What is Scaleway?
| Category | Cloud platforms |
|---|---|
| Company | Scaleway SAS |
| Headquarters | France (EU) |
| Founded | Not stated |
| Ownership | iliad Group |
| Price | €0.43 / month (excl. VAT) · free plan: no |
| Platforms | Web · API |
| Open source | No |
| Data hosted in | France, Netherlands, Poland, Italy · Scaleway |
| Alternative to | DigitalOcean · AWS |
Who is behind Scaleway
Scaleway is a French cloud provider run by Scaleway SAS, a simplified joint stock company registered in Paris (SIREN 433 115 904) at 8 rue de la Ville-l’Évêque. It is a subsidiary of the iliad Group, a French telecom group, so the ownership chain stays in Europe.
Scaleway positions itself as a European alternative to the US hyperscalers for developers and companies. It sells everything from tiny virtual machines to GPU Instances with NVIDIA B300, H100, L40S and L4 cards, serverless functions, managed databases and AI services, all billed by the hour or by use, and it calls itself Europe’s sovereign cloud and AI provider, with more than 100 cloud and AI products.
Where Scaleway hosts your data
Scaleway runs four multi-AZ cloud regions in France, the Netherlands, Poland and Italy, and has announced deployments in Sweden and Germany. Your resources stay in the region you choose. The marketing website is served through Cloudflare, a US CDN, and the console from OVH infrastructure in Warsaw – neither affects where your instances or buckets run.
| Domain | Used for | Hosting provider | ASN | Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| scaleway.com | website | Cloudflare | AS13335 | anycast |
| console.scaleway.com | console | OVH SAS | AS16276 | Poland |
Checked 25 Oct 2026. Hosting can change – report a change.
Scaleway pricing
Scaleway bills per hour, with prices shown before VAT. The cheapest instance is STARDUST1-S (1 vCPU, 1 GB) at €0.0006 an hour, about €0.43 a month. The development line starts with DEV1-S (2 vCPU, 2 GB) at €0.00898 an hour, about €6.55 a month. The general-purpose BASIC2-A2C-4G (2 vCPU, 4 GB) costs about €16.79 a month, and the dedicated POP2-2C-8G (2 vCPU, 8 GB) about €53.65 a month. Egress and IPv6 are included in instance prices, but local or block storage and public IPv4 addresses are billed on top.
The Kubernetes Kapsule control plane is free – you pay only for the nodes, load balancers and volumes. Multi-AZ Object Storage costs €0.01606 per GB a month, with 75 GB of free egress each month and €0.01 per GB after that. For comparison, AWS charges $0.024 an hour (about $17.52 a month) for a t3.small with 2 vCPU and 2 GiB in Frankfurt.
Services and security
Scaleway covers the main AWS building blocks: Instances and GPU servers (EC2), Kubernetes Kapsule (EKS), S3-compatible Object Storage (S3), managed PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis and MongoDB, a serverless SQL database and a ClickHouse data warehouse (RDS, ElastiCache, Redshift), plus serverless functions and containers. The smallest managed database, DB-DEV-S for PostgreSQL or MySQL (2 vCPU, 2 GB), costs €0.0156 an hour for the main node.
On compliance, Scaleway is certified to ISO/IEC 27001:2022 and holds HDS certification for health data in France. It is currently undergoing the French SecNumCloud qualification by ANSSI and plans a qualified zone, but has not received it yet. BSI C5 is not mentioned on its compliance pages.
What users say about Scaleway
On Trustpilot Scaleway has 1.5/5 from 358 reviews (checked 25 October 2026), and 79% of them are one-star. The positive reviews praise the clean, developer-friendly platform, useful documentation and fast help with quota increases. The complaints are about billing – charges for IPv4 and block storage that users did not expect, charges after cancellation and slow refunds – accounts locked after identity checks, and slow or generic support.
Pros and cons
Pros of Scaleway
- Huge product range – instances, GPUs, serverless, databases and AI
- Cheap development instances from €6.55 a month
- Generous free Kubernetes Kapsule control plane
- Strong European footprint – four multi-AZ regions in four EU countries
- Trustworthy ownership – part of the French iliad Group
Cons of Scaleway
- Very low user rating – 1.5/5 on Trustpilot
- No SecNumCloud qualification yet, only in assessment
- High extra charges for public IPv4 and block storage
- Not as many regions or services as AWS
Verdict on Scaleway
Verdict: Scaleway is the European cloud that feels most familiar to developers coming from AWS: serverless, managed databases, Kubernetes and GPUs, all in EU regions and at fair prices. The weak points are support and billing surprises, so read the pricing notes on IPv4 and storage and test with a small project before you move production. Best for: developers and startups who want AWS-style building blocks in the EU. Not for: enterprises that need SecNumCloud today or premium support.
Scaleway is ranked #3 in Best European alternatives to AWS and in Best European cloud platforms.
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Scaleway: FAQ
Is Scaleway a French company?
Yes. Scaleway SAS is registered in Paris and is a subsidiary of the French iliad Group.
Where are Scaleway's data centres?
Scaleway runs four multi-AZ cloud regions in France, the Netherlands, Poland and Italy, and has announced new deployments in Sweden and Germany.
Is Scaleway cheaper than AWS?
For small machines, usually yes: a DEV1-S with 2 vCPU and 2 GB costs about €6.55 a month, against about $17.52 for an AWS t3.small in Frankfurt. Public IPv4 and block storage are billed extra at Scaleway, so compare full configurations.
Is Scaleway SecNumCloud qualified?
Not yet. Scaleway says it is undergoing the SecNumCloud qualification by ANSSI. It already holds ISO 27001:2022 and HDS certification.
Rate Scaleway
Based on public pricing, documentation and user reviews · Changelog · Oct 2026: first version