Europa-only Alternative zu DigitalOcean.
DigitalOcean is the developer-first US cloud — competitive pricing, clean UX, and an Amsterdam region that lulls many EU teams into thinking the residency question is solved. It is not: DigitalOcean LLC is a Delaware company, its Amsterdam datacenter is operated under US corporate control, and the CLOUD Act applies. The good news is that the migration from DigitalOcean to a true EU-jurisdictional provider (Hetzner, OVH, Scaleway) is one of the cleanest in this guide — DigitalOcean's API surface is small, and most workloads moved off it report lower bills and equal or better performance.
"EU-Region" ist keine Souveränität. Vier Fragen entscheiden.
Datenresidenz sagt, wo die Daten liegen. Souveränität sagt, welches Rechtssystem Zugriff erzwingen kann. Die Antwort muss in allen vier Punkten stimmen — sonst ist der Stack nicht souverän.
Wo sind die Daten physisch gespeichert?
Nicht "in der Cloud" — welches Rechenzentrum, in welchem Land, unter welcher Rechtsordnung.
Wer ist sonst noch in Ihrem Datenpfad?
Jeder Anbieter, der die Daten berührt: das CDN, das E-Mail-Relay, der Error-Tracker, die Analytics-Pipeline.
Wessen Gesetze können die Offenlegung erzwingen?
Ein Anbieter mit US-Hauptsitz unterliegt FISA 702 und dem CLOUD Act — auch wenn die Daten in Frankfurt liegen.
Wer hält tatsächlich die Verschlüsselungsschlüssel?
Wenn der Cloud-Anbieter sowohl die Daten als auch die Schlüssel besitzt, sind die Daten für ihn lesbar — unabhängig von einer AVV.
Scheitert an Rechtsmacht und Schlüsselverwahrung.
EU-Daten, US-Mutterkonzern, US-Subprozessoren im Standardpfad, vom Anbieter verwaltete Schlüssel.
Besteht in allen vier Punkten.
EU-gehostet auf Infrastruktur mit EU-Hauptsitz. Null US-Subprozessoren im Standardpfad. Kunden- oder EU-KMS-Schlüssel. Namentlich in Ihrer Artikel-28-AVV aufgeführt.
Warum Teams aussteigen DigitalOcean
DigitalOcean exits we have run almost always come from one trigger: a customer audit (B2B SaaS) or compliance review where "DigitalOcean Amsterdam" was found to be insufficient under Schrems II, and the client either had to add expensive supplementary measures (BYOK encryption that defeats the managed-service value) or migrate. Migrating is usually the cheaper option. The technical work is light because DigitalOcean's product set is intentionally minimal, which makes the EU mapping uncomplicated.
DigitalOcean Dienste und ihre EU-only Äquivalente
Eine Migration ist nicht "eine Box gegen eine andere tauschen". Die Zuordnung unten ist das, was wir für Kunden ausführen, die Folgendes verlassen: DigitalOcean aus Schrems-II-Gründen — volle EU-Rechtsmacht, keine US-Mutter im Datenpfad.
| DigitalOcean Dienst | EU-only Alternative | Engineering-Hinweis |
|---|---|---|
| Droplets | Hetzner Cloud, OVH Public Cloud, Scaleway Instances, IONOS Compute | Hetzner Cloud has the closest UX equivalent and significantly better price/performance. Most clients see 40–60% cost reduction on equivalent VM specs. |
| Spaces (object storage) | OVH Object Storage, Wasabi EU, Bunny Storage, self-hosted MinIO on Hetzner | S3-compatible across all options; the migration is one endpoint change in the SDK config. |
| Managed Databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis) | OVH Managed Databases, Aiven (FI), Scaleway Managed DB, self-managed on Hetzner | For PostgreSQL, OVH and Aiven are competitive on features. Self-managed is often cheaper and acceptable for smaller workloads. |
| App Platform (PaaS) | Scaleway Serverless Containers, self-hosted Coolify on EU compute, Dokku on Hetzner | App Platform has no direct sovereign equivalent at PaaS level. Coolify (open-source self-hosted) gives a Heroku-like UX on EU infrastructure. |
| Kubernetes (DOKS) | Scaleway Kapsule, OVH Managed Kubernetes, IONOS K8s, self-managed K3s on Hetzner | Helm charts and YAML transfer cleanly. Talos Linux on Hetzner bare metal is our preferred high-trust pattern. |
| Load Balancers | Hetzner Cloud Load Balancer, OVH Load Balancer, self-managed HAProxy / Caddy | For most use cases the managed LB on EU providers is sufficient; for advanced rules, HAProxy on a small VM is the standard pattern. |
| Volumes (block storage) | Hetzner Volumes, OVH Block Storage, Scaleway Block Storage | Standard NVMe-backed block storage on all EU options; performance is comparable or better. |
| DNS (DigitalOcean DNS) | Hetzner DNS (free), Bunny DNS, deSEC | Migration is a zone export and re-import; a few minutes of work. |
| Floating IPs | Hetzner Cloud Floating IPs, OVH Failover IPs, Scaleway Flexible IPs | All providers offer the equivalent failover-IP pattern. |
| CDN (DigitalOcean CDN) | Bunny.net, KeyCDN | DigitalOcean's CDN is built on third parties; moving direct to Bunny is simpler and cheaper. |
| Monitoring (DO Monitoring) | Self-hosted Prometheus + Grafana on EU compute, Grafana Cloud EU | A small monitoring VM on Hetzner is what we deploy for clients post-migration. |
| Container Registry | Self-hosted Harbor on EU infra, Scaleway Container Registry, GitLab CR (EU instance) | Harbor is the production-grade open-source registry; we operate it for clients. |
Wie wir migrieren von DigitalOcean
Eine typische Mittelstand-Migration läuft in drei Phasen. Die Zahlen unten gehen von einem 6–10-köpfigen Engineering-Team und einem mäßig komplexen Anwendungs-Stack aus.
Inventory & dependencies
List every Droplet, Database, Space and App Platform deployment. Identify any DigitalOcean-specific APIs or doctl automations that need rewriting. Output: clean migration plan with no surprises.
Soft dependencies first
DNS, Spaces and CDN moved first. Database replicas pre-staged on EU managed service. Container registry moved to Harbor. Monitoring on EU Prometheus.
Compute & DB cutover
Droplets reprovisioned on Hetzner with same images. Database cutover with logical replication. App Platform workloads moved to Coolify or DOKS replaced with Scaleway Kapsule. Load Balancer cutover with DNS shift.
5-year TCO on DigitalOcean exits we have run: typically 40–60% cheaper, with the largest savings on compute (Hetzner is often half the price for equivalent specs) and managed databases. Where DigitalOcean has the edge is App Platform UX, which the EU sovereign stack replaces with Coolify or self-managed PaaS.
Häufig gestellte Fragen
DigitalOcean has datacenters in Amsterdam and Frankfurt — does that satisfy GDPR?
Residency yes, sovereignty no. The Amsterdam DC is owned and operated by DigitalOcean LLC, a US-controlled entity. The CLOUD Act allows US authorities to compel disclosure of data anywhere globally. For Schrems II–conscious workloads, that exposure is not addressed by the datacenter location.
How does Hetzner compare on uptime and reliability vs DigitalOcean?
In our operational experience, both run at "four nines" or better at the platform level for typical workloads. Hetzner has occasionally had longer single-incident outages historically; DigitalOcean has had a higher frequency of smaller incidents. Neither difference is meaningful for most application architectures.
What about App Platform replacement specifically?
App Platform is genuinely useful for small teams that don't want to operate infrastructure. Coolify (self-hosted, open-source) gives a comparable Heroku/App Platform UX on Hetzner or any EU compute. For teams that want managed: Scaleway Serverless Containers comes closest in the EU sovereign space.
Can we migrate gradually or does it have to be all-at-once?
Gradual is the norm. Run both providers in parallel via DNS-level traffic split, migrate workload-by-workload, decommission DigitalOcean once the last service is moved. Typical elapsed time: 4–8 weeks for mid-market workloads, 2–4 weeks for small ones.
How long does a DigitalOcean exit take?
For a typical workload (5–20 Droplets, 1–2 managed databases, Spaces, DNS): 3–6 weeks elapsed time. With a managed-infrastructure partner driving it: 2–4 weeks. The technical work is light; the schedule is determined by validation gates and team availability.
Will the migration create downtime?
No, when done properly. Database migration uses logical replication so the cutover is a single DNS or connection-string change. Compute migration uses blue-green at the load balancer or DNS level. Object storage uses dual-write during the migration window. Zero-downtime is the standard expectation.
Plane deinen Exit von DigitalOcean.
30-minütiges Scoping-Gespräch. Wir bilden Ihren Stack auf EU-only Alternativen ab, schätzen den Migrationsaufwand und sagen Ihnen, ob es die richtige Entscheidung ist.