Direct comparison
IONOS Cloud vs Scaleway
IONOS Cloud or Scaleway? The direct cloud comparison of services, data centers, costs and sovereignty. Services, pricing, data centers and sovereignty in a direct comparison.
Management summary
As of 2026-07IONOS Cloud and Scaleway position themselves as sovereign EU cloud providers with a strong focus on technological independence and cost-efficient infrastructure, with IONOS scoring highest in operational sovereignty (10/10) and a broader European location network. Scaleway impresses with a significantly more extensive service portfolio of over 80 services and a stronger focus on cloud-native and AI workloads, reflected in an AI score of 6/10. While IONOS is suitable for companies with the highest requirements for operational control and established compliance certifications such as C5, Scaleway offers advantages for AI-intensive projects through its cost rating of 8.5/10 and specialized GPU offerings. Both providers forgo global expansion outside Europe and workplace integrations, making them pure infrastructure providers for Europe-centric strategies.
Methodology & data basisIONOS Cloud
EU providerUSP: German cloud with independent radio of CPU and RAM in public Cloud, Broad offering of shared and dedicated instances.
Recommendation: Recommended for cost-conscious companies that focus on the EU market and require a mix of shared and dedicated hardware.
Scaleway
EU providerUSP: European portfolio with a focus on AI infrastructure and cloud-native development
Recommendation: Recommended for companies looking for European Cloud Native alternatives
Performance chart
IONOS Cloud and Scaleway across 8 core categories, compared with the average of all providers (1–10).
Market positioning
All 13 providers by sovereignty and portfolio performance — purely computed from the category ratings.
Positions are purely computational: X = mean of technological & operational sovereignty, Y = mean of all remaining rating categories (each 1–10). Not a ranking recommendation. Methodology & data basis
Strengths & weaknesses
Automatically derived from the editorially reviewed rating data and backed by the category ratings (1–10) — fair to both sides.
Strengths
- Highest operational sovereignty (10/10): IONOS achieves the maximum score in operational sovereignty, signaling full control from Europe and independence from non-European interventions.
- Strong technological sovereignty (9/10): With a score of 9/10 (avg. of all providers: 7.4), the provider scores points with an open standard stack and low lock-in, promoting exit-friendliness and independence from proprietary technology.
- Good price-performance ratio (8/10): The price score of 8/10 (avg. of all providers: 6.4) and a cost rating of 8.0/10 underline competitiveness, particularly regarding CPU, RAM, and egress costs.
- Comprehensive certifications: The portfolio includes important compliance standards such as C5, ISO 27001, SOC 1/2/3, and PCI DSS, strengthening trustworthiness for regulated industries.
Points to consider
- Weak AI and Big Data capabilities (3/10 each): The scores for AI and Big Data are 3/10 each (avg. of all providers: 4.8 and 4.8 respectively), indicating a limited offering of managed training, inference, and analytics platforms.
- Moderate high availability (5/10): With a score of 5/10 (avg. of all providers: 6.7), coverage by regions and availability zones as well as disaster recovery tooling is weaker compared to the average.
- Limited global reach (4/10): The score of 4/10 (avg. of all providers: 4.5) reflects a presence primarily limited to Europe and a few US locations, representing a limitation for a global customer base.
Strengths
- Outstanding pricing (9/10): With a price score of 9/10 (avg. of all providers: 6.4) and a cost rating of 8.5/10, Scaleway offers competitive rates, particularly for GPU (9.0/10) and egress (10.0/10).
- Strong bare metal infrastructure (9/10): Bare metal achieves the highest score in the comparison field (9/10, avg. of all providers: 5.2), complemented by mature containerization (8/10, avg. of all providers: 7.3) with Managed Kubernetes.
- Growing AI portfolio (6/10): With an AI score of 6/10 (avg. of all providers: 4.8), Scaleway offers Generative APIs and Managed Inference, which is above average for a sovereign provider.
- Broad service portfolio: With over 80 productive services, Scaleway offers deeper coverage in Big Data (4/10) and Managed Databases (7/10) than IONOS.
Points to consider
- No global reach (1/10): With a score of 1/10 (avg. of all providers: 4.5) and only 3 countries, the provider is unsuitable for international workloads; however, this is irrelevant for purely European users.
- Weak enterprise virtualization (4/10): With a score of 4/10 (avg. of all providers: 5.7), managed VMware or direct hypervisor access is missing, making the migration of classic enterprise estates more difficult.
- Thinner Big Data offerings (4/10): The portfolio of analytics and data platform services only reaches 4/10 (avg. of all providers: 4.8) and is less extensive compared to other providers.
Which provider when?
Use-case-based decision aid — both options are a valid choice.
Choose IONOS Cloud if:
- You require the highest operational sovereignty (10/10) and full control from Europe without non-European interventions.
- Your compliance requirements include specific standards such as C5 or PCI DSS, which IONOS already holds certified.
- You are looking for a cost-efficient solution (cost rating 8.0/10) with a strong focus on bare metal servers (8/10) and Linux workloads.
- Your area of deployment is primarily in Europe, but you require some presence in the USA, which IONOS offers with locations in the USA.
Choose Scaleway if:
- You are planning AI-intensive workloads and require access to Managed Inference and Generative APIs (AI score 6/10).
- Cost optimization is your main criterion, particularly for GPU instances (cost indication GPU 9.0/10) and egress costs.
- You prefer a broad, cloud-native service portfolio (80+ services) with a strong focus on containerization and serverless architectures.
- You require purely European infrastructure (3 countries) with a high degree of technological sovereignty (9/10) and an open standard stack.
Service comparison by category
All 19 rating categories in a head-to-head duel (1–10). A notable lead is marked from a 2-point difference.
| Category | IONOS CloudvsScalewayScale 1–10 | Avg. all | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Data Security & Encryption | 77 | 7.8 | balanced |
| Technological Sovereignty | 99 | 7.4 | balanced |
| Operational Sovereignty | 109 | 8 | balanced |
| Strategic Capabilities | 66 | 6.2 | balanced |
| Price | 89 | 6.4 | balanced |
| Collaboration Tools | 73 | 5.1 | Lead IONOS Cloud |
| Global Reach | 41 | 4.5 | Lead IONOS Cloud |
| Big Data | 34 | 4.8 | balanced |
| AI | 36 | 4.8 | Lead Scaleway |
| Bare Metal | 89 | 5.2 | balanced |
| Virtualization | 64 | 5.7 | Lead IONOS Cloud |
| Containerization | 88 | 7.3 | balanced |
| Databases | 77 | 6.9 | balanced |
| High Availability | 56 | 6.7 | balanced |
| Microsoft | 44 | 4.5 | balanced |
| Linux | 88 | 8.8 | balanced |
| Encryption | 77 | 6.8 | balanced |
| Storage | 88 | 7.7 | balanced |
| Network | 78 | 7.8 | balanced |
Management Summary
Sovereign Cloud
SEAL Framework
Strategic (15 %)
Legal & Jurisdictional (10 %)
Data & AI (10 %)
Operational (15 %)
Supply Chain (20 %)
Technology (15 %)
Security & Compliance (10 %)
Environmental (5 %)
Availability & Locations
Compute
shared & low-budget
Hot Storage
Cold Storage
Managed Databases
Network & Security
Orchestration
Virtualization
Management
Big Data
AI & Machine Learning
Quantum Computing
Compliance & Certificates
German cloud security catalogue
IT service management system standard
Information security management system
Privacy information management extension
Energy management for data centers
Cloud Security Alliance assurance registry
Service organization control audit reports
Payment card data security standard
Quality management system standard
Cost Indication
vCPU/h
H100/h
GB/h
CPU/h
Ratio1/4
GB/h | 3000 IOPS
GB/h
GB/h
Cluster/h
LLama3.3-70B per 1Mil tokens
LLama3.3-70B per 1Mil tokens
per GB
Our comparison methodology
The scores show a relative price comparison per service category. The lowest price earns 10 points; higher prices are marked down proportionally. Missing services are treated neutrally.
As of: List prices as of 11 September 2025, location Germany (DE).
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Frequently asked questions: IONOS Cloud vs Scaleway
What is the difference between IONOS Cloud and Scaleway?
IONOS Cloud is characterized by the highest operational sovereignty (10/10) and a broader European location network with US presence, while Scaleway offers a significantly more extensive service portfolio (80+ services) with a stronger focus on AI (6/10) and cloud-native technologies. IONOS has a cost rating of 8.0/10, Scaleway 8.5/10.
Which provider is more sovereign?
Both providers are highly sovereign. IONOS achieves maximum operational sovereignty with 10/10 and a SEAL score of 8.0/10. Scaleway has an operational sovereignty of 9/10 and a SEAL score of 7.9/10. Technologically, both are equally strong with 9/10.
Which provider is cheaper?
Scaleway has a higher cost rating of 8.5/10 compared to IONOS with 8.0/10. Scaleway also offers up to 25% discount via Saving Plans, IONOS up to 33%. However, actual costs are highly workload-dependent; Scaleway is particularly competitive for GPU (9.0/10) and IONOS for RAM (9.0/10) and egress (10.0/10).
Which provider is better suited for AI projects?
Scaleway is better suited for AI projects as it achieves an AI score of 6/10 (avg. of all providers: 4.8) and offers Managed Inference and Generative APIs. IONOS has an AI score of only 3/10 and primarily offers an AI Model Hub without managed inference services.
Do both providers offer global infrastructure?
No, both are primarily focused on Europe. IONOS has limited global reach (4/10) with locations in the USA, while Scaleway has no global reach (1/10) and is present in only 3 European countries. For purely European users, this is not a limitation.
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