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European Cloud, Global Reach
- sschueller 2y ago> At UpCloud, we are committed to complying with European data protection laws and compliance with ISO 27001. This international standard not only signifies our dedication to maintaining a high level of information security but also ensures that we adhere to recognized best practices in managing and safeguarding your data. If you want to be Europe only that includes not terminating your SSL at a US CDN provider like Cloudflare... I just hit "Gateway time-out Error code 504" from Cloudflare trying to open https://upcloud.com/pricing https://upcloud.com/pricing
- graemep 2y agoThat is only for their public site. The US provider has a European presence (the error page is clear I am seeing Cloudflare London). Started working for me while typing this.
- breakingcups 2y agoYou say that, but their login page / dashboard is hosted on the same IP, also through Cloudflare.
- csomar 2y agoHow does that make it any better?
- graemep 2y agoBecause if the actual services they used were not going through cloudflare then it would not really matter to users. It turns out their management web UI (for orders etc.) also goes through cloudflare so that is a potential problem (and I now plan to switch away from Upcloud for that reason - its silly to route that through Cloudflare). That said, their servers and their managent are in Europe.
- csomar 2y ago> Because if the actual services they used were not going through cloudflare then it would not really matter to users. This might fly if they were selling Bananas. But they are selling "cloud hosting". Cloudflare is literally their competitor.
- hnbad 2y agoEuropean presences of US providers are still US providers with all the implications of that for privacy, applicability of US laws, government interference and a potential trade war.
- earthnail 2y agoWhole website seems down. I'm accessing this from Stockholm, Sweden.
- greybox 2y agoWorking fine for me
- surgical_fire 2y agoCould open that page here with no problem.
- lifestyleguru 2y agoNo problem over here at all. It's probably a problem with "German internet".
- rustc 2y agoAnd they're also loading a script from googletagmanager.com.
- confiq 2y agoI'm not expecting 100% SLO, but using Cloudflare cloud service while you are a cloud service is little ridiculous.
- esher 2y agoHappy to see UpCloud on HN. We are trying to consider them for a long time, just haven't found the time. https://blog.fortrabbit.com/infra-research-2024 https://blog.fortrabbit.com/infra-research-2024 There is also https://european-alternatives.eu/ https://european-alternatives.eu/
- confiq 2y agothey have terraform [provider](https://search.opentofu.org/provider/upcloudltd/upcloud/latest https://search.opentofu.org/provider/upcloudltd/upcloud/late...), that is great! This is how they compare with AWS: https://upcloud.com/competitors-and-alternatives/aws https://upcloud.com/competitors-and-alternatives/aws
- fer 2y agoVery disingenuous comparison. The actual main gap is being closed with this: https://aws.amazon.com/compliance/europe-digital-sovereignty/ https://aws.amazon.com/compliance/europe-digital-sovereignty...
- pkos98 2y agoHaving worked as Cloud Solution Architect at Microsoft Germany/Azure, let me tell you: Nope this gap can not be closed by any US company alone due to the Us Patriot Act - which forces any US company (including e.g. a German subsidiary) to allow access to all data for national security purposes.
- fer 2y agoHaving worked at AWS, no, it's a separate partition under a separate legal entity, and the EU framework is specifically designed to counter Patriot Act, CLOUD Act and the like. It's gonna be similar to AWS China, and potentially more restrictive in some senses. That leaving aside regions we're not allowed to talk about.
- confiq 2y ago> Having worked at AWS This should be disclaimer at your first message when you compared AWS with UPCloud. TBH, I would not trust AWS with countering the Patriot Act.
- fer 2y ago> This should be disclaimer at your first message when you compared AWS with UPCloud. Fair, my bad. Still obviously misleading. 1. DB instances "starting at $144", I have a $63 in my basket at the moment, and also Aurora Serverless charges on resources used and can be potentially cheaper depending on the workload. 2. "$82.8 /mo" for a 2 core 8GB server is actually just under 50. 3. European DC locations: 8 for both. Unsure what UpCloud means for them here[0], they look like actual, individual DCs, but AWS has 8 European regions. Each region has normally 3 AZs which are physically separate DCs (which can be in proximity or not) and can be composed of multiple DCs each. Plus there are localzones depending from certain regions, each with at least one DC (and there are 11 of those). So the AWS number is certainly over 30 if we compare apples to apples. The rest I don't have time to dive in, or are just opinions (certifications needed for proficiency? really?) >TBH, I would not trust AWS with countering the Patriot Act. AWS China wouldn't have happened if they didn't offer enough safeguards. Complying with Patriot Act will guarantee enormous fines for AWS in the EU, so I'm sure legal and finance did their homework for AWS not to end up between a rock and a hard place. [0] https://upcloud.com/data-centers https://upcloud.com/data-centers
- amne 2y agoI don't get how you can advertise Kubernetes from 0 euro / month and then you have to choose a node that costs 3 euro / month. I have no idea if it's cheap or not but how is this kind of advertising legal?
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 2y agoUpcloud: 48 cores €1364/month Hetzner Dedi Cloud: 48 cores €288.49/month
- graemep 2y agoYou cannot really compare dedi to VPS pricing. Upcloud is similar to DO etc.
- seper8 2y agoWhat's the real difference in the end? Between a VPS at DO or a server at Hetzner?
- mpenet 2y agoIf there’s any hardware issue on your dedicated box it might take a lot of time until your box gets back up (hours, days…). On a vps it’s less likely to happen in the first place (hvs are usually better quality) and if that happens migration takes minutes.
- rustc 2y agoThe prices mentioned in the top comment are for a Hetzner VPS. A dedicated server (bare metal) on Hetzner with the same specs costs a fraction of that price.
- graemep 2y agoI itnerprested "dedi" as dedicated server, not dedicated vCPU. It is very cheap, but it is also a lot cheaper than most VPS providers.
- cuu508 2y agoOTOH, with dedicated servers you can have bad neighbors in the same rack, but with VPS you can have bad neighbors in the same server. I'm using both dedicated servers and VPS on Hetzner, and, anecdotally, I see more consistent network latency on dedicated servers than on VPS.
- rustc 2y agoThis is a strange page: https://upcloud.com/products/zero-cost-egress https://upcloud.com/products/zero-cost-egress There's "zero cost egress" mentioned all over the page but the limits on https://upcloud.com/fair-transfer-policy https://upcloud.com/fair-transfer-policy are comparable to other hosts like DigitalOcean: the cheapest 7 EUR VPS has a limit of 1TB of bandwidth. (For comparison, Hetzner offers 20TB on their EU VPS for under $5.) > Say goodbye to unpredictable egress costs and hello to our zero egress fee initiative. Unlike other cloud providers, we don’t charge for outbound traffic (‘egress’). This gives you the freedom to distribute your content and scale your business without the constant worry of unexpected bills. This has to be a joke.
- ohgr 2y agoYeah they’re going bankrupt in a couple of months.
- Iulioh 2y agoDosen't the EU Data Act prhoibit egress costs?
- usr1106 2y agoNo I don't think so. You have to able to take your own data out for free. But delivering it to everybody else can be charged. Edit: Not allowed to comment on your reply anymore. I read it as a confirmation of what I said. Charging for egress in general is allowed. Only the egress to take your own data elsewhere must be free.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Iulioh 2y agoChapter VI: Switching between data processing services The Data Act will also entirely remove switching charges, including charges for data egress (i.e. charges for data transit), from 12 January 2027. This means that providers won’t be able to charge their customers for the operations that are necessary to facilitate switching or for data egress. However, as a transitional measure during the first 3 years after the Data Act’s entry into force (from 11 January 2024 to 12 January 2027), providers may still charge their customers for the costs incurred in relation to switching and data egress. https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/factpages/data-act-explained#:~:text=The%20Data%20Act%20will%20also,switching%20or%20for%20data%20egress. https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/factpages/data-act-...
- aborsy 2y agoThe only reason you may use these EU version of services is that you are in Europe. Otherwise EU is worse in terms of privacy. UK (while not officially in Europe) goes even beyond, requiring backdooor to iCloud and non-eu providers.
- sschueller 2y ago> Otherwise EU is worse in terms of privacy Please elaborate how the EU is worse (UK doesn't count). Worse than what other country and how?
- FirmwareBurner 2y ago[flagged]
- purerandomness 2y agoI'm curious, do you have a source for your claims? > German and UK citizens got canceled, fined or SWATTED for calling their elected rules stupid/corrupt on social media Being "canceled" isn't a defined term. Being SWATted has nothing to do with state censorship, it's people abusing emergency services. Getting a fine by the government for calling "elected rules stupid/corrupt on social media" would be the only thing you mentioned that would count as state censorship. Do you have a link to a case where this happened? > in Germany you get a fine for downloading a song/movie You don't get a fine for legally downloading movies. There's an industry of lawyers profiting off of IP and copyright laws, yes. Not being able to pirate movies isn't state censorship.
- FirmwareBurner 2y ago[flagged]
- ivan_gammel 2y agoYou answered the question about privacy by complaint about freedom of speech, i.e. injecting some offtopic in conversation, hence the downvotes.
- Imustaskforhelp 2y agoLove the fact that hacker news comments are absolutely pulling up on this website. They are blatantly lying in many of their offerings ( zero cost egress see the rustc comment) and so much more. Wha? Why are you lying. Why are you being deceptive. How can I trust a company which is this level of deceptive.
- IanCal 2y ago> They are blatantly lying in many of their offerings ( zero cost egress see the rustc comment) But the linked pages in that comment say they do have zero cost egress. If you cross their "fair use" amount they drop the upload speed to 100mbps for the rest of the month.
- rustc 2y agoWhy not just say that 1TB is free and the rest is chargeable? The only reason to use "zero cost" every time and then hide the limits behind accordions is to mislead.
- IanCal 2y agoBecause that wouldn't be the same charging structure? I don't understand what you mean. XTB at whatever speed they offer, then unlimited at 100 meg is different from XTB free and the rest chargeable.
- piokoch 2y agoThis is missing the point. Everything they offer is storage, VPS, Load balancer, one managed key-value store and two managed databases. For the price a little higher than, say, Digital Ocean. But where is managed cache, message broker, e-mail service. It is not enough to be European, they need to offer something competitive. I guess they can win some clients, given current hostility of Europe against Trump, but what if in two years Trump will be off the news, people would not care anymore about being anti_USA or what if in 4 year Dems will figure out why they lost in 2024 and find someone less lame, who will win election, whom Europe will like again?
- jajko 2y agoThe changes happening in US are not going anywhere, and they haven't even properly started with them. Nobody knows the future but one thing is clear and set in stone - trust has been broken. If you have any life or relationship experience, you know trust is always hard to build and easy to lose. Its extremely hard and lengthy to build again once it has been shattered (which it has been already). Stab in the back is remembered for decades, spit in the face even more. Quadruple that for matters of national security.
- perks_12 2y ago> trust has been broken By what? Tariffs? We have known about NSA spyops for more than a decade now, with actual impact on our tech. Nobody cares. But now that trump is in office, we suddenly have an issue with the US? Ridiculous.
- palata 2y ago> We have known about NSA spyops for more than a decade now, with actual impact on our tech. Nobody cares. Nobody cares, because nobody really understands the consequences. But now it's different. The US are threatening to invade and annex territories. Everybody understands what that means.
- jajko 2y agoNo, by arbitrarily shutting down US military hardware on bipolar whims of a single person. You know, ie F'35s costing tens of billions becoming useless in real war very quickly. If a country can't protect its airspace its game over. Or by throwing whole Ukraine under the bus. Or by stating US won't protect NATO allies if they don't contribute 2,3,5% or whatever is the current number du jour. Or invading its closest allies... how fucked up is that, tell it to anybody a decade ago and you would get laughed at for being a conspiracy crank. NSA findings are an afterthought in all this, we talk about existential threats with literal sworn enemy at our doors right now willing to capture, murder and steal all it can and stating it semi-constantly.
- bjarneh 2y ago> (GDPR) is the best-known European standard. After all, it’s hard to miss the opportunity to reject cookies on European websites. But there’s far more to data security. We should not be bragging about that "security", those cookie pop-ups are just a pointless annoyance. At least I guess we can all agree that there is far more to data security :-)
- palata 2y agoGDPR goes further than the cookies, though.
- bjarneh 2y agoYes, it has tons of regulation which at least from my experience is very difficult to implement. I used to work for a company that basically barely knew what info they stored about anyone; and they also had long relationships with tons of clients. It was virtually impossible to follow GDPR in that company, but for some reason they wanted to show everyone that they were "best in class", since they handled a lot of financial info etc. It basically just ended up with some fancy web-pages proclaiming that we were serious about GDPR, but nothing else materialized. The cookie-banner just seems like a very strange "security" measure; but GDPR seems very strange as far as I can tell. It was sparked by the "forget me" campaign a few years ago I guess, and most people probably agree with the intent, but it has led to very strange set of rules.
- diggan 2y ago> is very difficult to implement. It shouldn't be. > that basically barely knew what info they stored about anyone Aha, might have been the core problem, wouldn't it? > It was virtually impossible to follow GDPR in that company So, sounds like the regulation worked exactly like expected? If you're not following proper procedures for storing data, it should be hard to comply with a regulation that is trying to force you to have proper procedures for storing data. A bit like complaining that fraud is hard because of those pesky police officers. Yes, this is the intention. > The cookie-banner just seems like a very strange "security" measure The whole cookie-banner thing is vastly misunderstood by companies, and at best just malicious compliance. Again, not the fault of the regulation but the companies who don't put users best interest first, but their own. Hard to blame them though, that's the purpose of their existence after all, most of the time.
- o_m 2y agoWhat they don't mention is that some of their data centers are delivered by Equinix, an American company, so it doesn't matter that it is in Finland (same with Sweden and Poland). It is inherently insecure if you are trying to get away from USA. https://upcloud.com/data-centers https://upcloud.com/data-centers
- sofixa 2y agoEquinix only provide the physical space and power, and things can be set up with them not even having physical access to your room/cage, other than forcing it (which would be visible). While they could be an attack vector, with modern hardware even having physical access is not a guarantee to having access to the data (TPM2 and disk encryption are trivial to set up). The risk is much lower than e.g. AWS.
- Aeolun 2y agoSorta, but it’s like saying that using Chinese equipment for your telecommunications infrastructure is fine. It’s not a great thing to have your infra hosted anywhere that can be legally compelled by a US government.
- Iulioh 2y agoOne of the best "facility tours" i saw recently (LTT - Equinix data center in Toronto ) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wumluVRmxyA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wumluVRmxyA
- ahofmann 2y agoYour argument oversimplifies the issue and ignores critical nuances. While it's true that Equinix is a US-based company, the physical location of the data centers and the legal jurisdiction they operate under matter significantly. A data center in Finland, Sweden, or Poland falls under EU regulations, including the GDPR and local data protection laws, which impose strict requirements on data handling. Equinix may provide the infrastructure, but US intelligence agencies can’t simply access data in these jurisdictions, unlike in the US, where providers are directly subject to laws like the CLOUD Act. Even if we assume hypothetical US access to the hardware, modern encryption can somewhat ensure that raw data remains protected. The real risk isn’t just physical access—it’s legal and architectural control. A European provider using strong encryption and operating under EU law still offers far better privacy guarantees than a US-based alternative. If your threat model includes avoiding US influence entirely, then yes, you might want a provider with no US ties whatsoever. But for most users, especially those seeking GDPR-compliant hosting, a European provider using Equinix infrastructure is still a meaningful step up from hosting directly with a US provider. Dismissing it as "inherently insecure" is unhelpful and disregards the real-world protections offered by EU jurisdiction and encryption. The goal isn’t perfection but practical improvement. If you have better alternatives, share them constructively instead of undermining efforts to move away from US-dominated cloud services.
- voytec 2y agoBlabbering about GDPR, they're serving spyware from googletagmanager.com without consent.
- JimDabell 2y agoAnd their cookie pop is non-compliant.
- ArtTimeInvestor 2y agoI restrict my usage of infrastructure providers to publicly listed companies. The transparency is just so much better. You can get a lot of info on how they run their business and where they are going. For now, that limits my choices in Europe to IONOS and OVH. OVH's interface is pretty chaotic. But the services themselves seem reliable so far. IONOS seems pretty solid in all aspects, but a bit cheesy in their constant battle to upsell you more services.
- scandox 2y agoThere's a lot of negativity and nit picking here. Upcloud are OK, Hetzner are better in my opinion for a lot of things. Nothing is perfect and European providers need to start somewhere. We all know there are tradeoffs and limitations but there's no need for a pile on.
- rustc 2y agoI wouldn't call pointing straight up lies as "nit picking". This is from their FAQ: https://upcloud.com/products/zero-cost-egress https://upcloud.com/products/zero-cost-egress > What exactly does zero-cost egress mean? > We are eliminating any concerns over data transfer fees. This means you’ll enjoy Internet traffic from our cloud services without any fear of accumulating costs. > How does this differentiate UpCloud from competitors? > By pioneering the zero-cost egress model, we’re not just changing the game for UpCloud; we’re challenging the entire cloud industry to reevaluate their pricing models and spearhead the industry towards predictable budgeting on cloud computing costs. While the actual bandwidth limit (https://upcloud.com/fair-transfer-policy https://upcloud.com/fair-transfer-policy) is the same as DigitalOcean and at least an order of magnitude lower than other EU providers like OVH and Hetzner.
- bittermandel 2y agoWhat do you mean? It is still free, just at a lowered speed. Calling it lies is hyperbolic.
- ivanr 2y agoYour comment doesn't match what's written on the very page you quote: https://upcloud.com/fair-transfer-policy https://upcloud.com/fair-transfer-policy > Even if you exceed your monthly share, don’t worry, there are no excess fees. We will simply notify you of reaching the fair transfer policy and may reduce the bandwidth of your Cloud Servers to 100 Mbps for the rest of the month. EDIT For completeness, there is also: > If you believe to require more transfer per month than the Fair Transfer Policy provides, you may opt in to a paid transfer model at €0.01/GB. This affords you completely unlimited egress with no restrictions.
- rglullis 2y agoApologies in advance for the thread hijacking, but I wonder if there would be enough interest in a turn-key solution for a fully suite of open source SaaS alternatives, hosted in a European cloud (Hetzner and/or OVH). The idea would be to take any existing commonly used service at a startup and set up the FOSS equivalent, unify them with SSO via OIDC and charge by the a flat rate based on the amount of resources. I've already built something similar for social media platforms, so I think I would just have to expand my catalog to do it.
- sam-cop-vimes 2y agoYes absolutely. I would consider using it.
- rglullis 2y agoOk. That's good to know. If you don't mind some follow-up questions: - What services are you/your company relying on and you'd like to switch to an open alternative? - How much are you/your company spending on these services? - What is the threshold of pain (retraining, missing features, known issues) would you/your company be willing to accept for solutions that are not 1:1 replacements for the current systems?
- sam-cop-vimes 2y agoOff the top of my head. Google Workspace (email / drive / docs / chat): $500 / month Various cloud services: VPS / RDS ($1000+ / month) Figma / Adobe: $100 / month A bunch of other services where we spend less than $100/month. How much pain: as long as a basic level of service exists, willing to take on pain just to not be completely dependent on US companies.
- rglullis 2y agoSo: - Google Drive/Docs -> Nextcloud. - Chat -> Matrix - Email -> Some EU or Swiss-based email provider, I'd recommend Migadu - Figma -> Penpot I'd have to know a bit more about you mean by "various cloud services", but if you just mean "applications we run ourselves", it sounds more like a small consultancy project than a packaged product that can be offered. In any case, I think I could help. Would you like to maybe send me an email? raphael (at) communick.com
- cheeseface 2y agoHaven’t used Upcloud for any larger workloads, but had a customer VPS there for multiple years. Worked well and the UI for managing servers was great.
- usr1106 2y agoAvailable since 2011 at least. Not sure whether that would qualify for a [2011] in the submission.
- matsemann 2y agoWith the staff of PCLOB getting dismantled, it's been brought up if the US even fulfill their part of the agreement and thus using US cloud based stuff might soon be illegal in the EU.
- hap_stark 2y agoUpCloud works well enough. In our experience, the available features work very reliably (for half a decade now). There are a few rough edges here and there during configuration. On the other hand, some things went smoother and faster than on one of the big hyperscalers. Simplicity can be a feature in itself... One thing not mentioned yet: We had very good experience multiple times with technical support, being available 24/7, doing proper hand-offs and getting back to us if an issue wasn't resolved, and being technically knowledgeable. And there are always humans on the other side which can be talked to. (Looking at you, MS for org validation for trusted signing ...)
- mischa108 2y agoWhat difference does it make if 99% of your devices are still running on Microsoft Windows? I'm a European DevOps engineer who specializes in Microsoft Azure, and I'd like to switch to European alternatives. But I struggle to see how we can ever become independent of Microsoft of all devices are still running Windows and 365 / Office.
- diggan 2y ago> how we can ever become independent of Microsoft Guess it depends on the context? If you need to run Windows Servers and run Microsoft services then well, you're better off with Microsoft, most likely. But for other workloads, it won't matter what the client software is, but again, really depends on the context.
- sam-cop-vimes 2y agoTime to adopt Linux and other OSS? In some ways the experience is worse, but in some ways better. No Telemetry and none of the annoying ads being shoved into your face all the time. I still see software companies choosing to build on top of M$ tech stack and I cannot understand why. Why keep throwing money at M$ when a free OS is available! edit: I understand why you would want to build on Windows if your user base is there. But why use it on the server side? The only reason I can think of is people who have only worked on Windows will keep using it, but at some point one has to get rid of this addiction.
- Yeul 2y agoThe Chinese set up their own intranet because history taught them the lesson to never trust a white man. For Europe 100 years of globalisation cannot be undone so easily.
- egorfine 2y ago> Go Beyond Compliance So, even more KYC? Blood sample is required, as well as at least three independent proofs of residence and subscription available only for select cities in the EU? If we want to compete with the US, we have to fix the main problem with european services: relax regulations, not tighten.
- bittermandel 2y agoI didn't expect the comments in here to be so negative. It's a decent service in itself and a good alternative to many other traditional VM-based hosting companies, which Europe is absolutely full of. They are not really competing with the hyperscalers, nor even Digital Ocean in my opinion, but rather providers that likely sell pre-committed OpenStack clusters and such. I don't believe they are fully clear of American-owned companies in their entire dependency chain, nor do I believe that it's possible to do that today. Companies like Equinix provide a damn good solution for homogenized infrastructure that is invaluable for cloud providers.
- diggan 2y ago> I didn't expect the comments in here to be so negative. Wait until the US properly wakes up and you'll see what negative can be on HN :) > nor do I believe that it's possible to do that today. Why not? Granted, a lot of the internet infrastructure is maintained by US entities, but it doesn't have to be that way, afaik. I'm fairly sure there are companies doing worse/better in this regard, but at least it's moving in the right direction.
- bittermandel 2y agoWe're definitely heading in the right direction! Our company's biggest remaining problem is finding a reliable IdP that isn't primarily for individuals, self-hosted or based on Active Directory. There are some alternatives, but they are mainly country-specific (like Freja) or not well integrated enough with e.g. OAuth. We've considered at some point to pivot our company to focus on a fully European IdP, as we feel it's a fundamental missing puzzle piece!
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- bittermandel 2y agoOdd, why was this post removed from the front page? There's older and less active posts there.
- cpach 2y agoAmusing to see all the comments complaining there is no 100% European tech stach covering everything from servers, CPUs, motherboards to laptops and office/word processing suites. That is true, but none of those are 100% from US (or China) either. It’s almost as if our global economy is a complex beast with lots of interdepencies… My advice: Go read the seminal “I, Pencil” essay from the 50s. Now do the same exercise witha computer system that involves both hardware and software.
- ksec 2y agoCan someone ELI5 what is Cloud Native ?
- ksec 2y agoInteresting to see on Front page I tried submitting UpCloud to HN so many times I gave up on it. One of the best part of UpCloud is their flexible plan. You could have something like 64 Core and 8 or 16 GB Memory with very little storage and the whole thing is charged by the hour. You can have a 64 Core server that is under $700 USD a month. If you only care about CPU core that is reaching dedicated server pricing without long term commitments while having the flexibility. Edit: I cant remember if they are real CPU core or vCPU as one 1 thread. Some vendor in the past few years started to use vCPU as single Core only. Some dont.
- silexia 2y agoThe EU has censorship laws that will control what you can publish.
- prometheon1 2y agoIn case anyone else has trouble finding info on RBAC, roles, users, IAM: this is called "subaccounts"