Hosting & Infrastructure

Notes on European hosting and cloud infrastructure providers that UK and European organisations often look at as alternatives to the US hyperscalers (AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud).

Disclosure:

This site (sovereignblog.org) is built and hosted with Infomaniak Site Creator. I have no affiliate or paid relationship with any provider on this page.

How we describe providers:

We summarise what each provider is, where it is based and who owns it, what it says about sovereignty, and what you should check yourself. Claims are labelled [law], [government statement], [press report] or [vendor claim], and vendor claims are written as “X says…”. These are notes, not endorsements or rankings.

On the US CLOUD Act: the law lets US authorities require providers subject to US jurisdiction to disclose data in their “possession, custody, or control”, wherever it is stored [law]. A non-US company with no US presence is generally outside its direct reach. Exposure can still come through US subsidiaries or offices, a US parent company, US sub-processors, and your own choices (for example, picking a US region or a US-owned host). So the jurisdiction of the company usually matters more than where the data sits. We don’t describe any provider as “immune”. Facts were checked against providers’ own pages, filings or reliable reporting on the date below. Figures and ownership change. If you spot an error, please tell me. Last checked: 28 September 2026.

Infomaniak

Infomaniak is a Swiss company offering email, file storage, office tools, video calls, web hosting and cloud infrastructure. Infomaniak says it builds and runs its own data centres in Switzerland, with all of its staff based there [vendor claim].

Infomaniak: Summary list

• What it is: a managed cloud provider, not self-hosted software. It offers kSuite (email, kDrive storage with an office suite, kMeet video, kChat messaging, calendar, contacts), plus web hosting, VPS and a public cloud. There is a free tier and paid plans. Infomaniak says its platform is built on open-source components such as OpenStack, Ceph and Kubernetes [vendor claim].
• Where it's based and who owns it: headquartered in Geneva, with an office in Zurich. It was founded in Geneva in 1994 by Boris Siegenthaler and Fabian Lucchi [press report]. On 13 May 2026 Siegenthaler transferred the majority of the voting rights in Infomaniak Group SA to the Infomaniak Foundation, a Swiss public-interest foundation, through special shares that can't be transferred. Infomaniak says this puts the company beyond takeover and that it has no external investors to date [vendor claim]. It also says it plans to open part of its capital to "aligned" investors, with the foundation keeping majority voting control [vendor claim].
• What it says about sovereignty [vendor claim]: Infomaniak says it is a Swiss company under Swiss law, with its data centres and staff in Switzerland and no legal entity in the US, and so the CLOUD Act does not apply to it. Infomaniak also says that jurisdiction alone isn't enough if the software stack depends on US-run services, and that it avoids them. That argument is about the company's jurisdiction, and it is a reasonable one, but it does not make Infomaniak "immune" to access. Swiss authorities can still compel disclosure under Swiss law, including when acting on a foreign request for legal assistance.
• What to check yourself: which Infomaniak product holds your data and where; whether any sub-processors are outside Switzerland (ask for the list); how Infomaniak handles Swiss and foreign legal requests, and whether it publishes a transparency report; exit terms (Infomaniak says it uses open formats and documented APIs, and charges no exit fees [vendor claim]); and feature gaps against Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace for your team.

IONOS

IONOS is a German web hosting and cloud company aimed mainly at small and medium-sized businesses. It had about 6.8 million customers in spring 2026, according to its own results [vendor claim]. IONOS calls itself "the largest hosting company in Europe" [vendor claim]. We haven't found an independent ranking that confirms this, so treat it as marketing.

IONOS: Summary list

• What it is: a paid hosting and cloud provider. It sells domains, web hosting, managed WordPress, a managed Nextcloud Workspace, VPS and Cloud Cubes, dedicated servers, and public and private cloud. IONOS says its cloud uses open standards such as Kubernetes and KVM virtualisation [vendor claim].
• Where it's based and who owns it: IONOS Group SE is headquartered in Montabaur, Germany, and listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. It grew out of 1&1, part of Ralph Dommermuth's United Internet group, and United Internet remains its controlling shareholder, with about 64% of the shares [press report]. It has a US subsidiary, IONOS Inc., with a US headquarters in Philadelphia, and it runs data centres in the US as well as Europe [press report].
• What it says about sovereignty [vendor claim]: IONOS says its cloud is EU-operated. It argues that this gives you legal sovereignty rather than just EU data residency, because an EU region run by a US company can still be reached under the CLOUD Act.
• What to check yourself: apply that same test to IONOS. Ask which IONOS company you would contract with (IONOS SE, a UK or other local subsidiary, or IONOS Inc.), which region hosts your data and backups, and whether US-based staff or entities can access European customer data. Also ask how IONOS would respond to a US legal demand, and check the exit and export tools.

OVHcloud

OVHcloud is a French cloud and hosting company headquartered in Roubaix. It designs its own servers and builds and runs its own data centres rather than renting from the US hyperscalers. OVHcloud describes itself as "the leading European cloud provider" [vendor claim]. That is its own ranking, measured differently from IONOS's "largest hosting company" claim, and neither has been independently confirmed here.

OVHcloud: Summary list

• What it is: a paid infrastructure provider. It offers bare-metal dedicated servers (its best-known product), public cloud (built on OpenStack), hosted private cloud (VMware), VPS, web hosting, domains, managed Kubernetes and object storage. OVHcloud says it operates over 500,000 servers in 46 data centres across four continents [vendor claim].
• Where it's based and who owns it: OVH Groupe is headquartered in Roubaix, France, and listed on Euronext Paris. It was founded by Octave Klaba. At 5 December 2025 the Klaba family held 79.0% of the share capital and 79.6% of the voting rights, according to the company's investor disclosures. OVHcloud also has a US business, OVH US LLC (OVHcloud US) [vendor claim].
• What it says about sovereignty [vendor claim]: OVHcloud markets itself as a European "trusted cloud" and stresses that it controls its whole chain, from server design to data centres and network. Family control is a governance fact, not legal protection from foreign orders. OVHcloud US's own CLOUD Act FAQ says it will comply with lawful requests from public authorities and that under the CLOUD Act this "could include data stored outside of the United States" [vendor claim]. That page covers the US business, not the European companies, but it shows why the entity you contract with matters.
• What to check yourself: which OVHcloud company you contract with, where your servers and backups sit, how the US business is kept separate from European customer data, whether the certifications you need (such as SecNumCloud) cover the specific service you plan to use, and how you would export your data and leave.