Sustainable Substitutes for Hosting/Cloud

Alternatives to AWS and Azure, relying on renewable energy.

Hetzner

Hetzner is a German affordable, high-performance hosting provider based in the EU.

Hetzner is based in Germany, ensuring compliance with GDPR and European privacy and labor regulations.
Hetzner achieves a PUE of 1.13 through innovative cooling and custom-built, low-power servers.
Hetzner powers its data centers with 100% renewable energy (hydropower in Germany, wind power in Finland) and invests in self-generated solar energy.
Hetzner repurposes waste heat and designs servers for minimal energy use and longevity.
Hetzner is fully GDPR-compliant, with transparent data processing agreements and robust technical/organizational measures to protect user data.
Hetzner does not use third-party cookies or trackers, ensuring user privacy.
Hetzner publishes sustainability reports and energy usage data, promoting transparency and accountability.
Website

Infomaniak

Infomaniak is a Swiss hosting provider with strong privacy protections and GDPR compliance.

Infomaniak achieves a PUE of 1.06 through innovative cooling (outside air only) and custom-built, low-power servers.
Infomaniak powers its data centers with 100% renewable energy (60% hydropower, 40% solar/small hydro) and aims to generate 50% of its electricity by 2030.
Infomaniak extends server lifespans to 15 years and repurposes waste heat to warm nearby buildings, minimizing e-waste and energy waste.
Infomaniak is fully GDPR-compliant, with transparent data processing agreements and robust technical/organizational measures to protect user data.
Infomaniak does not use third-party cookies or trackers, ensuring user privacy.
Infomaniak publishes detailed sustainability reports and energy usage data, promoting transparency and accountability.
Infomaniak offsets 200% of CO2 emissions and invests in local renewable energy projects and community initiatives.
Website

OVHCloud

OVHcloud is a French cloud hosting provider with a strong focus on privacy and data sovereignty.

OVHCloud is based in France, ensuring compliance with GDPR and European privacy and labor regulations.
OVHCloud repurposes industrial buildings for data centers and focuses on circular economy practices to minimize e-waste.
OVHCloud commits to data privacy and does not use third-party cookies or trackers.
OVHCloud offers dedicated and private cloud solutions, giving users full control over their data and infrastructure.
OVHCloud provides tools like the Environmental Impact Tracker to help customers understand and reduce their carbon footprint.
OVHCloud does not collect or sell user data, ensuring privacy and security.
OVHCloud targets 100% low-carbon energy (mostly nuclear though) for data centers by 2025, with 92% already achieved.
Website

How to move away from Big Tech Hosting and Cloud Services

Here's a guide on how to easily get away from AWS and Azure.

What often makes Big Tech solutions so compelling, is the fact that they offer a wide variaty of features. So do Azure and AWS. But luckily for almost all their features, the ethical solutions listed above have an adequate alternative in their portfolios or can be enhanced with fitting open-source tools.

  • For object storage you don't have to rely on AWS' S3 or Azure's Blog Storage. Hetzner and the others have you covered.
  • Serverless computing like AWS Lambda or Azure Functions is available with Hetzner and OVHCloud.
  • Instead of AWS RDS the European alternatives support PostgreSQL and MySQL (MariaDB) as managed services, instead of DynamoDB users will have to go with MongoDB or CouchDB. On OVHCloud MongoDB is offered as a managed service. Otherwise users will have to run it on their public cloud or Kubernetes clusters.
  • For CI/CD Pipelines users should go with Sourcehut CI, Woodpecker CI (instance available on ci.codeberg.org) or self-hosted GitLab CI/CD.

Users maybe wont have every feature they need in one place, but that's a positive as it circumvents vendor lock-in and dependency on a single company.