Scaleway vs UpCloud
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Scaleway and UpCloud.
Quick Verdict
4.0/5
Scaleway
0 reviews
4.2/5
UpCloud
0 reviews
UpCloud is rated higher (4.2 vs 4.0). 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. Finnish cloud provider with fast MaxIOPS storage and 15 data centers. Starter cloud servers from EUR 3/month, with free outbound traffic.
Scaleway European cloud infrastructure with competitive pricing and transparent billing | UpCloud MaxIOPS storage tops disk benchmarks consistently | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 4.0 (0 reviews) | 4.2 (0 reviews)✓ |
| Pricing model | usage-based | paid |
| Starting price | From $0.1/mo✓ | From $3/mo |
| Best for | European companies needing data sovereignty and a full cloud ecosystem — VMs, Kubernetes, storage, GPUs — under one EU contract | Database-heavy European production workloads where disk I/O and a five-nines SLA matter more than raw compute price |
| Specifications (entry plan) | ||
| CPU cores | 1 vCPU | 1 vCPU |
| RAM | 1 GB | 1 GB |
| Storage | — | 10 GB |
| Bandwidth | — | 1 TB/mo |
| SLA uptime | 99.9% | 99.999%✓ |
| Data-center count | 10 | 15✓ |
| €/vCPU/mo | €0.10✓ | €3.00 |
| €/GB RAM/mo | €0.10✓ | €3.00 |
| Performance | ||
| CPU score (sysbench) | — | 4,600 |
| Disk read (fio) | — | 2,800 MB/s |
| Disk IOPS (4K random) | — | 62,000 |
| Network out | — | 1 Gbps |
| Latency (TTFB) | — | 22 ms |
| 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 billingipv6ddos protectionsnapshotsmanaged optionbare metalgpu availables3 compatibleeu datacentergdpr compliantterraform providerkubernetes supportapi access | hourly billingnvme storageipv6ddos protectionbackups includedsnapshotseu datacenterus datacenterapac datacentergdpr compliantapi accessprivate networking |
| Visit Scaleway → | Visit UpCloud → | |
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
UpCloud
Pros
- + Best disk performance in our benchmark set: 62,000 IOPS / 2,800 MB/s on a Helsinki Simple 2-2GB (2026-04-01)
- + 99.999% uptime SLA with 50x credit payback on Premium and managed products
- + Legible pricing: hourly billing capped at 28 days, zero-cost transfer, identical prices in all 15 DCs
- + Broad platform: managed databases, Kubernetes, S3-compatible object storage, GPU and Private Cloud options
- + European-first footprint (2x Helsinki, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Warsaw, Frankfurt and more) with 24/7 in-house support
Cons
- - CPU value lags the budget clouds — our test showed 4,600 CPU score against Hetzner's 9,400 at lower cost
- - Backups are a paid add-on (10-40% of server price) and extra MaxIOPS disk costs €0.22/GB/mo
- - Plan-line reorganization (Simple to Starter/Premium/Cloud Native) plus announced price changes create continuity risk
- - Starter tier caps (5 deployments, 250 Mbit/s port, previous-gen CPUs) despite carrying an SLA
- - APAC coverage is Singapore and Sydney only; GPU and Private Cloud lines are too new for long-run track records
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