Compare Contabo Object Storage and Seeweb on capabilities, jurisdiction, assurance, and fit for European buyers.
Both listed as alternatives to: DigitalOcean
Germany· Cloud Computing
Needs review
Shortlist when you want a Ceph S3 bucket next to Contabo VPS or VDS, can use path-style endpoints, and can live without S3 logging. Skip when you need Amazon-complete S3, a first-party custom TLS hostname, company-wide ISO 27001 or SOC 2, or a store with no US parent and no US region. Consider Hetzner Object Storage or OVHcloud Object Storage instead.
Italy· Cloud Computing
Needs review
Shortlist Seeweb when you want Italian-operated IaaS with KVM cloud servers, NVIDIA/AMD GPU capacity, managed Kubernetes, and ACN-qualified product scope—plus European data-center choices under DHH Group ownership. Skip when you need global hyperscaler PaaS breadth or many continents of regions; consider OVHcloud, Scaleway, or Aruba Cloud instead for scale or alternate Italian sovereign stacks.
Highlighted rows differ between the two products.
| Feature | Contabo Object Storage | Seeweb |
|---|---|---|
| Country of origin | Germany | Italy |
| Category | Cloud Computing | Cloud Computing |
| Open source | No | No |
| Self-hosted | No | No |
| Headquarters | Germany | Italy |
| Legal entity | Contabo GmbH (Welfenstrasse 22, 81541 Munich; AG Munich HRB 180722; VAT DE267602842) | Seeweb S.r.l. (p.IVA/C.F. 02043220603); fully owned by DHH S.p.A. |
| US parent / control | US parent or control | No known US parent |
| CLOUD Act exposure (indicative) | High | Low |
| Hosting / residency | Object storage sold in the EU (eu2.contabostorage.com), United States (usc1.contabostorage.com), and Singapore (sin1.contabostorage.com). Contabo operates its own data centers. No public object-storage subprocessor list. Management API auth is at auth.contabo.com. Official custom-domain docs use Cloudflare as an optional customer-side proxy, not as the S3 data plane. | Primary: Seeweb proprietary data centers in Milan and Frosinone (Italy). Additional cloud sites: Lugano (Swisscom facility), Zurich (Global Data Centers Switzerland AG), Sofia (Evolink). DR/backup marketed within Europe. No AWS/GCP/Azure as primary cloud host found on public pages. Network transit via multi-carrier mix (including Cogent, GTT, NTT) for connectivity. |
| Summary | S3-compatible object storage from Munich-based Contabo GmbH, running on Ceph with EU, US, and Singapore endpoints. | Italian cloud and data-center provider (DHH Group): KVM cloud servers, NVIDIA/AMD GPU for AI, managed Kubernetes, VPC, and storage on European sites including proprietary Milan and Frosinone facilities. |
| Tags |
| At a glance | Contabo Object Storage | Seeweb |
|---|---|---|
| HQ | Munich, Germany (Contabo GmbH, HRB 180722) | Not listed |
| Product | Hosted Ceph S3 object storage | Not listed |
| S3 regions | EU (eu2), United States (usc1), Singapore (sin1) | Not listed |
| Addressing | Path-style; HTTPS only | Not listed |
| Commercial model | Purchased capacity with optional auto-scale; no per-GB egress on Contabo's stated model | Pay-as-you-go / consumption (SPU & hourly GPU); no public free tier |
| Ownership | KKR majority (2022), Oakley Capital Fund V minority | 100% DHH S.p.A. (Euronext Growth Milan) since 2020 |
| HQ / legal entity | Not listed | Seeweb S.r.l. — Frosinone & Milan, Italy |
| Founded | Not listed | 1998 |
| Hosting regions | Not listed | IT (Milan, Frosinone), CH (Lugano, Zurich), BG (Sofia) |
| Core products | Not listed | Cloud Server, GPU, SKS Kubernetes, VPC, storage, colocation |
| Self-host product | Not listed | No — managed IaaS / DC services |
| Key capabilities | Contabo Object Storage | Seeweb |
|---|---|---|
| S3-compatible (partial) | Yes | Not listed |
| Ceph backend | Yes | Not listed |
| EU region available | Yes | Not listed |
| German GmbH | Yes | Not listed |
| In-panel DPA | Yes | Not listed |
| Italian operator (DHH) | Not listed | Yes |
| NVIDIA + AMD GPU cloud | Not listed | Yes |
| Managed Kubernetes (SKS) | Not listed | Yes |
| ACN QI2/QC2 (claimed) | Not listed | Yes |
| ISO 27001 (claimed) | Not listed | Yes |
| CISPE registered | Not listed | Yes |
Ceph S3 API with path-style buckets
Contabo states the store is Ceph-based and largely S3 compatible, not fully equivalent to Amazon S3. Logging is not supported. Official tool notes require Contabo S3 URLs, path-style buckets, and access_key/secret_key mapped to aws_access_key_id/aws_secret_access_key.
EU, US, and Singapore S3 endpoints
Documented base URLs are eu2.contabostorage.com (European Union), usc1.contabostorage.com (United States), and sin1.contabostorage.com (Singapore). The management API allows one object-storage purchase per location. All locations on an account share the same S3 credentials.
Bucket versioning and Object Lock
Versioning is enabled per bucket via s3api put-bucket-versioning on the regional endpoint. Suspending versioning stops new versions but does not delete old ones. Object Lock can be turned on at bucket creation (example uses GOVERNANCE mode) so objects cannot be overwritten or deleted for a retention period.
Capacity auto-scale via management API
The Contabo API (not the S3 API) orders, upgrades, cancels, and auto-scales purchased space up to a monthly size limit. Usage statistics are exposed there. The open-source cntb CLI (GPL-3.0) wraps the same management API. S3 keys come from the User Management API or the Object Storage panel.
Published client list and hard limits
Documented working tools include cntb, aws cli, rclone, Cyberduck, goofys, s3fs-fuse, s3cmd, WinSCP, Cloudberry Explorer, BucketAnywhere, Virtualmin, Velero, and Plesk. FileZilla Pro is listed as incompatible. Defaults include 5 TB max object size, 100 buckets, 3 million objects (increasable on request), 250 requests per second, and 10 MByte/s default bandwidth.
KVM Cloud Servers with dedicated resources
Cloud Server is a KVM virtual machine with dedicated CPU, RAM, and SAN-backed storage, N+1 style redundancy messaging, and guaranteed 1 Gbps bandwidth class. Scale vertically (add CPU/RAM/disk) or horizontally by composing multi-tier stacks. Unmanaged or fully managed by Seeweb engineers—fit for production web, DB, and agency workloads that need predictable isolation rather than noisy shared hosts.
GPU cloud for AI/ML (NVIDIA + AMD)
Cloud Server GPU instances target training, inference, and HPC-style jobs with NVIDIA cards (H100, H200, A100, L40S, RTX A6000, L4 and related) and AMD options including MI300X. Ready-to-use drivers, Terraform support, hourly usage billing, and Spot Instances with a short preemption notice suit bursty or interruptible jobs. Data stays on European sites per vendor GDPR messaging—confirm region per SKU at order time.
Managed Kubernetes Service (SKS)
SKS is Kubernetes-as-a-Service with a HA control plane, worker sizing you design with Seeweb, CSI storage (Vast Data driver on the product page), optional S3-compatible object storage, load balancing, and GPU workers (including MI300X and NVIDIA H-class cards). Aimed at teams that want orchestration without running etcd themselves; Proactive Support tiers add predictive monitoring for production clusters.
VPC, Foundation Server, and hybrid DC footprint
Virtual Private Cloud builds private infrastructures on VMware or Proxmox; Foundation Server targets dedicated bare-metal-style capacity for business-critical virtualization. Combine with housing/colocation in Milan and Frosinone plus European partner sites for DR. Useful when you need private networking and dedicated hosts under the same Italian operator rather than public multi-tenant only.
ACN-qualified IaaS and CISPE EU residency claims
Seeweb publishes ACN CSP qualification (QI2 infrastructure; QC2 for Foundation Server Pro, VPC, Shared CPU/High Memory cloud, and AI/supercomputing infrastructures) for Italian public administration procurement. CISPE Code of Conduct registration is used to assert customer data stored exclusively in European territories. Pair these claims with your own DPIA—they are procurement signals, not a substitute for a signed DPA.
| Assurance & compliance | Contabo Object Storage | Seeweb |
|---|---|---|
| Independent security / no-logs audit | Not found Searched About, help, and product docs. No public independent audit PDF for Object Storage. | Not applicable IaaS/data-center provider—not a consumer no-logs VPN. Assurance is via ISO/ISMS and sector qualifications rather than a no-logs report. |
| ISO 27001 | Partial Some Contabo location marketing pages list colocation-facility ISO 27001 (for example Singapore). No company-wide Contabo ISO 27001 certificate found. | Vendor claimed Vendor certifications page: ISO/IEC 27001:2022, AXE REGISTER cert IT18-27702D, valid until 28 Nov 2027; locations Milan & Frosinone. Re-verify serial in procurement. |
| SOC 2 / SOC 3 | Not found No Contabo-issued SOC 2 or SOC 3 report found. Facility-level SOC marks on some non-EU location pages are not treated as a Contabo attestation. | Not found No SOC 2/3 report advertised on the official certifications page at research time. |
| GDPR / EU data protection | Vendor claimed EU legal entity; DPA available in the Customer Control Panel and listed as covering Object Storage. EU region is optional, not exclusive. | Vendor claimed Italian controller/processor entity, European hosting messaging, privacy policy, ISO 27018 claim, CISPE; confirm DPA for your processing roles. |
| US CLOUD Act exposure (indicative) | Partial Contabo GmbH is German, but KKR (US) has been the majority investor since June 2022 and Contabo sells a US object-storage region. Not legal advice. | Partial Italian Seeweb S.r.l., Italian DHH parent, no known US parent; primary hosting on European DCs (not AWS/GCP/Azure). Third-party Swiss/BG facilities and global transit carriers exist. Indicative only—not legal advice. |
| Data processing agreement (B2B) | Vendor claimed Customer Control Panel wizard. Object Storage is an explicit covered service. Review the generated PDF. | Vendor claimed Art. 28 DPA language used for Seeweb-operated services (e.g. published for Regolo); request current signed DPA + TOMs + subprocessors for core cloud/IaaS contracts. |
| EU AI Act | Not applicable Object storage IaaS, not an AI system. | Partial Infrastructure/GPU provider and Rethic.AI partnership messaging; AI Act duties mainly fall on customer AI systems. Not a full provider high-risk AI assessment by EuropeanStack. |
| ISO/IEC 27017 (cloud security) | Not listed | Vendor claimed Appendix to ISO 27001 certificate on certifications page; same validity window stated. |
| ISO/IEC 27018 (cloud PII) | Not listed | Vendor claimed Appendix to ISO 27001 certificate on certifications page; same validity window stated. |
| CISPE Data Protection Code of Conduct | Not listed | Vendor claimed Vendor states CISPE registry presence and European data storage under the Code (since 31 May 2017 on certifications page). |
| ACN Qualified CSP (QI2/QC2) | Not listed | Vendor claimed IaaS qualification for Italian PA; QI2 infrastructure and QC2 for listed products including AI/supercomputing infrastructures (19 Jan 2023 on certifications page). |
| CSA STAR Level 1 | Not listed | Vendor claimed Stated for Virtual Private Cloud and Foundation Server PRO (6 July 2022 on certifications page). |
| Considerations & known limitations | Contabo Object Storage | Seeweb |
|---|---|---|
| US private-equity majority owner | High Oakley Capital announced in June 2022 that KKR would be majority investor, with Oakley Fund V retaining a minority stake. Treat CLOUD Act exposure as high at the ownership layer even when objects sit on eu2.contabostorage.com. | Not listed |
| Optional United States object region | Medium usc1.contabostorage.com is a first-party SKU. Shared credentials across locations make it easy to point a client at the US endpoint by mistake. Pin the EU URL if residency is a hard requirement. | Not listed |
| Partial S3 compatibility | Medium Contabo states the Ceph API is not fully compatible with AWS S3. Logging is unsupported. Path-style addressing is required. FileZilla Pro does not work. Test SDK features before migrating production. | Not listed |
| Default request and bandwidth caps | Medium Published defaults include 250 API requests per second, 10 MByte/s bandwidth, 100 buckets, and 3 million objects. Auto-scale increases purchased terabytes, not those caps. | Not listed |
| No public company-wide audit | Medium No independent Object Storage audit, Contabo-issued ISO 27001, or SOC 2 report was found. Facility ISO/SOC marks on some location pages are not a substitute. | Not listed |
| No first-party custom TLS hostname | Low HTTPS-only S3 endpoints reject a simple CNAME. Public websites need a customer-operated reverse proxy. Public-to-private ACL changes may remain cached for up to one hour. | Not listed |
| Smaller global footprint than hyperscalers | Not listed | Medium Region set is European (IT/CH/BG) with a mid-size operator catalog. Multi-continent apps or niche managed PaaS may force multi-cloud or a larger EU peer. |
| Certifications are vendor-published | Not listed | Low ISO and ACN claims include certificate numbers and dates on seeweb.it, but EuropeanStack did not re-download every registry PDF. Re-verify serials and scope statements in formal assurance reviews. |
| No single public subprocessor register found | Not listed | Medium Facility partners and network carriers are described on DC pages, but a consolidated customer-content subprocessor list was not found as one public document. Request annex under NDA for regulated workloads. |
| GPU Spot Instances can be interrupted | Not listed | Low Vendor documents ~2-minute notice before Spot termination when On-Demand needs capacity. Architect batch/checkpointing; do not run sole critical control planes only on Spot. |
| Some sites use third-party data centers | Not listed | Low Lugano, Zurich, and Sofia are presented via partner facilities (Swisscom, Global Data Centers Switzerland AG, Evolink). Italy-only residency must be contracted explicitly if required. |
When: You want a German hoster's object store with an EU-concentrated footprint and no US majority PE owner
Consider: Hetzner Object Storage
Contabo's own comparison places Hetzner object storage in European data centers and notes a thinner APAC story.
When: You need a broader EU compliance portfolio (ISO 27001, SecNumCloud) more than a simple capacity bill
Consider: OVHcloud Object Storage
Billing and product surface are more complex than Contabo's single-account IaaS stack.
When: You need managed Kubernetes or managed Postgres next to S3, not just raw buckets
Consider: Scaleway Object Storage
France-first footprint. Contabo does not sell first-party managed databases or Kubernetes.
When: You need Amazon-complete S3 (logging, IAM, global regions) and will accept a US cloud
Consider: Amazon S3
Use Contabo only after you have tested the Ceph compatibility gaps against your SDK.
When: You need a large multi-country European cloud with denser product catalog and strong self-service DX
Consider: OVHcloud or Scaleway
Broader regions and developer tooling; less Italian ACN-specific packaging than Seeweb.
When: You want another Italian sovereign cloud with mass-market public-cloud SKUs
Consider: Aruba Cloud
Closest national peer; compare GPU/K8s maturity and PA qualification details side by side.
When: You mainly need simple self-service VMs/storage at aggressive commercial terms without Italian PA focus
Consider: Hetzner
Strong for general-purpose EU VMs; different compliance and support model.
When: You require global enterprise PaaS and marketplace ecosystems
Consider: AWS or Microsoft Azure
Accept US-group cloud and CLOUD Act exposure tradeoffs for breadth.