Scaleway

Scaleway is a European cloud computing platform that delivers enterprise-grade infrastructure services with a strong emphasis on sovereignty, sustainability, and developer experience. Founded in 1999 and headquartered in Paris, France, Scaleway has established itself as Europe's leading alternative to American hyperscalers, operating data centers exclusively within the European Union to ensure full compliance with GDPR and European data protection regulations.

Compute Infrastructure: From VMs to Bare Metal

At its core, Scaleway provides a comprehensive suite of cloud infrastructure products designed to support workloads of any scale. The platform's Elastic Metal bare metal servers offer dedicated physical machines that combine the performance and control of traditional infrastructure with cloud-native flexibility, delivering sub-minute provisioning times and eliminating the noisy neighbor effect common in virtualized environments. These servers come in various configurations optimized for compute, storage, or GPU-intensive workloads, making them ideal for demanding applications like AI training, high-frequency trading, or large-scale data processing. The Instances product line encompasses Scaleway's virtual machine offerings, providing multiple instance families tailored to different use cases:

• Development Instances – Cost-optimized VMs perfect for testing and development environments
• General Purpose Instances – Balanced compute and memory resources for web applications and databases
• Production-Optimized Instances – High-performance options with dedicated resources and consistent performance
• GPU Instances – Powered by NVIDIA graphics cards for AI/ML workloads and rendering
• ARM64 Instances – Energy-efficient servers running on ARM architecture with exceptional price-performance ratios

Container Orchestration and Serverless Computing

Scaleway's Kubernetes Kapsule provides managed Kubernetes clusters that abstract away infrastructure complexity while maintaining full control over your containerized applications. The service handles control plane management, automatic updates, and security patches, allowing teams to focus on application development rather than cluster operations. Integration with Scaleway's Container Registry provides a complete cloud-native deployment pipeline, while support for autoscaling, load balancing, and persistent volumes ensures production-ready reliability. For developers seeking serverless computing, Scaleway Functions and Containers offer event-driven execution environments that scale automatically based on demand. Functions support multiple programming languages including Python, Node.js, Go, and PHP, with seamless integration to other Scaleway services through triggers and webhooks. The serverless containers product extends this paradigm to Docker images, enabling you to deploy existing containerized applications without managing servers or Kubernetes complexity.

Storage Solutions Across Every Tier

Storage capabilities span multiple tiers to accommodate diverse requirements:

• Block Storage – High-performance SSD volumes with up to 5000 IOPS and sub-millisecond latency for database workloads
• Object Storage – S3-compatible storage with 99.999999999% durability and seamless integration with popular tools
• Cold Storage – Ultra-low-cost archival storage with retrieval times measured in hours, perfect for compliance and long-term data retention

Database management is simplified through Managed Databases, which provide fully-managed instances of PostgreSQL, MySQL, and Redis. These services handle automated backups, point-in-time recovery, high availability configurations, and security updates, eliminating the operational burden of database administration. Read replicas and automatic failover ensure business continuity, while monitoring dashboards provide real-time insights into query performance and resource utilization.

Networking and Security Architecture

Networking and security features are deeply integrated throughout the platform. Private Networks enable secure communication between resources without traversing the public internet, while Load Balancers distribute traffic across multiple backends with health checks and SSL termination. The platform supports IPv6 by default, provides anti-DDoS protection at no additional cost, and offers flexible firewall rules for fine-grained access control. VPC (Virtual Private Cloud) capabilities allow you to create isolated network environments with custom IP ranges and routing tables. For AI and machine learning workflows, Scaleway has invested heavily in GPU infrastructure with dedicated offerings like GPU Instances equipped with NVIDIA V100, P100, and A100 GPUs. These instances provide the computational power required for training deep learning models, running inference workloads, or accelerating scientific simulations.

Developer Tools and Automation

The Scaleway Console and comprehensive API provide multiple ways to interact with infrastructure. The web-based console offers an intuitive interface for provisioning resources, monitoring usage, and managing billing. For automation enthusiasts, the RESTful API exposes every platform capability programmatically, while official SDKs for Go, Python, and JavaScript streamline integration. The Scaleway CLI enables infrastructure management from the terminal, supporting scripting and CI/CD workflows. Infrastructure-as-Code practitioners can leverage the official Terraform provider to define and version infrastructure alongside application code. Integration with popular DevOps tools like GitLab, GitHub Actions, and Jenkins streamlines continuous deployment pipelines.

Transparent Pricing and Cost Optimization

Cost transparency is a cornerstone of Scaleway's philosophy. Unlike providers that charge for data transfer between availability zones or surprise customers with bandwidth costs, Scaleway includes generous outbound bandwidth allowances with every product. Pricing is straightforward and predictable, with per-second billing granularity ensuring you only pay for resources actually consumed. The platform's European focus often results in significant cost savings compared to American alternatives, particularly for workloads with European user bases or data residency requirements. Free tier offerings include €100 in trial credits, allowing teams to test infrastructure without upfront investment.

Sustainability and Environmental Commitment

Environmental sustainability distinguishes Scaleway in the crowded cloud market. The company powers its data centers with renewable energy and has committed to carbon neutrality, publishing detailed sustainability reports. Energy-efficient hardware choices, including ARM-based instances and optimized cooling systems, reduce environmental impact without sacrificing performance. For organizations with ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) commitments, Scaleway provides a cloud platform aligned with sustainability goals.

Compliance and Data Sovereignty

Compliance certifications demonstrate Scaleway's commitment to security and regulatory adherence:

• ISO 27001 – Information security management systems certification
• ISO 27017 – Cloud-specific security controls
• ISO 27018 – Protection of personally identifiable information
• SOC 2 Type II – Independent audit of security controls
• HDS (Hébergeur de Données de Santé) – French health data hosting certification
• PCI DSS – Payment card industry data security standards

For businesses serving European markets, Scaleway's data sovereignty guarantees provide peace of mind. All data remains within EU borders, processed under French and European law, eliminating concerns about foreign surveillance or conflicting legal jurisdictions. This makes Scaleway particularly attractive to government agencies, healthcare providers, financial institutions, and any organization handling sensitive European citizen data.

Support and Migration Services

The platform's support offerings range from community forums and comprehensive documentation to enterprise-grade SLAs with dedicated technical account managers. Free tier users benefit from community support and extensive self-service resources, while paid support plans provide guaranteed response times, phone support, and architecture reviews. Enterprise customers gain access to quarterly business reviews, custom integrations, and proactive monitoring. Migration tools and services ease the transition to Scaleway. The platform provides instance migration tools, data transfer services, and professional services engagements to assist with complex migrations. For organizations moving from other cloud providers, Scaleway's S3-compatible storage and standard APIs minimize application changes, while flexible networking options enable hybrid cloud architectures during gradual migrations.

Innovation and Emerging Technologies

Developer experience receives continuous investment through features like instant SSH access to instances, integrated serial console for troubleshooting, and automated snapshots for disaster recovery. The platform's API-first design ensures feature parity between console and programmatic access, while webhook notifications enable event-driven automation. Recent innovations demonstrate Scaleway's commitment to emerging technologies:

• Scaleway Learning – Managed Jupyter notebooks and development environments for data science teams
• IoT Hub – Device management and data ingestion for Internet of Things deployments
• Edge Computing – Compute resources closer to end users for reduced latency in real-time applications
• Organization Management – Multi-tenant account structures with centralized billing and granular access controls for agencies and MSPs

Who Benefits from Scaleway?

Whether you're a startup seeking cost-effective European infrastructure, an enterprise requiring data sovereignty, or a developer wanting ethical cloud computing without vendor lock-in, Scaleway delivers modern cloud capabilities with European values. The platform's combination of performance, compliance, sustainability, and transparent pricing has made it the preferred choice for thousands of businesses across Europe and beyond. For agencies and resellers, Scaleway's Organization management features enable multi-tenant account structures with centralized billing, granular access controls, and usage quotas. This makes the platform suitable for managed service providers serving multiple clients or large enterprises with complex organizational hierarchies. With infrastructure spanning Paris, Amsterdam, and Warsaw data centers, Scaleway ensures low-latency access for European users while maintaining full regulatory compliance.