IBM Cloud vs Scaleway
A detailed comparison to help you choose between IBM Cloud and Scaleway.
Quick Verdict
3.2/5
IBM Cloud
0 reviews
4.0/5
Scaleway
0 reviews
Scaleway is rated higher (4.0 vs 3.2). IBM Cloud offers Virtual Server Instances, Kubernetes, bare metal, and strong mainframe (Z-series) integration. Used by financial services needing IBM Z connectivity. 60+ global datacenters. Scaleway provides bare-metal servers, VPS, and managed Kubernetes in European data centers. Designed for developers and small-to-medium businesses needing reliable cloud compute without vendor lock-in.
IBM Cloud Enterprise cloud with mainframe integration | Scaleway European cloud infrastructure with competitive pricing and transparent billing | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 3.2 (0 reviews) | 4.0 (0 reviews)✓ |
| Pricing model | freemium | usage-based |
| Starting price | Free tier available✓ | From $0.1/mo |
| Best for | Enterprises anchored to IBM Z, Power, SAP, or Oracle estates, and regulated financial services teams needing certification coverage and mainframe adjacency | European companies needing data sovereignty and a full cloud ecosystem — VMs, Kubernetes, storage, GPUs — under one EU contract |
| Specifications (entry plan) | ||
| CPU cores | — | 1 vCPU |
| RAM | — | 1 GB |
| Storage | — | — |
| Bandwidth | — | — |
| SLA uptime | — | 99.9% |
| Data-center count | — | 10 |
| €/vCPU/mo | — | €0.10 |
| €/GB RAM/mo | — | €0.10 |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ✓ | |
| DDoS protection | ✓ | |
| Automated backups | ||
| Snapshots | ✓ | |
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ||
| Free tier | ||
| Data-center locations | ||
| Regions | — | FranceNetherlandsPolandItaly |
| Tags | ||
| Tags | free tierhourly billinggpu availableeu datacenterus datacenterapac datacenterapi access | free tierhourly billingipv6ddos protectionsnapshotsmanaged optionbare metalgpu availables3 compatibleeu datacentergdpr compliantterraform providerkubernetes supportapi access |
| Visit IBM Cloud → | Visit Scaleway → | |
IBM Cloud
Pros
- + IBM Z (mainframe) and Power Virtual Server integration that no commodity host offers
- + Credit-backed 99.99% SLA on Virtual Server for VPC with multizone regions of three or more separate data centers
- + Ten instance profile families including Confidential Computing and storage-optimized shapes
- + Bare metal, spot-style transient servers, reserved capacity, and hourly billing in one contract surface
- + Free Lite account plus generous rotating new-account credits for trials
Cons
- - Two overlapping platforms (Classic and VPC) with different APIs, images, and pricing
- - Roughly 10x the monthly cost of value leaders for a comparable 2-vCPU VM
- - DDoS scrubbing is a separate paid product (Cloud Internet Services)
- - Metered extras (boot volume, egress, load balancers) make cost prediction work
- - Base support tier is not the enterprise support IBM's reputation implies
Scaleway
Pros
- + Full EU footprint (Paris, Amsterdam, Warsaw, Milan) under French/EU law, outside the CLOUD Act
- + One vendor for instances, bare metal, managed Kubernetes, Object Storage, serverless and GPUs
- + Transparent per-hour pricing published to the cent, with free Kapsule control plane and unmetered instance egress
- + ISO 27001 and HDS certifications; documented SLAs with service credits per product
- + S3-compatible Object Storage with 75GB/month free and competitive per-GB rates
Cons
- - Compute costs notably more per GB RAM than Hetzner at the entry and mid tiers
- - Flexible IPv4 (about €2.90/month) and snapshot storage bill separately and quietly
- - Egress terms differ by product class and sources disagree; read the fine print before budgeting
- - SLA band varies by service (99.5% GPU to 99.99% PRO2) and credit claims take effort per user reports
- - Europe-only regions and ticket-based support without enterprise escalation
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