Microsoft Azure is the incumbent, but Hetzner offers a European alternative rooted in EU data laws and stronger digital sovereignty.
Incumbent Solution
Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing platform operated by Microsoft Corporation, headquartered in Redmond, Washington. It provides enterprise cloud services for building and deploying applications, subject to US jurisdiction and the CLOUD Act.
Microsoft Azure ownership profileEU Challenger
Hetzner is a German cloud and dedicated server provider, family-owned and headquartered in Gunzenhausen, Bavaria. It is widely known for its superior price-to-performance ratio and strict GDPR compliance, operating data centers exclusively in Germany and Finland.
Visit HetznerHetzner ownership profile| Metric | Microsoft Azure | Hetzner |
|---|---|---|
| Headquarters | Redmond, US | Gunzenhausen, DE |
| Ownership | subsidiary · NASDAQ | private |
| Tax Domicile | US | DE |
| Ultimate Parent | Microsoft Corporation | Hetzner Online GmbH |
| Data Hosting | mixed | EU |
| CLOUD Act Exposure | Yes ⚠️ | No ✓ |
| AI Trains on User Data | partial | no |
| GDPR | compliant | compliant |
| DSA Designation | standard | na |
| Carbon Neutral | claimed | claimed |
| B Corp | No | No |
| Supply Chain | partial | opaque |
| Repair / Recycling | Yes ✓ | No |
Last verified . Sources: Microsoft Azure on Wikidata, Microsoft Azure website, Hetzner website, How we audit.
Rigorous data for ethical digital consumption.
Infomaniak is a Swiss independent cloud provider headquartered in Geneva, offering web hosting, email, cloud storage, and productivity tools. It is carbon-neutral, 100% Swiss-owned, and operates exclusively from its own data centers in Switzerland.
EU AllScaleway is a French cloud platform owned by Iliad Group (founded by Xavier Niel), offering compute, storage, and AI infrastructure. Operating entirely from European data centers, it is GDPR-compliant by design and a strong alternative to AWS and DigitalOcean.
EU All