EU Hosting for a Corporate Website in Berlin: GDPR, Hetzner, OVH or AWS Frankfurt

The verdict in three sentences

For a Berlin SME's corporate website, Hetzner or OVHcloud covers 90% of needs for 10 to 180 EUR a month, with data and backups in the EU and no direct exposure to the US CLOUD Act. AWS Frankfurt is justified once the site handles heavy traffic peaks, a business application or an architecture already on Amazon, for 80 to 400 EUR a month. The real hidden cost is not the server but managed services, often 2 to 5 times the hosting bill.

2026 cost comparison

A 30 to 80 page corporate site with 20,000 to 80,000 monthly visits runs comfortably on an 8 GB server. The AWS premium mainly buys elasticity and a service ecosystem, not speed perceived by visitors.

GDPR and CLOUD Act: what really changes

All three providers host data in the EU and sign a data processing agreement compliant with GDPR Article 28. The difference lies in the parent company's nationality: AWS is a US company subject to the CLOUD Act, which lets US authorities request access to data even when stored in Frankfurt. The 2023 EU-US Data Privacy Framework reduces legal risk without eliminating it.

For a brochure site without sensitive data, the CLOUD Act issue is limited. It becomes central if the site hosts a client area, HR forms or contractual documents, and for any company bidding on public tenders.

Managed services: the often forgotten line item

Mini case study

Jonas, IT director of a 320-employee industrial firm in Berlin, must host the new corporate site (60 pages, 45,000 visits a month, distributor portal). He compares OVHcloud Public Cloud at 110 EUR a month with standard managed services at 350 EUR, against AWS Frankfurt at 260 EUR a month with managed services at 450 EUR.

Over three years: OVH = (110 + 350) × 36 = 16,560 EUR; AWS = (260 + 450) × 36 = 25,560 EUR. The 9,000 EUR gap is small against the IT budget, but the distributor portal holds confidential pricing and the company bids on defence tenders. Jonas picks OVHcloud with backups replicated to a second EU site, taking the site out of CLOUD Act scope.

FAQ

Is shared hosting enough for a corporate site?

Under 10,000 monthly visits and without a client area, yes, at 5 to 15 EUR a month. Beyond that, a dedicated server avoids slowdowns caused by other sites on the machine.

What uptime should we target?

99.9% means about 8 h 45 of downtime a year, enough for a brochure site. 99.99% drops to 53 minutes and requires a redundant architecture that often doubles the cost.

Do we need a CDN?

Yes if 20% or more of visitors are outside Germany. Bunny CDN or Cloudflare cost 0 to 25 EUR a month for a corporate site.

Where should backups live?

In a different data centre from production, ideally in the EU, with 30-day retention. The option costs 5 to 30 EUR a month at Hetzner or OVHcloud.

Is migration expensive?

For a standard corporate site, 800 to 3,000 EUR excl. VAT with testing and DNS switchover, done in 1 to 2 weeks without downtime.

Let's scope your project. Describe your traffic, GDPR constraints and desired on-call level: we will compare Hetzner, OVHcloud and AWS over three years, managed services included. Detailed quote within 48 h. WhatsApp +221 77 596 93 33.