Contabo
✓ Verified by EU AltsAffordable German VPS and dedicated servers — a budget-friendly European alternative to DigitalOcean.
Overview
Contabo is a Munich, Germany-based European company building cloud infrastructure and hosting software since 2003. Despite its EU base, EU Alts has verified that Contabo owned by KKR & Co. Inc. (majority, with Oakley Capital as minority co-investor) (United States), and hosts customer data with Own data centers (bare-metal/VPS infrastructure) in Germany (Munich, Nuremberg) plus US, UK, Singapore, Japan, India, Australia locations, so it may still fall under the reach of the US CLOUD Act — worth weighing against AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure on this specific point.
Why European teams pick Contabo
Teams in Europe still consider Contabo for its cloud infrastructure product and Germany presence, operating since 2003, but unlike a fully EU-owned provider, Contabo owned by KKR & Co. Inc. (majority, with Oakley Capital as minority co-investor) (United States), and hosts customer data with Own data centers (bare-metal/VPS infrastructure) in Germany (Munich, Nuremberg) plus US, UK, Singapore, Japan, India, Australia locations — so it does not fully avoid US CLOUD Act exposure the way some other alternatives to AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure do.
See more EU cloud infrastructure tools or browse other startups from Germany.
About
Contabo is a Munich-based cloud and hosting provider founded in 2003, known for offering some of the highest compute specifications per euro in the European market. Its VPS plans start at approximately €4/month and include significantly more CPU, RAM, and SSD storage than competitors at the same price point. Contabo operates data centres in Germany (Munich, Nuremberg), Netherlands, UK, and other locations — all EU-headquartered and GDPR-compliant. It also offers S3-compatible Object Storage and dedicated servers. Contabo is the preferred choice for compute-intensive workloads such as machine learning training, video processing, and self-hosted databases where raw resource density matters more than managed-service polish.
Details
- Founded
- 2003
- Headquarters
- Munich, Germany
- Ownership
- Owned by KKR & Co. Inc. (majority, with Oakley Capital as minority co-investor) (United States)
- Hosting
- Own data centers (bare-metal/VPS infrastructure), Germany (Munich, Nuremberg) plus US, UK, Singapore, Japan, India, Australia locations
- CLOUD Act
- Exposed
- Company size
- 51–200 employees
Categories
Other EU startups like Contabo
- Domaintechnik Austria — Austrian domain registrar and web host with its own data centre in Vienna.
- Ploq The Netherlands — Ploq is EU-built webhook infrastructure: retries, event filtering, and health monitoring, GDPR-compliant end to end. SDKs for Node.js and Java, a WordPress plugin, and a forkable Mac/Windows app for sending and receiving events.
- DNScale — European managed authoritative DNS platform with anycast, DNSSEC, API automation, Terraform support, and DDoS-protected DNS infrastructure.
- Railway ✓ Verified by EU AltsUnited Kingdom — Instant deployment infrastructure for developers — popular across European teams.
- Portainer ✓ Verified by EU AltsNew Zealand — Container management UI for Docker and Kubernetes — a New Zealand/European alternative to Rancher.
- Coolify Hungary — Open-source, self-hostable PaaS platform — a Heroku/Render alternative you deploy on your own EU server.
Frequently asked questions
What is Contabo?
Contabo is a Munich-based cloud and hosting provider founded in 2003, known for offering some of the highest compute specifications per euro in the European market. Its VPS plans start at approximately €4/month and include significantly more CPU, RAM, and SSD storage than competitors at the same price point. Contabo operates data centres in Germany (Munich, Nuremberg), Netherlands, UK, and other locations — all EU-headquartered and GDPR-compliant. It also offers S3-compatible Object Storage and dedicated servers. Contabo is the preferred choice for compute-intensive workloads such as machine learning training, video processing, and self-hosted databases where raw resource density matters more than managed-service polish.
What does Contabo do?
Contabo is affordable german vps and dedicated servers — a budget-friendly european alternative to digitalocean. It is listed under cloud infrastructure and hosting on EU Alts because its core functionality serves teams looking for a European cloud infrastructure tool with EU data residency, typically as a switch away from AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure.
Is Contabo a good European cloud infrastructure alternative?
Contabo is a fit for European businesses evaluating cloud infrastructure options where data residency and GDPR alignment matter — typical buyers include EU-based SaaS teams, public-sector projects, regulated industries (healthcare, finance, legal), and any organisation that needs to demonstrate that customer data does not leave the EU. It also overlaps with hosting use cases.
Is Contabo GDPR compliant?
Contabo is headquartered in Munich, Germany and processes user data under the GDPR by default. Customer data processing is supervised by Germany's data protection authority, the Bundesbeauftragte für den Datenschutz und die Informationsfreiheit (BfDI). However, EU Alts has verified that Contabo owned by KKR & Co. Inc. (majority, with Oakley Capital as minority co-investor) (United States), and hosts customer data with Own data centers (bare-metal/VPS infrastructure) in Germany (Munich, Nuremberg) plus US, UK, Singapore, Japan, India, Australia locations, which means — unlike a fully EU-owned provider — it may still be reachable under the US CLOUD Act, similar to AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure in that respect.
How do teams switch from AWS to Contabo?
Teams evaluating a move from AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure to Contabo should note: Contabo owned by KKR & Co. Inc. (majority, with Oakley Capital as minority co-investor) (United States), and hosts customer data with Own data centers (bare-metal/VPS infrastructure) in Germany (Munich, Nuremberg) plus US, UK, Singapore, Japan, India, Australia locations, so this switch narrows but may not fully close the US CLOUD Act gap. Weigh that against the cloud infrastructure workflow fit before treating it as a complete Schrems II fix.
Where is Contabo based?
Contabo is headquartered in Munich, Germany. The company was founded in 2003. Its main website is https://contabo.com.