Should You Migrate from AWS to Scaleway? Pros and Cons

As an AWS partner, we work with the platform regularly and understand it well. But we’ve also noticed that many organisations considering whether to migrate from AWS don’t actually need the full breadth of services the platform offers.

AWS’s range of capabilities is one of its greatest strengths. Yet that scale can also introduce complexity: layered pricing, hidden charges, and infrastructure overhead that smaller or more focused workloads simply don’t require.

Why are organisations starting to migrate from AWS?

For organisations exploring whether it makes sense to migrate from AWS, alternative platforms are starting to look more attractive. One provider we’ve been exploring is Scaleway, a European cloud platform designed around simpler pricing, dedicated hardware, and a focused set of infrastructure services.

As part of our infrastructure and DevOps work with clients, we regularly review hosting setups to identify opportunities to simplify architecture and reduce unnecessary cost. 

In a recent review, we compared AWS and Scaleway side by side to see what organisations might gain if they migrate from AWS.

What does your AWS bill actually look like?

A recent infrastructure review for one of our clients revealed a monthly AWS spend of approximately $680. The stack was straightforward: 

• Three web servers (EC2 t3.large)
• One managed MariaDB database (RDS)
• Monitoring, a web application firewall, CDN, VPC networking, and backups.

The headline figure was expected. What stood out were the costs buried beneath it. 

• Database backup charges alone accounted for over $200 per month; a figure that’s easy to miss when it sits inside the RDS line item. 
• Data transfer charges applied to every inter-service request. 
• Because t3 instances use a burstable credit model, the web servers could throttle if CPU credits were exhausted during sustained load.
• Monitoring costs increased with every custom metric added.

None of these charges are unreasonable in isolation. But they compound, and they make the true cost of running even a modest stack difficult to predict.

How does Scaleway address the same infrastructure needs?

From what we’ve found, every AWS service in that stack has a direct Scaleway equivalent:

The most significant difference is the compute model. 

Scaleway’s PRO2-XXS instances use dedicated AMD EPYC threads rather than AWS’s burstable credit system. Under sustained load, they deliver consistent performance without throttling.

Flat-rate pricing eliminates the unpredictability. Bandwidth, monitoring, and VPC networking are included. There are no surprise line items at the end of the month.

What would the same infrastructure cost on Scaleway?

In this scenario, the equivalent infrastructure on Scaleway would cost roughly 67% less, though exact savings depend on workload and traffic patterns

Is Scaleway’s security good enough?

Yes. Scaleway provides the core security controls most organisations need: built-in DDoS protection, a standards-based web application firewall, and infrastructure hosted entirely within European jurisdictions. AWS offers deeper customisation and enterprise-grade protection layers, but for many workloads the baseline security provided by Scaleway is already sufficient.

EU healthcare-grade data security certification

Scaleway is certified "Hébergeur de Données de Santé" (Health Data Host) since July 2024. Managed by the French National Agency for Digital Health (ANS), under the supervision of the Ministry of Health, the HDS certification framework is one of the most demanding that digital service providers must comply with to host and manage health data in France.

DDoS

Both providers include DDoS protection by default. AWS offers Shield Standard; Scaleway uses Arbor Networks scrubbing to mitigate volumetric L3/L4 attacks. For standard web applications, both are effective.

WAF

Where the platforms diverge is the web application firewall. Scaleway’s Edge Services WAF uses the OWASP Core Rule Set with configurable paranoia levels; a flat €4 per month. AWS WAF provides more granular custom rules and marketplace integrations but costs significantly more and requires active tuning.

For most common web threats, such as automated vulnerability scanners, SQL injection, XSS, and brute-force attacks, Scaleway’s WAF provides solid baseline protection. If your organisation faces sophisticated, persistent threat actors, AWS Shield Advanced ($3,000/month) and custom WAF configurations offer deeper protection. 

For standard web applications and public sector sites, that level of investment is rarely justified.

How do backups and disaster recovery compare?

Scaleway provides Block Storage snapshots for compute instances, automated backups for managed databases, and Object Storage with lifecycle rules to move older data into Glacier cold storage at €0.002 per GB per month. For enterprise backup workflows, Scaleway integrates with Veeam and Restic.

Scaleway’s datacentres sit in Paris, Amsterdam, and Warsaw. Geographic separation for offsite backup strategies is straightforward. 

But, Scaleway doesn’t operate datacentres in London or Ireland. For organisations with strict UK data residency requirements, this is a genuine constraint worth evaluating.

AWS Backup offers more automated, centralised orchestration across services. If complex backup policies spanning multiple resource types are a priority, AWS provides a more mature toolset.

What about uptime and reliability?

AWS guarantees 99.99% uptime for EC2 when deployed across multiple availability zones. Scaleway offers comparable reliability for its infrastructure, with a published 99.9% SLA for Block Storage. Both providers use similar credit refund mechanisms when SLAs are breached.

Scaleway’s smaller European network footprint can also mean simpler routing and predictable latency for EU-focused workloads, without the cascading complexity that occasionally affects larger global networks.

How does data sovereignty affect cloud hosting decisions?

Where data is stored and processed matters, both for regulatory compliance and public trust. For many organisations, sovereignty requirements fall into three overlapping categories: European jurisdiction, UK data residency, and broader control over infrastructure.

European datacentres and GDPR jurisdiction

Scaleway operates exclusively within the EU, with datacentres in Paris, Amsterdam, and Warsaw. Data remains under European jurisdiction, and the infrastructure is designed with strict GDPR compliance in mind.

Scaleway’s Paris cold storage facility is even housed inside a former nuclear bunker 25 metres underground, designed to remain resilient against fires, floods, and major infrastructure disruptions.
For many public sector organisations and EU-focused platforms, this provides a strong sovereignty baseline while keeping infrastructure costs manageable.

When UK data residency is required

Some organisations, like UK local authorities, have stricter requirements that mandate data being stored specifically within the UK. 

Scaleway does not currently operate datacentres in the UK. In those cases, organisations may look at alternative providers with UK-based infrastructure.

For example, providers such as IONOS operate UK datacentres that can meet strict residency requirements. We’ve not yet conducted detailed networking tests on IONOS infrastructure ourselves, so we can’t make direct performance comparisons, but it’s an option organisations may wish to evaluate where UK-only residency is essential.

Data sovereignty beyond location

Location is only one part of sovereignty. Control over the underlying technology stack also matters.
Platforms built on open-source infrastructure reduce dependency on proprietary systems and give organisations more flexibility over where and how their data is stored and processed.
We explored this in more detail in our article on open-source software alternatives that enhance data sovereignty.

Can Scaleway support AI and machine learning workloads?

This is an area we’ve been experimenting with recently. Scaleway offers dedicated GPU instances at significantly lower cost than equivalent AWS offerings, and the hardware is not shared with other tenants. For organisations handling sensitive data, AI inference happens on hardware you control, with no data exposure risk.

We’ve also been testing this approach internally.

A fully private AI stack

Our director, Greg Harvey, recently demonstrated a fully private AI stack running on Scaleway GPU hardware in France. Open WebUI with Ollama inferenced open-source LLMs, deployed using our open-source Ansible automation tools. The entire stack runs on Linux, with no data leaving the EU.

Internal tooling

We’re also exploring internal tools that use these capabilities, including LLM-powered document processing, intelligent search, and automated content pipelines. We will share more details in the coming months.

For organisations that want to explore AI capabilities without enterprise-scale budgets or infrastructure complexity, Scaleway provides a practical and private starting point.

Where does AWS still have the edge?

Scaleway doesn’t replace AWS in every scenario. And we wouldn’t suggest otherwise. AWS has clear advantages in several areas:

• Advanced security: Custom WAF rules, marketplace integrations, and Shield Advanced for state-level threats
• Global reach: Datacentres in London, Ireland, and dozens of regions worldwide
• Ecosystem breadth: Over 200 services including SageMaker, Lambda, and niche tooling with no Scaleway equivalent
• Backup orchestration: Centralised, automated backup policies across resource types

If your organisation depends on these capabilities, AWS remains the right choice. For standard infrastructure needs (web hosting, managed databases, monitoring, and increasingly AI workloads) Scaleway has been delivering comparable reliability in our experience, at a fraction of the cost.

So, should you migrate from AWS to Scaleway?

Whether you should migrate from AWS depends on what you actually need. For organisations running standard web infrastructure, handling sensitive data within European jurisdictions, or exploring AI without enterprise-scale budgets, Scaleway offers a compelling alternative to AWS.

In scenarios like the one outlined above, infrastructure costs could be reduced by around 67%.

If you’re exploring whether it makes sense to migrate from AWS, we’d be happy to run a free cost comparison for you. Get in touch and we’ll take an honest look at your current setup.