Euro firms must ditch Uncle Sam's clouds and go EU-native • Hacker News Board

Re: Euro firms must ditch Uncle Sam's clouds and go EU-native

#231

Post by MonkeyClub » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 1:43 PM UTC

gregman1 wrote: post #183

202508042147 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We went with Hetzner as we already had good experiences with their VPSes. For this particular db migration, a resonably sized VPS with volumes does the job for us. We don't have planet scale operations so the lowish IOPS is not an issue atm. Also, with this experience at hand, I am confident that we'll manage another migration if need be.

Afaik Hetzner has a couple of server locations in the USA. Is it correct to say that Hetzner has to comply to US CLOUD Act and therefore give away any data requested?

Depends on which data center you're hosted.

The one under US jurisdiction operated by Hetzner US LLC must comply, while the German ones are operating under the GDPR, which has extraterritorial clauses can can deny or challenge the request.

Re: Euro firms must ditch Uncle Sam's clouds and go EU-native

#232

Post by pjmlp » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 1:44 PM UTC

tirant wrote: post #28

adrianN wrote: post #2

I kind of share the opinion of the FSF Europe that it is less important where software comes from compared to whether it’s libre, but for cloud hardware I really hope that we manage to create competitive European offerings. Maybe we’re lucky and this European initiative will produce more than five Fraunhofer institutes and a gift to SAP.

I would say there’s even less chance nowadays to generate a fully private set of European alternatives to American cloud offerings. Europes bureaucratization and the growth of the size of states has increased the last 10 years. I have less and less hope that we’re able to set the right free market conditions for real competition to happen. That doesn’t mean that won’t be alternatives to American offerings, but most p…

You mean late scale capitalism that treats employees like serfs?

Re: Euro firms must ditch Uncle Sam's clouds and go EU-native

#233

Post by dopidopHN2 » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 1:44 PM UTC

vovavili wrote: post #187

ExoticPearTree wrote: post #169

I like it how everyone says that, but there is no european cloud operator able to offer what AWS/GCP/Azure offer. And if you are a start-up and you want to grow, the situation is even more dire. And without a few hundreds of billions of EUR invested _today_ there will still be at least a decade until basic infrastructure will be somewhat on par with current day hyperscalers from the US. And Office suite wise, it took…

>And Office suite wise, it took Google about 15 years of pouring money into Google Docs to be almost as good as the MS offering. And yet they _still_ don't have a desktop client for hotkey-driven and very fast-paced workflows, meaning that any serious professional spreadsheet work is still a Microsoft monopoly. If even the US market with all its favorable conditions can't deliver a competing product after years of tr…

I've seen US citizen swich in mass to cryptpad and protondoc over ICE being in their town and then wanting to deliver grocery to their neighbors.

Proton seems to have stick. It's far less feature full than google doc but I started to receive link to proton doc outside of a immigration context.

Also, I do spreadsheet for a living and my last two job were not providing a office licence ( no need )

Re: Euro firms must ditch Uncle Sam's clouds and go EU-native

#234

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 1:44 PM UTC

gregman1 wrote: post #183

202508042147 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We went with Hetzner as we already had good experiences with their VPSes. For this particular db migration, a resonably sized VPS with volumes does the job for us. We don't have planet scale operations so the lowish IOPS is not an issue atm. Also, with this experience at hand, I am confident that we'll manage another migration if need be.

Afaik Hetzner has a couple of server locations in the USA. Is it correct to say that Hetzner has to comply to US CLOUD Act and therefore give away any data requested?

[deleted]

Re: Euro firms must ditch Uncle Sam's clouds and go EU-native

#235

Post by crazygringo » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 1:45 PM UTC

2III7 wrote: post #199

ExoticPearTree wrote: post #169

I like it how everyone says that, but there is no european cloud operator able to offer what AWS/GCP/Azure offer. And if you are a start-up and you want to grow, the situation is even more dire. And without a few hundreds of billions of EUR invested _today_ there will still be at least a decade until basic infrastructure will be somewhat on par with current day hyperscalers from the US. And Office suite wise, it took…

How about we start creating well optimized software again that doesn't need ridiculous amounts of compute and money?

If your customers want features that require compute and money, and your competitor offers them, then you don't really have a choice if you want to stay in business.

Re: Euro firms must ditch Uncle Sam's clouds and go EU-native

#236

Post by pjmlp » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 1:45 PM UTC

moffkalast wrote: post #50

adrianN wrote: post #2

I kind of share the opinion of the FSF Europe that it is less important where software comes from compared to whether it’s libre, but for cloud hardware I really hope that we manage to create competitive European offerings. Maybe we’re lucky and this European initiative will produce more than five Fraunhofer institutes and a gift to SAP.

Without a viable MS Office/Google Docs alternative it's all rather performative. If those get blocked the entire bureaucratic machine stops dead. Hell block just excel and entire countries might actually collapse.

Rome wasn't built in a day.

Re: Euro firms must ditch Uncle Sam's clouds and go EU-native

#237

Post by input_sh » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 1:46 PM UTC

vovavili wrote: post #187

ExoticPearTree wrote: post #169

I like it how everyone says that, but there is no european cloud operator able to offer what AWS/GCP/Azure offer. And if you are a start-up and you want to grow, the situation is even more dire. And without a few hundreds of billions of EUR invested _today_ there will still be at least a decade until basic infrastructure will be somewhat on par with current day hyperscalers from the US. And Office suite wise, it took…

>And Office suite wise, it took Google about 15 years of pouring money into Google Docs to be almost as good as the MS offering. And yet they _still_ don't have a desktop client for hotkey-driven and very fast-paced workflows, meaning that any serious professional spreadsheet work is still a Microsoft monopoly. If even the US market with all its favorable conditions can't deliver a competing product after years of tr…

I still can't write a Word document in Markdown, but I can do so using Google Docs.

The difference between us is that I know I'm within 0,1% of people that actually cases about this specific use case.

Re: Euro firms must ditch Uncle Sam's clouds and go EU-native

#238

Post by mark_l_watson » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 1:46 PM UTC

nubinetwork wrote: post #19

adrianN wrote: post #2

I kind of share the opinion of the FSF Europe that it is less important where software comes from compared to whether it’s libre, but for cloud hardware I really hope that we manage to create competitive European offerings. Maybe we’re lucky and this European initiative will produce more than five Fraunhofer institutes and a gift to SAP.

I thought I heard that hetzner was pretty cheap, haven't looked myself though...

I have used Hetzner off and on for years, nice products and services.

I don’t care what provider you use, if your business or app use case needs any sort of reliability have a plan for reinstalling code and data on alternate providers quickly as possible.

There are horror stories of people and companies being cut off because of pressure from the US government, or having one of the Google/Microsoft/Amazon tech giants cancelling accounts.

Really, in today’s world, why totally rely on anyone?

EDIT: it seems prudent to maintain a cloud account in Europe, US, and Asia and have a plan for moving application code and data around if required. Outside the US I have mostly only used Hetzner, but Alibaba has impressive looking services.

Re: Euro firms must ditch Uncle Sam's clouds and go EU-native

#239

Post by znnajdla » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 1:46 PM UTC

ExoticPearTree wrote: post #169

I like it how everyone says that, but there is no european cloud operator able to offer what AWS/GCP/Azure offer. And if you are a start-up and you want to grow, the situation is even more dire. And without a few hundreds of billions of EUR invested _today_ there will still be at least a decade until basic infrastructure will be somewhat on par with current day hyperscalers from the US. And Office suite wise, it took…

My theory is that 80% of workloads on AWS/GCP/Azure are pure waste. They sell complexity-as-a-service. 80% of startups and enterprises could run on a single beefy baremetal server (or two). AWS/GCP/Azure are the result of hype bubbles and VC-funded waste culture, it's not necessary for Europe to recreate that to compete.

Re: Euro firms must ditch Uncle Sam's clouds and go EU-native

#240

Post by pjmlp » Sat, Jan 31, 2026, 1:46 PM UTC

Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #145

moffkalast wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without a viable MS Office/Google Docs alternative it's all rather performative. If those get blocked the entire bureaucratic machine stops dead. Hell block just excel and entire countries might actually collapse.

Proton. Also, Collabora office looks really great too.

Proton, only as transition technology.