OVHcloud vs Azure: EU Sovereignty Against Enterprise Integration (2026)
OVHcloud is the only EU-headquartered provider in this catalog and the only one that includes unlimited outbound bandwidth as standard. Azure is the opposite proposition: US-headquartered, with EU regions, an EU data boundary, and the broadest enterprise stack here. This page prices both against one workload — and keeps the residency question separate from the cost one, because they have different answers.
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OVHcloud
OVHcloud BenchmarkMicrosoft Azure
Azure BenchmarkOVHcloud vs Azure Feature & Capability Matrix
Pricing rows are computed live from the current catalogs, not hand-typed — they'll never silently go stale.
| Feature / Capability | OVHcloud | Microsoft Azure | Advantage |
|---|---|---|---|
Internet egress (10 TB/mo) Networking | Unlimited (fair use, free) | $0.0870/GB effective | OVHcloud |
Free egress allowance Networking | Unlimited | None | OVHcloud |
Hot object storage ($/GB-mo) Storage | $0.0078/GB-mo | $0.0208/GB-mo | OVHcloud |
Archive storage ($/GB-mo) Storage | $0.0027/GB-mo | $0.0010/GB-mo | Azure |
Object storage tiers offered Storage | 2 tiers | 4 tiers | Azure |
Managed Kubernetes control plane (1st cluster) Kubernetes | Free (1st cluster) | Free (1st cluster) | Tie |
Cheapest 4 vCPU / 16 GB Linux instance Compute | $166.22/mo (b3-32) | $125.56/mo (Standard_D4as_v5) | Azure |
Deepest 3-year reserved discount Compute | 35% off on-demand | 60% off on-demand | Azure |
Spot / preemptible instances Compute | Not offered | ~80% off on-demand | Azure |
Managed SQL Server Database | OVHcloud Public Cloud Databases covers PostgreSQL and MySQL — no managed SQL Server. | Offered | Azure |
Windows Server on compute Compute | Offered | Offered | Tie |
Load balancer Networking | $12.34/mo | $18.25/mo | OVHcloud |
Static IPv4 address Networking | $1.97/mo | $2.92/mo | OVHcloud |
Corporate domicile Compliance | EU-headquartered (France) | US-headquartered, with EU regions and an EU data boundary | OVHcloud |
Outbound bandwidth Networking | Unlimited and free on every plan (fair use) | Metered from the first gigabyte | OVHcloud |
Managed service breadth Platform | Narrower catalog and fewer managed engines | Very broad catalog including managed SQL Server | Azure |
Currency of record Billing | EUR list prices, shown here FX-converted at the ECB reference rate | USD list prices | Tie |
Cost Comparison Matrix
Side-by-Side Cost Matrix Monthly & Annual TCO
Comparing line-item equivalents across AWS us-east-1 (N. Virginia), Azure East US, GCP us-east1 (South Carolina).
Amazon Web Services
us-east-1 (N. Virginia)💡 Graviton3/4 arm64 processors offer up to 20% lower price/performance.
| Provider | Compute | Storage | Database | Network | Monthly TCO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
AWS us-east-1 (N. Virginia) | $49/mo t4g.medium | $12/mo Amazon S3 (HOT) | $61/mo RDS/Aurora db.t4g.medium | $155/mo AWS Data Transfer & ELB | $277 $3,322/yr |
Azure East US | $126/mo Standard_D2as_v5 | $11/mo Azure Blob Storage (HOT) | $112/mo Azure Database Flexible Server D2ds_v5 | $152/mo Azure Data Transfer & Load Balancer | $399 $4,794/yr |
GCP us-east1 (South Carolina) | $98/mo e2-standard-2 | $10/mo Google Cloud Storage (HOT) | $93/mo Cloud SQL db-custom-2-7680 | $201/mo Google Cloud Data Transfer & Load Balancer | $402 $4,823/yr |
Cost Comparison Visualizer
Visual TCO breakdown across 3 selected providers.
Cloud Optimization Insights
Actionable techniques to decrease your infrastructure bill, per selected provider.
Migrate general-purpose workloads to AWS Graviton3/4 processors for up to 20% better price/performance compared to standard x86 instances.
If your organization owns on-premises Windows Server or SQL Server licenses with Software Assurance, apply them to Azure VMs for up to 40% savings.
Avoid paying for predefined instance shapes. Google Cloud allows custom vCPU & memory ratios tailored specifically to your exact application footprint.
Infrastructure Spec Configurator
Customize workload specs to update the matrix dynamically.
Workload Growth & Traffic Scale Simulator
Project non-linear cost curves at 2x, 5x, or 10x production capacity.
FinOps Commitment & Cash-Flow Advisor
OVHcloud vs Azure — Frequently Asked Questions
Is OVHcloud cheaper than Azure?
On compute it prices at the developer-cloud end of the catalog rather than the hyperscaler end, and on bandwidth the comparison stops being close: outbound transfer is unlimited and free on every OVHcloud Public Cloud plan, where Azure meters from the first gigabyte. Two caveats belong in the same sentence — OVHcloud publishes in EUR, and the figures here are converted at the ECB reference rate recorded at sync time, which is why this provider carries an FX-converted label rather than a plain live one.
Does an EU-headquartered provider settle GDPR compliance?
It removes a class of question rather than answering all of them. Being EU-headquartered means corporate control, support access and legal process sit inside the EU, which is the part that a US provider’s EU region does not change. It does not by itself determine whether your processing is lawful — contracts, sub-processors, data categories and your regulator all still matter. What it can do is make the analysis shorter. This is a pricing site, not legal advice; confirm the current position with the providers themselves.
What does Azure offer that OVHcloud does not?
Breadth, and the enterprise machinery around it: managed SQL Server, a much larger catalog of specialized instance types, identity integration with Entra ID, the widest compliance certification portfolio in this comparison, and hybrid tooling for on-premises estates. If any of those are hard requirements, Azure is the answer regardless of the price delta — the honest comparison is then between Azure and the other hyperscalers.
Which is better for a data-heavy European workload?
If the workload ships large volumes outward and does not depend on Microsoft-specific services, OVHcloud’s unlimited egress plus EU domicile is a hard combination to beat, and it removes work as well as cost — there is no CDN offload to justify. If the workload depends on managed services OVHcloud does not offer, or on hyperscaler-grade compliance artifacts, the savings rarely justify rebuilding the stack.