Exoscale vs Seeweb

Compare Exoscale and Seeweb on capabilities, jurisdiction, assurance, and fit for European buyers.

Both listed as alternatives to: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure

Logo: Exoscale

Exoscale

Switzerland· Cloud Computing

Needs review

Shortlist Exoscale when you need multi-country European IaaS (CH/DE/AT/BG/HR zones), managed Kubernetes and open-source DBaaS under a Swiss operator in the A1 Telekom Austria group. Skip when you need hyperscaler global PaaS depth or bare-metal-first catalogs—consider OVHcloud or Scaleway instead, or AWS/Azure/GCP for worldwide regions.

EU/CH zones onlySwiss operator (Akenes SA)Managed Kubernetes (SKS)Managed DBaaSISO 27001/27017/27018 (claimed)Per-second pay-as-you-go
Logo: Seeweb

Seeweb

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.

Italian operator (DHH)NVIDIA + AMD GPU cloudManaged Kubernetes (SKS)ACN QI2/QC2 (claimed)ISO 27001 (claimed)CISPE registered
Exoscale vs Seeweb: Snapshot
FeatureLogo: ExoscaleExoscaleLogo: SeewebSeeweb
Country of originSwitzerlandItaly
CategoryCloud ComputingCloud Computing
Open sourceNoNo
Self-hostedNoNo
HeadquartersSwitzerlandItaly
Legal entityAkenes SA, Boulevard de Grancy 19A, 1006 Lausanne, Switzerland (CHE-423.524.322); member of A1 Digital International GmbH & Co KG / A1 Telekom Austria GroupSeeweb S.r.l. (p.IVA/C.F. 02043220603); fully owned by DHH S.p.A.
Governing lawSwiss law (DPA: canton of Vaud jurisdiction language)Not listed
US parent / controlNo known US parentNo known US parent
CLOUD Act exposure (indicative)MediumLow
Hosting / residencyCustomer compute/storage/SKS on Exoscale European zones (CH-GVA-2, CH-DK-2, DE-FRA-1, DE-MUC-1, AT-VIE-1/2, BG-SOF-1, HR-ZAG-1); DBaaS orchestrated by Aiven Oy (Finland) on Exoscale compute. Client ops third parties include AWS (US) data archival, Twilio (US) auth, PayPal (US) payments—privacy policy states customer-uploaded service data is not sent to those ops providers.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

European public cloud (IaaS) from Swiss operator Akenes SA (A1 Digital): multi-zone compute, managed Kubernetes (SKS), DBaaS, object and block storage, and GPUs across CH, DE, AT, BG, and HR.

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: Exoscale vs Seeweb
At a glanceLogo: ExoscaleExoscaleLogo: SeewebSeeweb
HQLausanne, SwitzerlandNot listed
Legal entityAkenes SA (CHE-423.524.322)Not listed
GroupA1 Digital / A1 Telekom Austria GroupNot listed
HostingEuropean zones only (CH, DE, AT, BG, HR)Not listed
ModelPublic cloud IaaS + managed K8s/DBaaSNot listed
Self-hostNo (managed public cloud)Not listed
HQ / legal entityNot listedSeeweb S.r.l. — Frosinone & Milan, Italy
OwnershipNot listed100% DHH S.p.A. (Euronext Growth Milan) since 2020
FoundedNot listed1998
Hosting regionsNot listedIT (Milan, Frosinone), CH (Lugano, Zurich), BG (Sofia)
Core productsNot listedCloud Server, GPU, SKS Kubernetes, VPC, storage, colocation
Commercial modelNot listedPay-as-you-go / consumption (SPU & hourly GPU); no public free tier
Self-host productNot listedNo — managed IaaS / DC services
Key capabilities: Exoscale vs Seeweb
Key capabilitiesLogo: ExoscaleExoscaleLogo: SeewebSeeweb
EU/CH zones onlyYesNot listed
Swiss operator (Akenes SA)YesNot listed
Managed Kubernetes (SKS)YesNot listed
Managed DBaaSYesNot listed
ISO 27001/27017/27018 (claimed)YesNot listed
Per-second pay-as-you-goYesNot listed
Italian operator (DHH)Not listedYes
NVIDIA + AMD GPU cloudNot listedYes
Managed Kubernetes (SKS)Not listedYes
ACN QI2/QC2 (claimed)Not listedYes
ISO 27001 (claimed)Not listedYes
CISPE registeredNot listedYes

Exoscale

  • Multi-zone European KVM compute

    Launch KVM instances in published zones across Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, and Croatia. Families cover standard, CPU-, memory-, and storage-optimized profiles plus NVIDIA GPU shapes; anti-affinity groups, instance pools, snapshots, custom templates, security groups, and live migration support production patterns. Billed per second with powered-off storage semantics as documented.

  • SKS managed Kubernetes (CNCF certified)

    Scalable Kubernetes Service deploys a managed control plane quickly (vendor claims under about a minute to two minutes). Starter is free without SLA; Pro adds HA control plane, etcd backups, and SLA language. Node pools use Exoscale instance types including GPUs; NLB, CSI storage, autoscaling/Karpenter (Pro), and vanilla CNCF-conformance positioning keep the stack portable.

  • Managed DBaaS on Exoscale compute (Aiven orchestration)

    Managed PostgreSQL, MySQL, Kafka, OpenSearch, Valkey, Grafana, and related engines run as DBaaS with automated backups, plan scaling, and high-availability options. Orchestration subprocessor is Aiven Oy (Finland); database instances run on Exoscale infrastructure in the zone you choose—confirm geo-replication and plan limits in docs before multi-region designs.

  • S3-compatible object storage and block volumes

    Simple Object Storage provides S3-compatible APIs for backups, media, and app assets integrated with Exoscale IAM and zones. Block storage attaches persistent NVMe-class volumes to instances and Kubernetes via CSI for stateful workloads without tying data solely to local disks.

  • IAM, private networks, and automation APIs

    Fine-grained IAM on API keys, private networks, and network load balancers support multi-tier designs. Portal, CLI, API, and Terraform-friendly workflows match common European DevOps practice without requiring a proprietary control language.

Seeweb

  • 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: Exoscale vs Seeweb
Assurance & complianceLogo: ExoscaleExoscaleLogo: SeewebSeeweb
Independent security / control audit
Partial

Vendor states regular independent audits and publishes multi-framework certs via Compliance Center; not a VPN-style no-logs audit. Download current reports under account/NDA for verification.

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
Vendor claimed

Vendor asserts ISO/IEC 27001:2022 ISMS certification since 2018; certificates via Compliance Center.

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.

ISO 27017 (cloud security)
Vendor claimed

Listed on compliance site as certified cloud security controls.

Vendor claimed

Appendix to ISO 27001 certificate on certifications page; same validity window stated.

ISO 27018 (cloud PII)
Vendor claimed

Listed on compliance site for personal data protection in public cloud.

Vendor claimed

Appendix to ISO 27001 certificate on certifications page; same validity window stated.

SOC 2 / SOC 3
Vendor claimed

SOC 2 listed on compliance marketing; obtain report via Compliance Center / NDA.

Not found

No SOC 2/3 report advertised on the official certifications page at research time.

BSI C5
Vendor claimed

BSI C5 listed among national/international standards on compliance page.

Not listed
HDS (French health data hosting)
Vendor claimed

HDS listed on compliance page; confirm scope and zones for health workloads.

Not listed
CSA STAR
Vendor claimed

CSA STAR listed on compliance page.

Vendor claimed

Stated for Virtual Private Cloud and Foundation Server PRO (6 July 2022 on certifications page).

GDPR / EU data protection
Vendor claimed

Swiss entity; GDPR + Swiss FADP claims; EU zones; public DPA. Not legal advice.

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

Swiss operator, no known US parent, European workload zones, and no third-party processor for compute/storage/SKS customer data. Medium residual path via US ops providers (AWS archival, Twilio auth, PayPal) listed for client data. DBaaS uses Aiven (Finland). 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

Public DPA for Akenes SA as processor; Swiss law; Aiven listed for DBaaS.

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

Primary product is IaaS/managed infrastructure; customer AI workloads remain customer-controlled. Concrete AI offerings may need separate review if used as 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.

CISPE Data Protection Code of ConductNot 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).

Considerations & known limitations: Exoscale vs Seeweb
Considerations & known limitationsLogo: ExoscaleExoscaleLogo: SeewebSeeweb
US third parties on client/ops path
Medium

Privacy policy lists AWS (US) data archival, Twilio (US) authentication, and PayPal (US) among client operations providers. Vendor states customer-uploaded service data is not transferred to these providers, but account/ops data paths still matter for CLOUD Act and transfer diligence.

Not listed
DBaaS subprocessor (Aiven)
Low

Managed databases depend on Aiven Oy (Finland) for orchestration while instances run on Exoscale. Confirm contractual chain, access model, and zone placement for sensitive data.

Not listed
Cert evidence mostly in customer portal / NDA
Low

ISO/SOC/C5/HDS claims are strong marketing signals, but full certificates and SOC reports typically require Compliance Center access or NDA—not fully public PDFs for all frameworks.

Not listed
Narrower PaaS than hyperscalers
Medium

Expect solid IaaS, SKS, DBaaS, storage, and GPU—not the global proprietary service catalog of AWS/Azure/GCP. Validate feature gaps early for serverless, global edge, and specialized managed services.

Not listed
Zone catalog evolves
Low

Public materials discuss further European expansion (e.g. Spain via A1 Digital messaging). Treat the live datacenters page as source of truth for residency commitments.

Not listed
Smaller global footprint than hyperscalersNot 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-publishedNot 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 foundNot 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 interruptedNot 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 centersNot 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.

Fit

Exoscale

Best fit when

  • Teams that must pin VMs, Kubernetes, and object storage to named European zones (including Swiss options)
  • SaaS and product orgs wanting SKS plus managed PostgreSQL/MySQL/Kafka/OpenSearch without running the control planes
  • Buyers who need a published DPA, zone list, and multi-framework compliance pack from a non-US legal entity
  • Workloads that fit IaaS plus managed open-source data services rather than proprietary global PaaS catalogs
  • Organizations evaluating A1 Digital / A1 Telekom Austria group cloud as a European alternative to AWS/Azure/GCP

Poor fit when

  • Products that depend on dozens of proprietary hyperscaler services or multi-continent active-active regions
  • Buyers who require zero US-group SaaS anywhere on the account path (privacy lists AWS archival, Twilio, PayPal for ops)
  • Teams seeking a fully self-hosted OpenStack/Kubernetes distribution rather than a managed public cloud
  • Bare-metal-heavy designs better served by large European bare-metal catalogs (e.g. OVHcloud)

Consider instead when

  • When: You need extensive bare-metal or a different pan-EU hosting footprint

    Consider: OVHcloud

    Often stronger metal catalog and broader hosting packaging; different sovereignty and product mix.

  • When: You want a developer-centric alternative with a different regional product mix

    Consider: Scaleway

    Common EU shortlist peer; compare zones, K8s, and storage packaging side by side.

  • When: You need global regions and deep proprietary PaaS/AI catalogs

    Consider: Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud Platform

    Trade European-operator simplicity for worldwide service breadth and US CLOUD Act parent risk.

Seeweb

Best fit when

  • Italian PA and public-sector projects that need ACN-qualified IaaS (verify QI2/QC2 scope against the tender)
  • AI/ML teams wanting European GPU hours (NVIDIA H-class / L-class and AMD MI300X) with usage-based or Spot billing
  • System integrators and SaaS vendors that prefer managed Kubernetes (SKS) plus Italian engineering support over pure DIY clusters
  • Workloads that must stay under Italian/EU legal entities with CISPE-style European data-location claims
  • Hybrid designs combining Cloud Servers or VPC with colocation in Milan/Frosinone and European DR sites

Poor fit when

  • Applications that depend on dozens of global regions or proprietary hyperscaler PaaS (Lambda-style, global managed DB fleets)
  • Buyers seeking a free tier or purely self-hosted open-source cloud distribution without a commercial operator
  • Teams that need a published SOC 2 Type II report as a hard gate (not found on Seeweb certifications page)
  • Organizations that refuse any third-party facility (Swiss/Bulgarian partner DCs) without Italy-only contractual pins

Consider instead when

  • 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.

Open questions for due diligence

Exoscale

  • Download current ISO/SOC/C5/HDS certificates from the Compliance Center and verify auditor, scope, and expiry for your zones.
  • Confirm whether your use case can accept AWS/Twilio/PayPal on the account/ops path even if workload data stays on European Exoscale zones.
  • For DBaaS, document Aiven access boundaries, encryption, backup locations, and multi-zone replication behavior in writing.
  • If Spanish or other new zones are required, get contractual residency language rather than relying on roadmap announcements.
  • Clarify support plan SLAs and enterprise contracting terms beyond self-serve pay-as-you-go.

Seeweb

  • Will Seeweb provide a current signed DPA, TOMs, and full subprocessor list scoped to our SKUs and regions?
  • Can every required product (GPU, SKS, VPC) be pinned exclusively to Milan/Frosinone under contract?
  • What is the exact SLA and support tier mapping for our architecture (marketing cites up to 99.99%)?
  • Are current ISO certificate serials and ACN register entries still valid for the products we will buy?
  • Is IBM Spectrum Protect operated entirely on Seeweb infrastructure, or does any backup path leave European facilities?