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Independently verified · Quarterly re-audit
EU VETTED
Curated collection

German cloud providers

Cloud, hosting and storage providers with infrastructure in Germany, compared on data-centre location, ownership, CLOUD Act exposure, sub-processors and certifications such as BSI C5.

In short

Leading German cloud providers hosted in Germany are Hetzner, IONOS and STACKIT for infrastructure, and Nextcloud, luckycloud and STRATO HiDrive for storage, all EU-owned, run in German data centres, and checked for GDPR alignment, BSI C5 and CLOUD Act exposure. Location alone is not decisive: ownership and sub-processors determine whether a provider is genuinely beyond the reach of the US CLOUD Act.

EU Vetted Editorial
Verified June 2026 How we verify

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A German cloud provider, as listed here, is an infrastructure, hosting or storage company whose operating entity is incorporated and headquartered in Germany and runs its primary infrastructure in German data centres. This page brings together two layers that German buyers evaluate together in practice: sovereign infrastructure (IaaS/PaaS such as Hetzner, IONOS and STACKIT) and GDPR-compliant cloud storage (luckycloud, Nextcloud, STRATO HiDrive). Every listing is checked against the same operational fields (hosting region, ownership signal, CLOUD Act exposure, sub-processor chain and recognised certifications), with each figure traced to the provider's own documentation and rechecked on a three-month cycle.

Why it matters

A US hyperscaler's Frankfurt region does not settle the legal question either: the CLOUD Act reaches a company subject to US jurisdiction wherever its servers happen to sit, so moving a workload into a German region relocates the data without changing who can be compelled to produce it (see European cloud providers for the full mechanics). A genuinely German provider (incorporated in Germany, German-controlled, with no US sub-processors in the data path) has a structurally weaker exposure profile. Hetzner, for instance, accepts authority requests for its Falkenstein and Nuremberg data centres only from German courts; its CLOUD Act exposure is recorded in the directory as "None", with hosting in Germany. But "genuinely German" is a chain of facts, not a logo: the operating entity, its owners and its sub-processors. We record each link separately, so you can also see when a cheap German host re-introduces exposure through a US CDN or managed-database layer in the data path.

At a glance

Key facts per option, checked against each vendor's own documents.

  • Nextcloud

    hosted in Germany, encrypted at rest, no CLOUD Act exposure, from €6/mo.

    Best for: organisations that want to self-host or use managed EU hosting with full control over their data, encryption keys, and sub-processors

  • luckycloud

    hosted in Germany, zero-knowledge end-to-end encryption, no CLOUD Act exposure.

    Best for: German and DACH SMBs that want zero-knowledge storage on a small founder-led provider's own German data centres

  • Filen

    hosted in Germany, zero-knowledge end-to-end encryption, minor CLOUD Act exposure, from €2/mo.

    Best for: privacy-conscious individuals and small teams who want zero-knowledge German-jurisdiction storage with open-source apps and aggressive pricing

  • Koofr

    hosted in Germany, encrypted at rest, no CLOUD Act exposure, from €1/mo.

    Best for: privacy-conscious individuals and small teams who want German-hosted storage from an independent vendor, with optional client-side encryption via Koofr Vault for sensitive files

  • STRATO HiDrive

    hosted in Germany, encrypted at rest, no CLOUD Act exposure, from €6/mo.

    Best for: German SMBs and individuals who want an established large vendor with in-country data centres and an optional zero-knowledge encryption layer

  • leitzcloud

    hosted in Germany, encrypted at rest, no CLOUD Act exposure, from €8.8/mo.

    Best for: German and DACH SMBs and public-sector adjacencies that want German-only data residency on the operator's own infrastructure with a multilingual UI

  • Hetzner Storage Share

    hosted in Germany, encrypted at rest, no CLOUD Act exposure, from €4.29/mo.

    Best for: Buyers who want a cheap, no-frills managed Nextcloud instance hosted exclusively in Germany by the same certified operator as Hetzner's cloud and dedicated servers, and don't need default zero-knowledge encryption.

  • Contabo

    hosted in Germany, encrypted at rest, material CLOUD Act exposure, from €5/mo.

    Best for: Budget VPS and dedicated servers for indie developers, small SaaS builders, and prosumers prioritising low price over enterprise compliance.

  • Hetzner

    hosted in Germany, encrypted at rest, no CLOUD Act exposure, from €4/mo.

    Best for: Cloud and dedicated servers for EU teams that want low-cost German-hosted infrastructure with workloads pinned to EU data centres.

  • IONOS

    hosted in Germany, encrypted at rest, no CLOUD Act exposure, from €2/mo.

    Best for: Cloud compute and storage for German SMBs and public-sector buyers needing BSI C5 and IT-Grundschutz coverage from a Frankfurt-rooted provider.

  • netcup

    hosted in Germany, encrypted at rest, minor CLOUD Act exposure, from €1.84/mo.

    Best for: Budget VPS, ARM64, and AMD EPYC dedicated servers for indie developers and small SaaS builders who want low-cost German-hosted infrastructure with hourly billing.

  • STACKIT

    hosted in Germany, encrypted at rest, no CLOUD Act exposure.

    Best for: Sovereign cloud infrastructure for EU public-sector procurement, DORA-regulated finance, and large corporates wanting a non-VC-funded German operator.

  • T Cloud Public (formerly Open Telekom Cloud)

    hosted in Germany, encrypted at rest, no CLOUD Act exposure.

    Best for: Enterprise OpenStack public cloud for large DACH organisations and German public-sector buyers migrating off AWS, Azure, or GCP.

How to choose

German buyers usually sort on one of three things: certification, price-performance, or a data-centre landscape a Mittelstand procurement checklist can name. If you need raw infrastructure (IaaS), Hetzner from €4/month is the price-performance reference point; IONOS offers a publicly listed German group with BSI C5 and IT-Grundschutz; STACKIT brings a foundation-controlled sovereign-cloud approach for regulated workloads. If BSI C5 is written into your tender, filter to it directly. Hetzner, IONOS, STACKIT and T Cloud Public hold the attestation, the credential most often cited in German public-sector and Mittelstand RFPs. If you need GDPR-compliant file storage, weigh luckycloud, STRATO HiDrive and the open-source-based Nextcloud; a storage provider's "German" positioning most often breaks down in the sub-processor list, so check that per product rather than per brand. If the physical data-centre location is itself a requirement, the individual profiles name the specific sites each provider runs from (Hetzner's Falkenstein and Nuremberg data centres, for instance); confirm that detail with each vendor rather than assuming "hosted in Germany" always means the same setup. Sort the table above by CLOUD Act exposure, hosting region or ownership to build your shortlist, then open each profile to confirm the chain against your own impact assessment. Need the wider picture beyond Germany? European cloud providers covers the full EU shortlist.

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FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Which German cloud provider is GDPR-compliant?
GDPR compliance depends not only on server location but on the whole processing chain: hosting region, ownership, sub-processors and a publicly available data processing agreement (DPA/AVV). Providers listed here such as Hetzner, IONOS and STACKIT host in German data centres, are EU-owned, and publish a DPA. We record each of these signals separately so you can assess compliance against your own data protection impact assessment rather than trust a blanket label.
Are German cloud providers subject to the US CLOUD Act?
Not automatically, and that is the decisive point. The US CLOUD Act can reach data held by a company subject to US jurisdiction regardless of where the servers sit. A German-incorporated, German-controlled provider with no US sub-processors in the data path therefore has a structurally weaker exposure profile. The CLOUD Act exposure of Hetzner, IONOS and STACKIT is each recorded in the directory as 'None', whereas the German subsidiary of a US group can remain exposed even with a German data centre.
What is the best German cloud for business?
It depends on which requirement is non-negotiable for you. For raw infrastructure (IaaS), Hetzner from €4/month is the most-cited choice; IONOS offers a publicly listed German group with BSI C5 and IT-Grundschutz; and STACKIT (Schwarz Group) targets the public sector and regulated industries with BSI C5, EUCS and DORA readiness. For GDPR-compliant file storage, luckycloud, Nextcloud and STRATO HiDrive belong on the shortlist. Filter the table by certification, ownership or CLOUD Act exposure to narrow it down.
What does BSI C5 certification mean?
BSI C5 (Cloud Computing Compliance Criteria Catalogue) is the cloud-security audit standard defined by Germany's Federal Office for Information Security (BSI). A C5 attestation documents that a provider meets an extensive set of security and transparency requirements. In the German market it is the reference cloud-security credential. Hetzner, IONOS, STACKIT and T Cloud Public (formerly Open Telekom Cloud) hold it; the comparison table lets you filter to it directly.
What is the difference between a German cloud and an EU cloud?
A German cloud here means a provider headquartered and primarily hosted in Germany, under German and EU jurisdiction. An EU cloud is the broader term for any provider incorporated and hosted in the EU or EEA, for example OVHcloud (France) or UpCloud (Finland). The compliance logic is the same, but German buyers with BSI C5 or IT-Grundschutz requirements, or a preference for German jurisdiction, often narrow deliberately to Germany. For the EU-wide view, see our European cloud providers page.
Methodology

How we verified every listing here.

For each product we read the public DPA, sub-processors document, hosting region declaration, certifications, and corporate ownership records. Each is timestamped. Signals are editorial, re-verified quarterly. We never accept self-attestation.

Read methodology →