What is UpCloud?
| Category | VPS hosting |
|---|---|
| Company | UpCloud (Helsinki) |
| Headquarters | Finland (EU) |
| Founded | 2011 |
| Ownership | Founder-led (CEO Joel Pihlajamaa) |
| Price | €3 / month (excl. tax) · free plan: no |
| Platforms | Web · API |
| Open source | No |
| Data hosted in | 15 data centres in 12 countries incl. Finland, Germany |
| Alternative to | DigitalOcean · AWS |
Who is behind UpCloud
UpCloud is a cloud hosting company from Helsinki, Finland. UpCloud Ltd was formed in 2011 and is led by its founder and CEO, Joel Pihlajamaa; its office is on Aleksanterinkatu in central Helsinki. UpCloud says it has more than 10,000 customers. Its about page does not name outside investors.
UpCloud sells infrastructure for developers and businesses: cloud servers that start at €3 a month, plus managed Kubernetes, managed databases, object storage and load balancers. That makes it one of the few European providers that works like DigitalOcean – simple prices and a single console for the whole stack.
Where UpCloud hosts your data
UpCloud runs 15 data centres in 12 countries. Ten are in Europe: Helsinki (two), Stockholm, Copenhagen, Stavanger, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, London, Warsaw and Madrid. The others are in San Jose, New York, Chicago, Singapore and Sydney – you choose the location for every server, so pick a European one if that matters to you. Stavanger (Norway) and London (UK) are outside the EU. UpCloud is ISO 27001 certified and says it complies with Finnish and EU data protection law, acting as a data processor for your customer data under a DPA you accept with the terms of service.
The upcloud.com website and the hub.upcloud.com control panel run behind Cloudflare, a US company; your servers run in UpCloud’s data centres.
| Domain | Used for | Hosting provider | ASN | Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| upcloud.com | website | Cloudflare | AS13335 | anycast |
Checked 25 Oct 2026. Hosting can change – report a change.
UpCloud pricing
UpCloud bills by the starting hour with a monthly cap (at most 28 days a month). Prices exclude local taxes. The current cloud server plans start with Starter at €3 a month (1 vCPU, 1 GB RAM, 10 GB standard SSD, 250 Mbit/s), Premium from €5 a month (1 vCPU, 1 GB, 25 GB MaxIOPS storage, 1 Gbit/s) and Cloud Native from €12 a month (1 vCPU, 4 GB). Older Developer and General Purpose plans can no longer be deployed.
All plans include zero-cost egress: public outbound, inbound and private traffic cost €0 per GiB under UpCloud’s fair transfer policy. Managed MySQL and PostgreSQL start at €9 a month, Valkey at €8. The Kubernetes control plane is free for development clusters (up to 30 nodes) and €60 a month for production. Object storage costs €5 a month for 250 GB, and the Essentials load balancer is free. Backups cost 10% to 60% of the server price depending on how long they are kept. New accounts get a free 30-day trial.
Compared with DigitalOcean’s cheapest Droplet at $4 a month with 512 MiB, UpCloud’s Starter plan gives you twice the memory for €3, and no bandwidth bills.
Features and security
Beyond cloud servers, UpCloud offers GPU servers, private cloud on dedicated hosts, block storage from 1 GB to 4 TB per volume, managed NFS file storage, S3-compatible object storage, a container registry, software-defined private networks, NAT and VPN gateways, network peering and a REST API with SDKs. Managed databases come with clustering, automatic failover and monitoring. A CDN is listed as coming soon. There is no PaaS like DigitalOcean’s App Platform and no serverless functions.
What users say about UpCloud
On Trustpilot UpCloud has 3.0/5 from 170 reviews (checked 25 October 2026). Reviewers praise transparent, fair pricing, hourly billing, the clean control panel and the Kubernetes documentation. The most common complaints are accounts suspended by automated security checks – sometimes right after a first deposit – requests for identity documents, slow replies when locked out, and SMTP port 25 being blocked.
Pros and cons
Pros of UpCloud
- Complete stack – servers, Kubernetes, databases, object storage and load balancers
- Generous network – zero egress fees on every plan
- Cheap entry at €3 a month with hourly billing and a monthly cap
- Free Kubernetes control plane for development clusters
- Trustworthy basics – ISO 27001 and a Finnish company
Cons of UpCloud
- Small storage on the Starter plan – 10 GB
- No PaaS and no serverless functions
- Weak account handling – complaints about automated suspensions
- Not fully US-free – website and control panel run on Cloudflare
Verdict on UpCloud
Verdict: UpCloud is the European cloud that feels most like DigitalOcean: clear prices, a clean console and the managed services most apps need, from a Finnish company. Zero egress fees make it especially good for anything that serves files or media. Verify your account early – the main risk users report is an automated suspension. Best for: developers and small teams leaving DigitalOcean or looking for a European VPS that can grow. Not for: teams that depend on a PaaS or need lots of cheap disk space.
UpCloud is ranked #1 in Best European alternatives to DigitalOcean and in Best European VPS hosting.
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UpCloud: FAQ
Is UpCloud a European company?
Yes. UpCloud Ltd is headquartered in Helsinki, Finland, and was founded in 2011. It runs ten of its 15 data centres in Europe.
How much does UpCloud cost?
Cloud servers start at €3 a month for 1 vCPU, 1 GB RAM and 10 GB storage, billed hourly with a monthly cap. Prices exclude local taxes, and egress traffic is free on all plans.
Is UpCloud better than DigitalOcean?
UpCloud offers similar building blocks – servers, managed Kubernetes, databases, object storage and load balancers – with no egress fees and a European owner. DigitalOcean has more products, including App Platform and serverless functions.
Does UpCloud have a free trial?
Yes. UpCloud offers a free 30-day trial when you sign up.
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Based on public pricing, documentation and user reviews · Changelog · Oct 2026: first version