AWS / GCP (hyperscaler) vs. Hetzner / OVH (European cloud)
AWS / GCP vs Hetzner / OVH · 2026 SaaS infra call
Hyperscalers offer every primitive. European clouds offer 1/3 the price for 80% of the use cases. For a bootstrapped or EU-native SaaS, the math matters.
option AAWS / GCP (hyperscaler)option BHetzner / OVH (European cloud)serviceWebsites, web apps & online shops
→ Verdict
AWS / GCP win for enterprise SaaS needing every service (SageMaker, Aurora, BigQuery, GlobalAccelerator). Hetzner / OVH win for cost-sensitive SaaS doing CRUD + DB + some ML inference.
Pick a topic
When to pick which
A · Pick this when…
AWS / GCP (hyperscaler)
- 01You need niche managed services (SageMaker, BigQuery, Athena)
- 02Multi-region active-active with hyperscaler tooling
- 03Customer audit (SOC 2) demands hyperscaler vendor
B · Pick that when…
Hetzner / OVH (European cloud)
- 01Bootstrapped SaaS where margin matters
- 02EU-native and data-residency is a feature
- 03Workload fits on bare-metal + container orchestrator
- 04Egress-heavy workload (Hetzner free 20 TB/mo on some plans)
Factors to weigh
Factor-by-factor
| Factors to weigh | AWS / GCP (hyperscaler) | Hetzner / OVH (European cloud) |
|---|---|---|
| Core compute (8vCPU, 32GB) | ~$250/mo | ~$40-60/mo |
| Managed DB (Postgres 100GB) | ~$200/mo | ~$30/mo self-managed |
| Egress 1TB/mo | ~$90 | Included or ~$10 |
| Managed ML inference | SageMaker / Vertex AI | DIY |
| Multi-region (EU + US) | Native | Manual + CDN |
| Data residency | Regional but US-owned | EU-owned, EU-hosted |
| We recommend | Enterprise / ML-heavy | Bootstrapped / EU-native |
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