Which European provider is best?

It depends on required services, locations and prices. A short requirements check usually narrows it to two candidates.

Can I combine several providers?

Yes. Kubernetes and infrastructure as code let you run workloads across providers.

Insights

Sovereign cloud providers compared

MAKONIS team · 23 October 2026 · 7 min read

In short: Sovereign cloud offerings fall into three groups: sovereignty offerings of the US hyperscalers, clouds from European providers such as STACKIT, IONOS, Open Telekom Cloud or OVHcloud, and own or hosted private clouds. The key difference is whether a provider is subject to non-European law such as the US CLOUD Act. Many companies combine groups according to how sensitive their data is.

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Three groups of sovereign cloud offerings

Hyperscalers with sovereignty offerings: EU data boundaries, European operating companies or partner models. Benefit: full feature set. Open question: legal access via the parent company.

European providers: companies based in the EU, such as STACKIT, IONOS, Open Telekom Cloud or OVHcloud. Benefit: European law. Drawback: smaller service catalogue.

Private cloud: own or hosted infrastructure, for example based on Kubernetes or OpenStack. Full control, but your own operating effort.

The groups compared

This is simplified; always check the specific contract terms.

Criterion	Sovereign hyperscaler	European provider	Private cloud
Jurisdiction	EU operation, US parent	EU	Your choice
Service range	Very large	Medium	What you run yourself
Lock-in risk	High	Medium	Low
Operating effort	Low	Low to medium	High, can be outsourced

How to choose

Classify your data by sensitivity. Non-critical workloads can stay with a hyperscaler; personal or business-critical data moves to European or private environments. Containers and infrastructure as code keep workloads portable between groups.

How MAKONIS helps

We plan hybrid architectures across providers, build them as code and, if you wish, run them from our Managed Service Center in the EU. For AI workloads we operate sovereign AI platforms from €3,900 per month.

Frequently asked questions

It solves where data is stored, not automatically who can legally access it. That depends on contract and corporate structure.

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