EU Sovereignty Score
Non-EU vendorCloud IaaSHeadquarters: US

Amazon Web Services: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is Amazon's cloud platform, offering infrastructure and platform services on demand. Its portfolio includes compute, storage, databases, networking, analytics, security and identity, developer tools, artificial intelligence and customer-contact applications. Customers range from start-ups and large enterprises to government agencies. The services are used through a web console and APIs and can be combined with on-premises, hybrid or edge setups. AWS is not open source.

AWS is a subsidiary of the US company Amazon. Services run in multiple regions worldwide, including Europe, so customers can choose where their data is stored. In January 2026 AWS also launched the AWS European Sovereign Cloud, a separate environment within the EU, with a first region in Brandenburg, Germany. According to AWS, it is operated by EU-resident staff and German subsidiaries. The parent company remains American, so you should assess whether US legislation such as the CLOUD Act is relevant to your data.

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Sovereignty score
27 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign
  • Jurisdiction SOV-210
    Headquartered in the US: CLOUD Act and FISA 702
  • Data residency SOV-350
    Hosting inside and outside Europe (US, EU, APAC)
  • Cryptographic key sovereignty SOV-320
    Key management with a non-European vendor
  • Freedom from lock-in SOV-640
    Closed source: switching requires data migration
  • Source & runtime sovereignty SOV-4 · SOV-615
    Closed source, runtime with the vendor

SOV codes: the matching objective in the European Commission's Cloud Sovereignty Framework. Official source

How the score is calculated

Facts and evidence

Last checked October 1, 2026
HeadquartersUS (US)Verified by hand
EU adequacy decisionOnly for companies individually certified under the EU-US Data Privacy FrameworkVerified by hand
Sovereignty modelVendor-hosted (non-EU)Verified by hand
Data hostingUS, EU, APACVerified by hand
Open-sourceNoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliantYesVendor-stated
Compliance documents3 published, see belowVendor-stated
Hosting signalAMAZON-02 - Amazon.com, Inc., US (US)Technically measured
CategoryCloud IaaS
TypeProduct
Websiteaws.amazon.com ↗

The hosting signal shows the network that serves the vendor's website, often a CDN, and not necessarily where the service or your data is hosted. How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to Amazon Web Services

The European alternatives to Amazon Web Services come from our knowledge base of over 6,200 vendors. We only list vendors headquartered in the EU or the EEA; fully European-owned vendors rank before vendors with a foreign owner. For each alternative you see the country, the open-source status and a short description.

Score per alternative: 0 = high exposure, 100 = sovereign

84 European Cloud IaaS vendors are in the catalogue. View the whole category · Submit an alternative · View category on the map

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Why digital sovereignty matters with Amazon Web Services

Amazon Web Services is headquartered in the United States. US vendors fall under the CLOUD Act and FISA 702: US authorities can compel access to data, even when that data sits in a European data centre. That is the core of the jurisdictional exposure in our model.

Amazon Web Services hosts data in US, EU, APAC. Exactly what stays within the EU — and what does not — is defined by the vendor's data processing agreement and sub-processor list, not by a setting you control yourself; check those documents for the precise scope, including backups, logs and support access.

Amazon Web Services is closed source and hosted by the vendor. The encryption keys and the runtime sit with the vendor and switching requires data migration. Ask about bring-your-own-key, export options and open standards.

What this means for your organisation depends on your whole stack and context. The free assessment weighs Amazon Web Services together with your other vendors and gives a total score, a heatmap and the main risk drivers.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best European alternative to Amazon Web Services?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Amazon Web Services include OVHcloud, Scaleway and Hetzner. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Amazon Web Services?

Our list of EU alternatives to Amazon Web Services is mostly commercial options. Browse the category on the map for open-source choices.

Is Amazon Web Services GDPR-compliant and where is the data hosted?

Amazon Web Services is headquartered in US and hosts data in US, EU, APAC. The vendor states it is GDPR-compliant, but the data falls under non-EU jurisdiction. For full EU data residency the EU alternatives on this page usually offer more certainty.

Details and sources

Verified by handHeadquarters, owner, hosting locations and licence have been checked by us against public sources. Free of charge and for every vendor, not a paid label. Nothing in this knowledge base is taken over automatically. Last checked on October 1, 2026.

Sources

Public sources used in the latest check of this record.

Compliance evidence

The links below point to the vendor's own public documents. We only record what we found: a missing link means "not found publicly", not "not compliant".

Subprocessor list
aws.amazon.com/compliance/sub-processors/
Security page / trust center
aws.amazon.com/security/
EU hosting documented
aws.amazon.com/about-aws/global-infrastructure/

Provenance of the links above:Vendor-stated

Links checked on September 21, 2026.

Digital sovereignty in Cloud IaaS

Cloud IaaS: Infrastructure as a Service — virtual machines, storage, networking. In this category the choice of vendor determines who has legal access to your data, where that data lives and how easily you can switch later.

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8 European alternatives to Amazon Web Services — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score