Fuga Cloud

What Is Fuga Cloud?

Europe does not have a cloud computing problem. It has a cloud sovereignty problem. The vast majority of European organisations run their infrastructure on AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud — American platforms subject to American law, including the CLOUD Act, which allows US authorities to compel access to data regardless of where it is physically stored. Every GDPR compliance exercise that relies on Standard Contractual Clauses with a US hyperscaler is, at some level, an exercise in legal optimism.

Fuga Cloud exists because some organisations refuse to accept that compromise. Founded in 2016 in the Netherlands, Fuga Cloud is an infrastructure-as-a-service provider built entirely on OpenStack, operating exclusively from Dutch data centres, and committed to the principle that European data should be governed by European law — full stop.

This is not a polished hyperscale platform with hundreds of managed services. Fuga Cloud is infrastructure in its purest form: virtual machines, block storage, object storage, networking. What it lacks in breadth, it compensates for with clarity. You know exactly where your data lives (the Netherlands), under whose jurisdiction it falls (Dutch and EU law), and on what technology it runs (open-source OpenStack). There are no hidden subprocessors, no ambiguous data flows, and no proprietary APIs creating lock-in. For organisations where data sovereignty is not a marketing checkbox but a genuine operational requirement, Fuga Cloud delivers something that no hyperscaler can credibly match.

Key Features

OpenStack Foundation

Fuga Cloud's entire platform is built on OpenStack, the most widely deployed open-source cloud computing framework. This is a strategic choice with practical implications. OpenStack APIs are standardised and supported by a broad ecosystem of tools — Terraform, Ansible, the OpenStack CLI, and dozens of third-party integrations work out of the box. If you build your infrastructure on Fuga Cloud, you can migrate it to any other OpenStack provider (or your own OpenStack deployment) without rewriting a single line of infrastructure code.

This portability is the opposite of vendor lock-in. AWS Lambda functions, GCP BigQuery queries, and Azure Functions are all proprietary — migrating away means rebuilding. Fuga Cloud's OpenStack foundation means your infrastructure knowledge and automation are transferable by design.

Compute Instances

Fuga Cloud offers virtual machines with flexible sizing, from small development instances to larger production workloads. Instances are SSD-backed for consistent I/O performance and can be provisioned in minutes through the web dashboard, API, or infrastructure-as-code tools. The compute flavours cover a reasonable range of CPU and memory configurations, though the selection is narrower than what hyperscalers offer.

Storage Options

Block storage is available as SSD-backed volumes that can be attached to compute instances. Volumes support snapshots for point-in-time backups and can be resized without downtime. Object storage provides an S3-compatible API for storing unstructured data — media files, backups, application data — with straightforward per-GB pricing.

The storage infrastructure is located exclusively in Dutch data centres, ensuring that stored data never crosses international borders. For organisations subject to sector-specific data residency requirements (finance, healthcare, government), this guarantee is foundational.

Networking

The networking layer includes virtual private clouds, floating IPs for public-facing instances, security groups for firewall rules, and load balancers for distributing traffic across instances. The networking is functional but basic compared to the VPC offerings of major cloud providers — there are no dedicated interconnects, transit gateways, or advanced networking features.

Web Dashboard and API

Fuga Cloud provides a Horizon-based web dashboard for managing infrastructure through a browser, alongside full OpenStack API access for programmatic control. The dashboard covers instance management, storage, networking, and basic monitoring. For teams experienced with OpenStack, the environment will feel immediately familiar.

Pricing

Fuga Cloud uses a pay-per-use pricing model with per-hour billing for compute and per-GB/month billing for storage. The pricing is transparent and published on their website, without the complexity of reserved instances, savings plans, or commitment discounts that make hyperscaler pricing notoriously difficult to predict.

Compute pricing is competitive for European cloud providers, though not as aggressive as Hetzner or OVHcloud. The value proposition is not rock-bottom pricing — it is pricing transparency combined with data sovereignty. You trade the scale economics of a hyperscaler for the certainty of knowing exactly where your data is and under whose law it falls.

There are no free tiers, but there are also no hidden charges for common operations. The pricing model is designed to be predictable, which is valuable for organisations that need to budget cloud spend accurately.

EU Compliance & Data Privacy

Data sovereignty is not a feature of Fuga Cloud — it is the reason Fuga Cloud exists. All infrastructure is located in data centres in the Netherlands. Data never leaves Dutch jurisdiction. The company itself is a Dutch entity (Fuga Cloud B.V.), subject to Dutch and EU law.

Fuga Cloud provides Data Processing Agreements to all customers, and the DPA reflects the straightforward data flow: your data goes into a Dutch data centre, is processed on Dutch infrastructure, and stays there. There are no subprocessors in non-EU jurisdictions, no data transfers under Standard Contractual Clauses, and no CLOUD Act exposure.

For organisations in regulated sectors — financial services, healthcare, government, critical infrastructure — Fuga Cloud's data sovereignty position eliminates an entire category of compliance risk. When your regulator asks where your data is processed, the answer is simple and verifiable.

The OpenStack foundation adds a compliance advantage: the infrastructure software itself is open-source and auditable. Unlike proprietary cloud platforms where the underlying systems are opaque, Fuga Cloud's technology stack can be inspected by anyone.

Who It's Best For

Regulated European organisations in finance, healthcare, and government that require demonstrable data sovereignty and cannot rely on Standard Contractual Clauses with US hyperscalers.

OpenStack-experienced teams who want managed OpenStack infrastructure without operating their own hardware. If your team already knows Terraform with OpenStack providers, Fuga Cloud is operationally familiar from day one.

Data sovereignty-first organisations where the legal jurisdiction of the cloud provider is a non-negotiable requirement, not a nice-to-have checkbox.

Mid-sized workloads that need straightforward IaaS — compute, storage, networking — without the complexity or cost of hyperscale managed services.

The Verdict

Fuga Cloud is not for everyone, and it does not pretend to be. It cannot match the service breadth of AWS, the developer experience of DigitalOcean, or the pricing of Hetzner. What it offers is something none of those providers can: unambiguous, verifiable European data sovereignty built on open standards. For organisations where regulatory compliance, data residency, and vendor independence are genuine priorities rather than marketing talking points, Fuga Cloud provides a foundation that is honest about what it is and valuable precisely because of what it is not.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Fuga Cloud GDPR compliant?

Yes. Fuga Cloud stores all data exclusively in data centres located in the Netherlands. As a Dutch company, it operates under EU jurisdiction and provides Data Processing Agreements to all customers.

What is OpenStack and why does it matter?

OpenStack is an open-source cloud computing platform. Because Fuga Cloud is built on OpenStack, you get standard APIs that work with any OpenStack-compatible tooling. This means you can migrate your workloads to or from Fuga Cloud without rewriting your infrastructure code.

Can Fuga Cloud replace AWS?

For basic IaaS needs (compute, storage, networking), yes. However, Fuga Cloud does not offer the breadth of managed services (databases, serverless, AI/ML, etc.) that AWS provides. It is best suited for organisations that need straightforward cloud infrastructure with data sovereignty.

Does Fuga Cloud charge for egress bandwidth?

Fuga Cloud's pricing model is designed to be transparent with no hidden fees. Check their current pricing page for specific bandwidth and egress details, as policies may have been updated.

What regions are available?

Fuga Cloud currently operates exclusively from data centres in the Netherlands. While this limits geographic distribution, it guarantees that all data remains within Dutch and EU jurisdiction.