I'm exploring alternatives to major cloud providers like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud for some European clients who prioritize data privacy and ISO-certified hosting. I came across a few European providers, specifically Xelon, Scaleway, and Hetzner, which seem to offer simpler and more transparent IaaS setups compared to the giants. Xelon caught my attention particularly because their Swiss-based, ISO-certified data centers seem great for data protection. Their interface is also user-friendly, which is a plus for teams without extensive DevOps resources. I'm curious if anyone here has experience using these smaller platforms for production workloads, and how they stack up in terms of performance and support compared to AWS or Azure.
3 Answers
We primarily stick with Azure due to its integrations, but it’s exciting to see more European players like Xelon and Scaleway emerging in the market. They offer a more straightforward approach, making it less overwhelming to manage.
I’ve shifted some of my staging workloads from AWS to Hetzner. It’s decent value for money, but you'll need to handle more management tasks yourself. I've heard of Xelon being mentioned frequently in Swiss IT circles, though I haven't personally used it yet.
Xelon sounds promising! I'm considering it for a smaller client to test its scalability.
I’ve had a good experience with Xelon. The UI is clean, and setting up VMs was quick for my smaller dev team.”}]},{
I've used Hetzner before and would say it's similar to Digital Ocean for European users. It's great for development and testing, but for production environments, be mindful of their limited offerings, especially regarding the hardware choices like Intel and Ampere CPUs. Just be aware that if you're running many VMs, you might sometimes hit capacity issues. Don't expect the same range of options as the larger providers.
They do have AMD options too, albeit a bit older models. But honestly, the performance you still get is pretty solid for what you pay.
I had some issues with setting up a load balancer on my Kubernetes at Hetzner; it didn't work as expected. Overall, I appreciate their reliability, although it does require some manual setup.
Exactly! Azure's integration is strong, but the simplicity of providers like Xelon is refreshing.