Provider comparison
OVHcloud vs AWS
OVHcloud is Europe's largest cloud provider by number of servers, operating 40+ datacentres across 17 countries including 12 EU member states. This page compares OVHcloud and AWS on the dimensions that affect a migration decision: service breadth, pricing, EU legal standing, and the managed-service gaps that raise migration effort.
Prices and service capabilities change. Verify figures against current provider documentation before committing to a project budget.
Who is OVHcloud?
OVHcloud was founded in 1999 in Roubaix, France, and remains majority-owned by the Klaba family. It is a French-law entity with no US parent, which means US production orders under the CLOUD Act do not reach it. It operates its own network, builds its own servers, and has consistently published list prices publicly since its founding.
With over 450,000 servers under management, OVHcloud offers public cloud, private cloud, dedicated bare metal, hosted private cloud on VMware, and domain and web hosting. The public cloud (OpenStack-based) covers compute, managed Kubernetes (OVHcloud Managed Kubernetes), managed databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis, Kafka), object storage, and cold storage. The catalogue is narrower than AWS but deliberately price-transparent: no egress fees for data between its datacentres.
Side-by-side: key dimensions
| Dimension | OVHcloud | AWS | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| EU data residency | Multiple EU regions (FR, DE, PL; UK as separate) | EU regions available (8 in EU as of Jan 2025) | Both offer EU residency |
| Legal sovereignty (CLOUD Act) | French entity, no US parent, no CLOUD Act exposure | US parent, CLOUD Act applies | OVHcloud has legal sovereignty |
| Compute on-demand (general purpose) | From EUR 0.044/h (B2-7, 4 vCPU, 7 GB) | From USD 0.10/h (m6i.large, 2 vCPU, 8 GB, eu-west-3) | OVHcloud lower on comparable configs |
| Bare metal servers | Full bare metal catalogue from EUR 49/month | Dedicated Hosts (priced per host/hour); no bare metal catalogue | OVHcloud has a strong bare metal offering |
| Object storage pricing | EUR 0.011/GB/month; no egress between OVH datacentres | USD 0.023/GB/month; egress from USD 0.09/GB | OVHcloud significantly cheaper on storage and egress |
| Managed Kubernetes | Managed Kubernetes (OVH-hosted control plane) | EKS (USD 0.10/h per cluster) | Both viable; OVHcloud control plane is free |
| Managed databases | PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis, Kafka, Cassandra | RDS (5 engines), Aurora, ElastiCache, DocumentDB, MSK | OVHcloud covers main FOSS engines; AWS adds Aurora and proprietary options |
| Serverless / FaaS | None (no Lambda equivalent in GA) | Lambda + API Gateway + Step Functions + EventBridge | AWS only |
| AI / ML managed services | AI Training, AI Deploy, AI Notebooks (GPU instances) | SageMaker, Bedrock, 30+ ML-specific services | AWS has a much deeper AI/ML catalogue |
Where OVHcloud is a credible replacement for AWS
OVHcloud is the most direct replacement for AWS for European teams that need bare metal or need to co-locate physical servers alongside cloud workloads. Its bare metal catalogue starts at EUR 49/month, covers AMD and Intel processors, and is available in multiple EU countries with no minimum commitment. AWS has no equivalent product.
For commodity S3-compatible workloads, OVHcloud Object Storage at EUR 0.011/GB/month with no egress fee between datacentres is materially cheaper than AWS S3. At 10 TB/month stored and 5 TB/month transferred between regions, the price difference is several hundred EUR per month in OVHcloud's favour.
The managed database catalogue covers the most common FOSS engines. A PostgreSQL or MySQL workload moves with a connection string change and a DBA review of managed-instance configuration limits; there is no managed Aurora equivalent, but for standard PostgreSQL workloads that is not a gap.
Where the gaps are real
OVHcloud has no serverless compute in GA. Teams that have built workflows on Lambda, SQS, SNS, EventBridge, and Step Functions face a full architectural redesign. Serverless is not a configuration change; it is a programming model, and there is no equivalent to port to.
The AI and ML managed service catalogue is not comparable. OVHcloud offers GPU instances, AI Training and AI Deploy for model hosting, but there is no OVHcloud equivalent to SageMaker's training pipelines, Bedrock's foundation model API, or the 30+ specialized AI services AWS has shipped since 2017.
OVHcloud's global footprint is smaller. It has no equivalent region in Asia-Pacific (Singapore is a planned addition as of 2025) or the Americas beyond Canada. Latency-sensitive workloads serving users globally cannot treat OVHcloud as a like-for-like replacement for a 30-region AWS estate.
Honest limits of this comparison
OVHcloud's public cloud is OpenStack-based, which means it is API-compatible with the OpenStack ecosystem but not with AWS-specific tooling (Terraform AWS provider, CDK, CloudFormation). Migration effort includes porting infrastructure-as-code, not just switching endpoints.
List prices are from January 2025. OVHcloud offers reservation discounts (1-month and 12-month) that reduce compute cost significantly. AWS Reserved Instances can reduce on-demand cost by 30 to 72 percent. A real cost comparison requires your workload profile and a quote from both providers.
Common questions
- Is OVHcloud compliant with French SecNumCloud?
- OVHcloud holds SecNumCloud qualification for its Hosted Private Cloud on VMware product (specific SKUs). Its public cloud is not SecNumCloud-qualified as of January 2025. For workloads that require SecNumCloud, you need the qualified product, not the public cloud. Check anssi.fr for the current qualified product list.
- Can I use the AWS CLI or Terraform with OVHcloud?
- OVHcloud Object Storage is S3-compatible; you can use the AWS CLI with a custom endpoint. For compute and managed services, OVHcloud has its own Terraform provider and OpenStack-compatible APIs. You will port your Terraform code, not reuse the AWS provider.
- Does OVHcloud have a DPA for GDPR?
- Yes. OVHcloud publishes a Data Processing Agreement at ovhcloud.com/en/personal-data-protection/. As a French entity, it does not transfer data to a US parent and is not subject to CLOUD Act production orders.