSI C5, ISO/IEC 27001 | Yes, including NVIDIA H200, H100, L40S and L4 | Included, except in Asia-Pacific regions |
| Scaleway | ISO/IEC 27001:2022, HDS; SecNumCloud qualification in progress | Yes, including NVIDIA H100, L40S and L4 | Included in list prices |
| STACKIT | C5 Type 2, ISO/IEC 27001 | Yes, including NVIDIA H100, A100 and L40S | Free of charge |
| T Cloud Public | BSI C5:2020 Type II, ISO/IEC 27001, 27017, 27018 and 27701 | Yes, including NVIDIA H100, A100 and L4 | Per GiB after the first GiB |
| UpCloud | Not checked for this article; see UpCloud’s security page | Yes, including NVIDIA L4, L40S and H100 | Included up to a fair-transfer limit, then throttled instead of billed |
Certifications change often and differ by service and region, so ask for the current attestation report and its scope before relying on it. A BSI C5 attestation of Type 2 tests controls over a period of time; Type 1 tests their design at one point in time. France’s SecNumCloud qualification is published by ANSSI per service, not per company.
The traffic models differ widely. Some providers include outbound traffic, others bill per GB like the hyperscalers. The article on cloud egress fees works through what 10 TB a month costs under each model.
How to choose between them
The right provider depends on the workload rather than on a ranking:
- Compliance scope. If a regulator or customer requires C5, SecNumCloud or a specific national scheme, check that the exact service you plan to use is in the certificate’s scope, not just the company.
- Regions. Count where you need to run, including disaster recovery. Several providers have one or two regions; others span several continents.
- Availability zones. Some regions offer three availability zones, others a single location. Multi-zone control planes and replicated storage need the former.
- Managed services. Compare managed databases, object storage, registries and identity services with what your applications use today.
- GPU supply. Model names on a pricing page do not guarantee capacity. Ask about availability for the quantities you need.
- Price and traffic. Compute prices rose at several European providers in 2026. Hetzner and OVHcloud both cited hardware and memory costs. Model the total bill, including traffic, storage and IPv4 addresses.
Moving workloads from a US hyperscaler is a project of its own, covered in how to migrate to a European cloud. Our post on cloud sovereignty, data residency and portability discusses the trade-offs in more depth.
Kubernetes on more than one of these providers
Cloudfleet can run a cluster’s Kubernetes control plane in its EU control plane region and provisions nodes on Hetzner through node auto-provisioning. Servers at other providers can join the same cluster as self-managed nodes.