Scaleway Kapsule vs IBM Cloud
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Scaleway Kapsule and IBM Cloud.
Quick Verdict
3.9/5
Scaleway Kapsule
0 reviews
3.2/5
IBM Cloud
0 reviews
Scaleway Kapsule is rated higher (3.9 vs 3.2). Scaleway Kapsule is a managed Kubernetes service hosted entirely in EU datacenters (Paris, Amsterdam). GDPR-compliant, integrated with Scaleway's ecosystem, and competitively priced for EU requirements. 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 Kapsule EU-native managed Kubernetes — GDPR compliant | IBM Cloud Enterprise cloud with mainframe integration | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 3.9 (0 reviews)✓ | 3.2 (0 reviews) |
| Pricing model | freemium | freemium |
| Starting price | Free tier available | Free tier available |
| Best for | European teams wanting managed Kubernetes with no control-plane fee, staying inside Scaleway's EU ecosystem and comfortable with documented platform limits | Enterprises anchored to IBM Z, Power, SAP, or Oracle estates, and regulated financial services teams needing certification coverage and mainframe adjacency |
| Specifications (entry plan) | ||
| CPU cores | 2 vCPU | — |
| RAM | 2 GB | — |
| Storage | — | — |
| Bandwidth | — | — |
| SLA uptime | — | — |
| Data-center count | 10 | — |
| €/vCPU/mo | €0.00 | — |
| €/GB RAM/mo | €0.00 | — |
| 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 tiermanaged optioneu datacentergdpr compliantapi accessterraform provider | free tierhourly billinggpu availableeu datacenterus datacenterapac datacenterapi access |
| Visit Scaleway Kapsule → | Visit IBM Cloud → | |
Scaleway Kapsule
Pros
- + Free shared control plane — a 3-node cluster costs about €19.65/month all-in on entry nodes
- + CNCF-conformant vanilla Kubernetes with published version calendar and 14-month support per minor
- + Fully managed components: CCM, autoscaler, node autoheal after 15 minutes, Block/File CSI drivers
- + EU-only regions (Paris, Amsterdam, Warsaw, Milan) under French law with ISO 27001 and HDS certifications
- + Complete API, CLI and Terraform coverage; Kosmos option to attach external nodes at zero control-plane cost
Cons
- - Control plane ingress sits behind a single-zone Load Balancer — a global zonal failure makes the API unreachable
- - No dual-stack IPv4/IPv6 and no ReadWriteMany/ReadOnlyMany storage support yet
- - Forced minor upgrades within 30 days of end of support, whether or not you have tested the version
- - No published Kapsule-specific SLA figure; support is the standard Scaleway ticket queue
- - Egress metered per GB on some classes and idle node pools bill around the clock
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
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