Provider comparison
Scaleway vs AWS
Scaleway (Iliad group, French) and AWS operate in different markets but increasingly compete for European workloads where data sovereignty matters. This page compares them on the dimensions that move a decision: service breadth, pricing transparency, EU legal standing, and migration effort. All figures are sourced and dated.
Prices and service capabilities change. Verify figures against current provider documentation before committing to a project budget.
Who is Scaleway?
Scaleway is the cloud brand of the French Iliad group, which also owns Free (French ISP) and Play (Polish operator). It has operated datacentres in Paris since 2009 and expanded to Amsterdam in 2017 and Warsaw in 2022. All three regions are EU-based; headquarters and ultimate ownership are French, meaning no CLOUD Act exposure for a US parent.
Its catalogue covers compute, S3-compatible object storage, managed Kubernetes (Kapsule), managed PostgreSQL and Redis, a CDN, and serverless functions. The catalogue is smaller than AWS but the S3 and Kubernetes layers are designed to be API-compatible, which limits rewrite scope for the commodity layer of a migration.
Side-by-side: key dimensions
| Dimension | Scaleway | AWS | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| EU data residency | All three regions in EU (FR, NL, PL) | EU regions available (8 in EU as of Jan 2025) | Both offer EU residency |
| Legal sovereignty (CLOUD Act) | No US parent; no CLOUD Act exposure | US parent; CLOUD Act applies | Scaleway has legal sovereignty |
| Compute on-demand pricing (general purpose) | From EUR 0.01/h (DEV1-S, 2 vCPU, 2 GB) | From USD 0.023/h (t3.small, 2 vCPU, 2 GB, eu-west-3) | Scaleway lower for entry instances |
| Object storage pricing | EUR 0.015/GB/month; egress to EU free | USD 0.023/GB/month; egress from USD 0.09/GB | Scaleway lower, free EU egress |
| Managed Kubernetes | Kapsule (CNCF-conformant, control plane free) | EKS (USD 0.10/h per cluster) | Kapsule cheaper; portable manifests |
| Managed relational database | Managed PostgreSQL and MySQL | RDS (PostgreSQL, MySQL, Aurora, Oracle, SQL Server) | AWS has broader engine support |
| Managed NoSQL / document store | None (no DynamoDB equivalent) | DynamoDB, ElastiCache, DocumentDB | AWS only |
| Global anycast CDN | Edge Services (EU-centric PoPs) | CloudFront (600+ PoPs globally) | AWS has much wider reach |
| Serverless functions | Serverless Functions (Node, Python, Go, PHP) | Lambda (broader runtime and trigger ecosystem) | AWS has broader triggers and integrations |
| Support tiers | Basic free, Business from EUR 100/month | Developer USD 29/month, Business from USD 100/month | Comparable at business tier |
Where Scaleway is a credible replacement for AWS
For workloads built around S3-compatible object storage, container-based compute, and managed PostgreSQL, Scaleway covers the stack at lower cost with no CLOUD Act exposure. A startup or SME moving a containerised application from AWS EKS to Scaleway Kapsule changes an endpoint and a Helm values file; the manifests themselves are portable.
The pricing gap is largest on egress. AWS charges from USD 0.09/GB for data leaving to the internet; Scaleway charges nothing for egress to EU destinations and EUR 0.01/GB beyond. For read-heavy or media-heavy workloads, that gap compounds quickly at scale.
For teams that need a French or EU entity on the invoice, Scaleway invoices in EUR from a French entity. That is the whole vendor-lock-in argument resolved at the contract layer.
Where the gaps are real
Scaleway has no DynamoDB-equivalent. Workloads that depend on DynamoDB as an always-on, globally replicated key-value store with single-digit millisecond latency must either self-host ScyllaDB or Cassandra, or redesign around PostgreSQL with a time-series or document-store extension.
The serverless and event-driven layer on AWS (Lambda + SQS + SNS + EventBridge + Step Functions) has no single-provider equivalent on Scaleway. Teams that have built event-driven architectures on these services face a more substantial redesign, not a configuration change.
Global CDN reach is not comparable. If you serve users in Asia-Pacific or the Americas at latency-sensitive thresholds, Scaleway Edge Services covers EU PoPs; AWS CloudFront covers the globe.
Honest limits of this comparison
Prices shown are list prices from January 2025. Both providers discount at volume. AWS Reserved Instances and Savings Plans can reduce compute cost by 30 to 72 percent versus on-demand; Scaleway offers commitment discounts for managed databases. A real cost model requires your actual usage profile, not list-price arithmetic.
Service coverage changes quickly. Scaleway has added GPU instances, IoT and AI-inference products in recent years. Check scaleway.com/en/pricing/ and aws.amazon.com/pricing/ for current figures before planning a migration budget.
Common questions
- Is Scaleway GDPR-compliant?
- Scaleway is a French entity, processes and stores data in EU regions, and publishes a Data Processing Agreement. EU data never transits a non-EU entity that could be subject to CLOUD Act. GDPR compliance is ultimately your responsibility as controller; Scaleway provides the contractual and technical framework.
- Can I keep my Terraform code when moving from AWS to Scaleway?
- Scaleway has a Terraform provider (registry.terraform.io/providers/scaleway/scaleway), so you rewrite resource blocks, not infrastructure patterns. The module and variable structure stays; the resource type names change. Expect 1 to 3 weeks of Terraform porting depending on the complexity of your state.
- Does Scaleway have an SLA for managed services?
- Scaleway publishes a 99.9% SLA for Instances and Object Storage. Managed Kubernetes (Kapsule) and Managed Databases carry their own SLAs defined in the product terms. Compare these against your RTO/RPO requirements before committing.