The verdict
OVHcloud is Europe's largest hosting and cloud provider, operating over 30 data centers worldwide. It manufactures its own servers and offers everything from budget VPS to bare-metal dedicated servers with strong European data-sovereignty guarantees.
The full picture
OVHcloud is Europe's largest cloud provider and one of the very few hosts anywhere that designs and builds its own servers, its own water-cooling systems and its own data centres. Founded in Roubaix, France in 1999 by Octave Klaba, it now operates more than thirty data centres on four continents and over 450,000 physical servers, and it owns its fibre backbone rather than renting transit.
That vertical integration is why OVHcloud dedicated servers cost a fraction of what the same hardware costs elsewhere, and it is also why the company can credibly offer a sovereign European cloud that is not subject to the United States CLOUD Act. For GDPR-sensitive workloads and European public sector buyers, that distinction is the entire purchase decision.
The weakness is service. Support is ticket-first, documentation is uneven in English, the control panel is functional rather than friendly, and the 2021 Strasbourg data centre fire — which destroyed a building and damaged another — exposed how many customers had assumed backups were automatic when they were not. OVHcloud is excellent value and it expects you to know what you are doing.
What you get
- 30+ global data centers
- Self-manufactured hardware
- GDPR-compliant EU hosting
- Anti-DDoS included
- Public & private cloud
Every hosting type it sells
| Product | From | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Web hosting | $3.50/mo | Shared plans with a free domain, aimed at European small business. |
| VPS | $5.50/mo | KVM instances with anti-DDoS included as standard. |
| Public cloud | Hourly | OpenStack compute, object storage, managed Kubernetes and databases. |
| Dedicated servers | $65/mo | Rise, Advance, Scale and High Grade ranges, often the cheapest bare metal in Europe. |
| Hosted Private Cloud | Custom | VMware, Nutanix and SAP HANA on dedicated infrastructure. |
Plans & pricing
- 1 vCPU
- 2 GB RAM
- 2 vCPU
- 4 GB RAM
What the price actually costs you
- Dedicated server pricing is among the lowest in the market for equivalent hardware.
- Setup fees apply to some dedicated ranges — check before ordering.
- Public cloud is billed hourly with published rates and generous included bandwidth in Europe.
- There is no blanket money-back guarantee; consumer web hosting has a statutory withdrawal period in the EU.
Technical specification
| Control panel | OVHcloud Manager, plus API and Terraform provider; cPanel/Plesk optional on dedicated |
|---|---|
| Storage | NVMe and SSD depending on range, plus object and block storage |
| Anti-DDoS | Included free on every product, with multi-terabit scrubbing capacity |
| Networking | Owned fibre backbone with 100Tbps+ capacity and private vRack networking |
| Operating systems | Linux distributions, Windows Server, VMware and custom images on dedicated |
| Backups | Backup storage and snapshots available, mostly opt-in rather than default |
| Compliance | ISO 27001, SOC 1/2, HDS health data, PCI DSS, GDPR by design |
| Sovereignty | European-owned and operated, outside United States CLOUD Act reach |
| Support | Ticket-based standard support, paid premium and enterprise tiers |
| Uptime SLA | 99.9% to 99.99% depending on product |
Performance in practice
On dedicated servers OVHcloud is exceptional value — you get real hardware, a huge bandwidth allowance and a well-peered network for a price that undercuts almost everyone. Public cloud and VPS performance is solid rather than class-leading, and the shared web hosting tier is the weakest part of the catalogue. The owned backbone means European latency is excellent; North American and Asian coverage exists but is thinner than the hyperscalers.
Infrastructure & support
Support channels
- Ticket system
- Phone support (by region)
- Community forum
- Professional services
Data centers
- France (Roubaix, Gravelines)
- Germany
- Poland
- Canada
- Singapore
- Australia
- United States
Security & compliance
- Unmetered anti-DDoS protection included on every product at no cost
- Private vRack networking between servers across data centres
- European data sovereignty with GDPR-aligned contracts and no CLOUD Act exposure
- ISO 27001, SOC 2, PCI DSS and HDS certifications across facilities
- Backup and snapshot services are available but must be configured deliberately
Moving a site in
No managed migration service for most products. Dedicated and VPS customers move their own workloads, though OVHcloud provides IP failover and vRack tooling that makes cutovers easier than average. Professional services are available on enterprise contracts.
The trade-off
In its favour
- Strong EU data privacy stance
- Very competitive dedicated pricing
- Massive global capacity
Worth knowing
- Interface less refined than US rivals
- Support quality varies by region
Who should look elsewhere
- Beginners who need guided support and a friendly panel
- Anyone who assumes backups are automatic — they must be configured
- Workloads that need deep managed-service catalogues
- Buyers whose audience is primarily in Asia or Latin America
The company behind it
| Ownership | Publicly listed on Euronext Paris, Klaba family remains majority holder |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Roubaix, France |
| Founded | 1999 by Octave Klaba |
| Scale | 450,000+ servers, 1.6 million customers in 140 countries |
| Notable | Builds its own servers, water cooling and fibre backbone |
How it got here
- 1999 Founded in Roubaix by Octave Klaba.
- 2003 Pioneers low-cost dedicated servers with in-house water cooling.
- 2016 Launches a public cloud built on OpenStack.
- 2021 A fire destroys the SBG2 data centre in Strasbourg, prompting an industry-wide rethink of backup assumptions.
- 2021 Lists on Euronext Paris as Europe's sovereign cloud champion.
Common questions
Is OVHcloud good for GDPR compliance?
Yes, its EU-based data centers make it a popular choice for GDPR-sensitive projects.
The bottom line
The best value in European infrastructure, especially on bare metal, and the obvious answer when data sovereignty is a requirement rather than a preference. Configure your own backups on day one, and be comfortable operating without hand-holding.