GCP → Scaleway

Migrating from GCP to Scaleway

Scaleway is a French provider (Iliad group) with three EU regions and S3- and CNCF-compatible building blocks, so the commodity layer of a GCP migration is closer to configuration than rewrite. This page is concrete about what moves cleanly and what does not: the GCP-specific services that have no Scaleway twin (BigQuery, Spanner, Firestore), where GCS and Pub/Sub APIs actually diverge, and a realistic engineer-day range.

Which GCP services have a true Scaleway equivalent?

Row by row, graded conservatively. "Equivalent" means it repoints by configuration; "partial" means it works with real feature deltas; "no managed twin" means you self-host or reduce scope.

GCP services and their Scaleway equivalents, each with a migration verdict.
GCPScalewayVerdict
Google Cloud StorageScaleway Object Storage S3-compatible API; GCS access repoints by endpoint and SDK.Equivalent
Persistent DiskScaleway Block Storage Network block volumes with snapshots. Direct equivalent.Equivalent
Compute EngineScaleway Instances General-purpose, GPU and dedicated instances across the three regions.Equivalent
Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)Scaleway Kapsule CNCF-conformant managed control plane; portable manifests move with little friction.Equivalent
Cloud SQLScaleway Managed Database (PostgreSQL) Standard PostgreSQL is well served; AlloyDB acceleration and Spanner global consistency have no twin.Partial
MemorystoreScaleway Managed Database for Redis Managed Redis/Valkey; in-memory caching is well covered.Equivalent
Cloud Pub/SubScaleway Messaging & Queuing NATS and SQS-compatible endpoints, but Pub/Sub exact-once and ordering guarantees do not map one-to-one; delivery semantics are re-tested.Partial
Cloud FunctionsScaleway Serverless Functions HTTP and cron are fine; Cloud Functions' deep native event-source catalogue is not matched.Partial
BigQueryNo managed twin (self-host ClickHouse / Aiven) No EU-sovereign serverless warehouse. ClickHouse is fast but a different operating model.No managed twin
Cloud SpannerNo managed twin No managed globally-distributed, externally-consistent SQL. Often the hardest service to leave.No managed twin
Firestore / BigtableNo managed twin (self-host ScyllaDB) No managed serverless NoSQL; you run ScyllaDB/Cassandra.No managed twin

Where do the GCP APIs actually diverge?

The commodity layer repoints cleanly. These are the GCP-specific services with no Scaleway twin.

  • BigQuery has no EU-sovereign managed twin: its serverless, separated-storage-and-compute warehouse retargets to ClickHouse (self-hosted or via Aiven), a different operating model.
  • Cloud Spanner's globally-distributed, externally-consistent SQL has no managed European equivalent at all. This is often the hardest service to leave.
  • Firestore and Bigtable move to self-hosted ScyllaDB; you lose the pay-per-request model.
  • Pub/Sub retargets to Scaleway Messaging; delivery guarantees are re-tested rather than assumed.

Which of your services move cleanly?

Scoped to the rows Scaleway covers as managed services. Search or filter by verdict.

14 capabilities

  • Object storage

    Hyperscaler Amazon S3 Azure Blob Storage Google Cloud Storage
    EU-sovereign path Scaleway Object StorageOVHcloud Object Storage
    Verdict Mature

    S3-compatible API. A drop-in target for most SDKs, backups and static assets.

  • Block storage

    Hyperscaler Amazon EBS Azure Managed Disks Persistent Disk / Hyperdisk
    EU-sovereign path Scaleway Block StorageOVHcloud Block Storage
    Verdict Mature

    Network block volumes with snapshots. Standard building block, well covered.

  • Virtual machines

    Hyperscaler Amazon EC2 Azure Virtual Machines Google Compute Engine
    EU-sovereign path Scaleway InstancesOVHcloud Public CloudHetzner Cloud
    Verdict Mature

    General-purpose and dedicated instances are a solved problem in the EU.

  • Managed Kubernetes

    Hyperscaler Amazon EKS Azure AKS Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)
    EU-sovereign path Scaleway KapsuleOVHcloud Managed Kubernetes
    Verdict Mature

    CNCF-conformant managed control planes. Portable workloads move with little friction.

  • Container registry

    Hyperscaler Amazon ECR Azure Container Registry Google Artifact Registry
    EU-sovereign path Scaleway Container RegistryOVHcloud Managed Private RegistryHarbor (self-hosted)
    Verdict Mature

    OCI registries are commodity. Self-hosted Harbor is a fully sovereign fallback.

  • Managed PostgreSQL

    Hyperscaler Amazon RDS / Aurora Azure Database for PostgreSQL Cloud SQL / AlloyDB for PostgreSQL
    EU-sovereign path Scaleway Managed DatabaseOVHcloud Managed DatabasesAiven for PostgreSQL
    Verdict Viable

    Standard PostgreSQL is well served. Aurora-specific features (e.g. global database, serverless v2 autoscaling) have no exact twin, so plan around them.

  • Managed cache (Redis/Valkey)

    Hyperscaler Amazon ElastiCache Azure Cache for Redis Memorystore for Redis
    EU-sovereign path Scaleway Managed Database for RedisAiven for Valkey/Redis
    Verdict Viable

    In-memory caching is well covered; Valkey is the emerging open successor to Redis.

  • Message queue / pub-sub

    Hyperscaler Amazon SQS / SNS Azure Service Bus Google Cloud Pub/Sub
    EU-sovereign path Scaleway Messaging & QueuingSelf-hosted NATS / RabbitMQ
    Verdict Viable

    Scaleway offers SQS/SNS-compatible endpoints; self-hosted NATS covers the rest.

  • Authoritative DNS

    Hyperscaler Amazon Route 53 Azure DNS Google Cloud DNS
    EU-sovereign path Scaleway Domains & DNSOVHcloud DNSBunny DNS
    Verdict Viable

    Managed authoritative DNS is well covered. Route 53's routing policies need a manual rebuild.

  • Transactional email

    Hyperscaler Amazon SES Azure Communication Services No first-party service (SendGrid via Marketplace)
    EU-sovereign path Scaleway Transactional EmailBrevo (FR)
    Verdict Viable

    Scaleway TEM and Brevo (French) cover sending, reputation and analytics from the EU.

  • Secrets & key management

    Hyperscaler AWS Secrets Manager / KMS Azure Key Vault Secret Manager / Cloud KMS
    EU-sovereign path Scaleway Secret ManagerHashiCorp Vault (self-hosted)
    Verdict Viable

    Managed secret storage exists; self-hosted Vault gives full control including HSM-backed keys.

  • Serverless containers

    Hyperscaler AWS Fargate Azure Container Instances Google Cloud Run
    EU-sovereign path Scaleway Serverless Containers
    Verdict Viable

    Scale-to-zero container hosting exists and is production-ready for request-driven workloads.

  • Serverless functions (FaaS)

    Hyperscaler AWS Lambda Azure Functions Cloud Run functions (Cloud Functions)
    EU-sovereign path Scaleway Serverless FunctionsOVHcloud Functions
    Verdict Partial

    The runtimes exist, but Lambda's breadth of native event sources and mature cold-start tuning is not matched. Fine for HTTP and cron; harder for deep event-driven fan-out.

  • Managed ML platform

    Hyperscaler Amazon SageMaker Azure Machine Learning Vertex AI
    EU-sovereign path OVHcloud AI Endpoints / AI TrainingScaleway GPU Instances + Managed Inference
    Verdict Gap

    GPU compute, training and inference endpoints exist, but nothing matches SageMaker's end-to-end breadth (pipelines, feature store, model registry, tuning) as one managed platform. You assemble it.

Verdicts are conservative and reflect managed, EU-jurisdiction offerings as of 2026. Provider feature sets move quickly, so we re-check on every engagement.

How many engineer-days does this take?

40-90 engineer-days

A directional range for a mid-sized GCP estate. Higher than an AWS exit because the GCP anchors (BigQuery, Spanner) are re-platforms, not repoints.

  • A mid-sized estate: GKE, Cloud Storage, Cloud SQL, possibly BigQuery and Pub/Sub messaging.
  • The low end assumes GKE-, GCS- and Cloud SQL-shaped workloads that repoint by configuration.
  • The high end assumes a BigQuery warehouse to rebuild on ClickHouse or a Spanner dependency to re-architect onto partitioned PostgreSQL.
  • Excludes application rewrites, data-gravity egress time and staff ramp-up on Scaleway tooling.

Where does Scaleway actually run?

Three European regions, each with three availability zones, enough for in-region HA and cross-region DR, but a smaller footprint than GCP's global spread.

  • Paris (fr-par)Three availability zones (fr-par-1/2/3) for in-region HA.
  • Amsterdam (nl-ams)Three availability zones; a second EU jurisdiction for DR.
  • Warsaw (pl-waw)Three availability zones in central Europe.

What are the honest limitations?

  • BigQuery and Spanner have no twin The two services most likely to anchor a GCP estate are exactly the hardest to leave. Plan them first; everything else is configuration.
  • Three-region footprint Paris, Amsterdam, Warsaw. No southern-EU or intercontinental regions. Latency-sensitive global users need more planning.
  • Thinner serverless event ecosystem Cloud Functions' deep native event-source catalogue is not matched; HTTP and cron are fine, beyond that you re-wire.

What else does a CTO ask before committing?

Do GKE and Cloud Storage move without code changes?
Largely yes. Object Storage is S3-compatible and Kapsule is CNCF-conformant, so manifests and object access repoint by endpoint. The rework concentrates on BigQuery, Spanner and deep Cloud Functions event wiring.
Is Scaleway sovereign enough for our compliance posture?
Scaleway is French (Iliad group) with EU-only regions and no US parent, which clears most GDPR and data-residency requirements. For SecNumCloud-grade mandates, weigh the Outscale path as well.