Why This Comparison Matters in 2025
For a European company, choosing between AWS and OVH Cloud is not simply a question of price. It touches on data sovereignty, regulatory compliance (GDPR, HDS, SecNumCloud), and exposure to US extraterritorial laws. The CLOUD Act (Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act, 2018) authorises US authorities to compel an American company to disclose data stored outside the United States — including in Europe. AWS, a subsidiary of Amazon (a US company), is legally subject to the CLOUD Act, even when its data centres are located in Paris or Frankfurt.
OVH, a French company founded in Roubaix in 1999, is subject exclusively to European law. Its data centres are in France, Germany, Poland, and Canada. For sectors with strict data localisation requirements (healthcare, defence, public sector, banking, insurance), this difference is fundamental.
Comparison Table — 10 Key Criteria
| Criterion | AWS | OVH Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| Compute (VM) | EC2 — 750+ instance types | Public Cloud — 50+ types |
| Object Storage | S3 — $0.023/GB/month (eu-west-1) | Object Storage S3-compatible — €0.0079/GB/month |
| Managed Kubernetes | EKS — $0.10/h per cluster | MKS — free (control plane included) |
| Managed Databases | RDS, Aurora, DynamoDB, Redshift... | MySQL, PostgreSQL, Redis, Kafka, MongoDB |
| CDN | CloudFront — 410+ global PoPs | OVH CDN — 30+ PoPs (Europe focus) |
| Egress fees | $0.09/GB to internet | €0 (included) |
| Compute SLA | 99.99% (multi-AZ) | 99.99% (multi-zone) |
| Technical Support | Business: $100/month min. Enterprise: $15,000/month min. | Business: €69/month. Enterprise: €1,000/month |
| Compliance certifications | ISO 27001, SOC 2, PCI-DSS, HIPAA, CSA STAR | ISO 27001, HDS, SecNumCloud, PCI-DSS, GDPR-native |
| Sovereignty | Subject to CLOUD Act (US entity) | Anti-CLOUD Act — European law only |
OVH Cloud Advantages
Zero Egress Fees
This is one of OVH's most significant advantages at scale. AWS charges $0.09/GB for outbound data transfers to the internet (eu-west-1). For a company transferring 100 TB per month, this amounts to $9,000/month in egress fees alone. OVH includes outbound traffic at no extra charge — a considerable saving for content-heavy applications or large data pipelines.
SecNumCloud: The French Sovereignty Certification
SecNumCloud is the ANSSI (French National Cybersecurity Agency) reference framework for cloud service providers. SecNumCloud qualification guarantees immunity from extraterritorial laws (including the CLOUD Act) and is required for sensitive French state information systems and operators of vital importance (OIV). OVH holds this qualification on its "Hosted Private Cloud powered by VMware" offering; AWS has not obtained SecNumCloud to date.
Predictable Pricing, Proprietary Hardware
OVH designs and manufactures its own servers, enabling it to control its cost structure and offer transparent pricing. OVH's pricing model is monthly and flat-rate for most services, making budgeting straightforward.
AWS Advantages
An Ecosystem of 300+ Managed Services
AWS offers more than 300 managed services covering compute, storage, databases, AI/ML, networking, security, IoT, blockchain, and more. OVH offers approximately 50 services. This ecosystem depth is decisive for projects requiring advanced services: Amazon SageMaker for ML, AWS Step Functions for workflow orchestration, Amazon Bedrock for LLMs, or AWS IoT Core for industrial projects.
Global Reach and Operational Maturity
AWS has 33 geographic regions (as of 2025) spread across all continents, compared to 5 availability zones for OVH. For an international SaaS product, this reach is indispensable. AWS also benefits from 15 years of operational history, comprehensive documentation, a massive community, and a partner network (APN) of over 100,000 companies worldwide.
ISV Integrations and Solution Marketplace
AWS Marketplace offers more than 10,000 pre-integrated third-party solutions (security tools, commercial databases, management software). This richness of integrations considerably reduces implementation time for complex solutions.
Technical Comparison: Managed Kubernetes
OVH MKS (Managed Kubernetes Service) and AWS EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Service) both offer managed Kubernetes clusters, but with notable differences.
| Criterion | OVH MKS | AWS EKS |
|---|---|---|
| Control plane cost | Free | $0.10/h (~$72/month) |
| Supported K8s versions | Latest N-2 versions | Latest N-2 versions |
| Auto-scaling | Yes (Cluster Autoscaler) | Yes (Cluster Autoscaler + Karpenter) |
| Network integration | OVH vRack | Native VPC, AWS CNI |
| Managed Ingress | NGINX Ingress Controller | AWS Load Balancer Controller (ALB) |
| Image registry | Shared Image Registry (Harbor) | Amazon ECR |
S3 API Compatibility: An Advantage for OVH
OVH Object Storage is compatible with the AWS S3 API. This means your applications using the AWS S3 SDK will work on OVH Object Storage with a simple endpoint change. This compatibility facilitates multi-cloud strategies and reduces vendor lock-in risk.
# AWS CLI configuration for OVH Object Storage (S3-compatible)
aws configure set aws_access_key_id YOUR_OVH_ACCESS_KEY
aws configure set aws_secret_access_key YOUR_OVH_SECRET_KEY
# Use OVH endpoint instead of AWS
aws s3 ls s3://my-bucket --endpoint-url https://s3.gra.io.cloud.ovh.net --region graClient Story: French Healthcare Company Moves from AWS to OVH
A French healthcare software publisher (shared patient record system, network of 400 establishments) migrated its production environments from AWS eu-west-1 to OVH HDS-certified Hosted Private Cloud in 2024. Results:
- 40% infrastructure cost reduction (primarily through elimination of egress fees and predictable OVH pricing)
- Obtained HDS (Hébergeur de Données de Santé) certification — mandatory since 2019 for hosting personal health data
- Strengthened GDPR compliance: data exclusively in France, no CLOUD Act exposure
- Maintained Kubernetes architecture (reverse MKS migration) with less than 2 weeks of effort thanks to S3 compatibility and portable Kubernetes manifests
Workload Decision Matrix
| Workload type | Recommendation | Main reason |
|---|---|---|
| Healthcare data (HDS) | OVH | HDS certification, CLOUD Act immunity |
| Public sector / critical operators | OVH (SecNumCloud) | ANSSI qualification required |
| International multi-region SaaS | AWS | 33 regions, global CDN, controlled latency |
| Advanced AI / ML | AWS | SageMaker, Bedrock, managed AI services |
| Standard K8s applications | OVH or AWS | Kubernetes portability — choose based on budget and sovereignty |
| Hybrid (EU regulated data + global reach) | OVH + AWS | Multi-cloud: OVH for sensitive data, AWS for global services |
Conclusion: Not a Binary Choice
OVH and AWS are not mutually exclusive. Many mature European companies adopt a multi-cloud strategy: OVH for regulated data and primarily European workloads (storage, compute, Kubernetes), AWS for advanced services (AI/ML, IoT, analytics), global reach, and ISV integrations. This approach optimises costs, meets regulatory requirements, and avoids total lock-in with a single provider. Move2Cloud is proficient with both platforms and can guide you in designing a multi-cloud strategy tailored to your constraints.