Overview
Exoscale is a European cloud provider that started in Switzerland and now runs zones in Geneva, Zurich, Vienna, Frankfurt, Munich and Sofia. Its compute instances come in Standard, CPU Optimized, Memory Optimized and Storage Optimized families, plus NVIDIA GPU instances in Geneva.
Billing is per second with no commitments, and each instance price is the same in every zone. Local SSD storage is sold separately per GiB, so a Standard Small with 2 cores and 2 GB RAM costs €16.80 a month before its disk. That is more than budget VPS hosts, but Exoscale is aimed at businesses that need a sovereign European cloud with SLAs.
Around compute, Exoscale offers managed Kubernetes (SKS), managed databases, S3-compatible object storage, load balancers, private networks and IAM, with Terraform support. Before choosing, add the disk size you need to each instance price, and compare the total with Savings or longer-term offers from other European clouds. For hobby budgets, a VPS host will cost far less, but Exoscale targets teams that need contracts, SLAs and Swiss or Austrian data residency.
Pricing and plans
checked 28 Sept 2026| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Standard Micro | €5.25/mo | 1 core, 512 MB RAM, 10 to 200 GB local disk (disk extra); €0.00729/hour |
| Standard Tiny | €10.50/mo | 1 core, 1 GB RAM; €0.01458/hour |
| Standard Small | €16.80/mo | 2 cores, 2 GB RAM; €0.02333/hour |
| Standard Medium | €33.60/mo | 2 cores, 4 GB RAM; €0.04666/hour |
| Standard Large | €67.20/mo | 4 cores, 8 GB RAM; €0.09333/hour |
| GPU A30 | Calculator | 1 to 4 NVIDIA A30 GPUs; requires account validation |
What it does
- Per-second billing
- Resources bill by the second with no up-front costs or long-term commitments.
- Flat rate across zones
- Instance prices are identical in every Exoscale zone.
- Separate disk pricing
- Choose local SSD from 10 GB up to 1.6 TB per instance, billed per GiB-hour.
- Optimized families
- CPU-optimized, memory-optimized (up to 25% cheaper per GB RAM) and storage-optimized instances.
- GPU instances
- NVIDIA A30 GPU instances in Geneva after account validation.
- CHF, EUR or USD billing
- Pay in Swiss francs, euros or dollars.
Strengths and limitations
Strengths
- Swiss and EU zones for strict data residency needs.
- Transparent per-second billing with the same price in every zone.
- Managed Kubernetes, databases and object storage from the same European provider.
- Flexible disk sizing independent of instance size.
Limitations
- More expensive per GB of RAM than budget VPS hosts.
- Disk is billed on top of the instance price.
- Zones are only in Europe.
- GPU access requires manual account screening.
Who it suits
Good for
- Swiss and Austrian companies with data residency rules
- European SaaS teams wanting Kubernetes and managed DBs
- Regulated workloads that avoid US clouds
Look elsewhere if
- Hobby projects on a tight budget
- Apps needing servers outside Europe
Alternatives to Exoscale Compute
| Tool | From | Free option | Stages |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon EC2 Hyperscaler compute | $0.017/hr | ||
| Azure Virtual Machines Hyperscaler compute | $0.01/hr | ||
| Google Compute Engine Hyperscaler compute | $6.11/mo | Free tier | |
| Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Compute Hyperscaler compute | — | Free tier | |
| Akamai Cloud (Linode) Cloud VPS | $5/mo | ||
| DigitalOcean Droplets Cloud VPS | $4/mo |
Questions
How much does the smallest Exoscale instance cost?
Standard Micro (1 core, 512 MB) is €0.00729/hour, about €5.25 per 720-hour month, plus local disk.
Where are Exoscale's data centers?
Zones are in Switzerland (Geneva, Zurich), Austria (Vienna), Germany (Frankfurt, Munich) and Bulgaria (Sofia).
Is disk included in Exoscale instance prices?
No, local storage is billed separately per GiB per hour.
Does Exoscale charge different prices per zone?
No, Exoscale uses one flat rate across all zones.
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