Almost every container platform now has a European region. That is the easy part. The harder question is what "European" means on your compliance form: the location of the disk, or the law that applies to the company holding it. This list marks both for every platform, because they are different answers.
Order below follows how broadly each platform fits a normal production workload, not price. Hostim is at number three: it is the cheapest here and the only one that is European end to end, with a deliberately narrow product around it.
Render
US company · Frankfurt regionThe most polished managed experience in this list, with a Frankfurt region and fixed instance prices you can budget. It is also a US company, so European data residency here means "the disk is in Germany", not "US law does not apply".
| Entry price | Free Hobby workspace; Starter web service $7/month for 0.5 CPU and 512 MB, Standard $25/month for 1 CPU and 2 GB. Pro workspace is $25/month flat with unlimited seats |
|---|---|
| Billing | Fixed instance price, prorated to the second, plus the workspace plan. Bandwidth 5 GB included on Hobby and 25 GB on Pro, then $0.15/GB |
| EU regions | Frankfurt, Germany |
| EU data residency | Region yes, jurisdiction no — Render is US-owned |
| Deploy method | Git push, Dockerfile, or a prebuilt image |
Where it is strong
- A genuine free tier: free web services stay deployable, they just spin down after about 15 minutes idle and cold-start on the next request.
- Fixed instance pricing, so the bill does not move with traffic.
- Managed Postgres from $6/month, a Redis-compatible key-value store, cron jobs, preview environments and autoscaling in one product.
Where it falls short
- You pay for the instance size whether it is busy or idle — fixed pricing cuts both ways.
- Workspace plans changed on 1 August 2026 and legacy workspaces were migrated, so older price comparisons are out of date.
- One EU region. If Frankfurt is not where you need to be, there is no EU alternative. Database high availability also starts at $55/month, on Pro-4gb and above.
- Render pricing — Render (checked 2026-08-06)
- Updated plans for Render workspaces — Render changelog (checked 2026-08-06)
- Render vs Railway vs Fly.io pricing — Hostim.dev blog, June 2026 (checked 2026-08-06)
Fly.io
US company · many EU regionsThe cheapest raw compute here and the widest region list, including several in the EU. You pay per second for machines that you size yourself, which is excellent for spiky traffic and hard to predict for steady traffic.
| Entry price | $2.32/month for a shared-cpu-1x machine with 256 MB left running all month (Fly’s own example, sjc region); extra RAM about $5 per GB per 30 days |
|---|---|
| Billing | Per second, no plan fee. Volumes $0.15/GB-month, snapshots $0.08/GB-month after 10 GB free, egress $0.02/GB in the EU and US |
| EU regions | Multiple, including Frankfurt and Amsterdam |
| EU data residency | Region yes, jurisdiction no — Fly.io is US-owned |
| Deploy method | Dockerfile or image, deployed with flyctl and a fly.toml |
Where it is strong
- Machines stop when idle and cost only their disk, so scale-to-zero is real here.
- Cheap egress at $0.02/GB, and cheap small machines.
- Region placement is granular — you choose the cities, not a vague "EU".
Where it falls short
- No free allowance on new accounts. You pay from the first running machine.
- The bill has many small lines: machines, volumes, snapshots, egress, IPs. Predicting it takes work.
- More knobs than a PaaS. Expect to read documentation before your first deploy.
- Fly.io pricing — Fly.io (checked 2026-08-06)
Hostim
German company · German bare metalThe only platform in this list that is European end to end: German company, dedicated bare-metal servers in Germany, no hyperscaler underneath. It deliberately does less than the others, at a lower flat price.
| Entry price | €2.50/month for 1 vCPU and 1 GB RAM (plan sa-1-1), flat |
|---|---|
| Billing | Per plan, billed hourly, prorated. No usage meter, no egress fee |
| EU regions | One: Falkenstein, Germany |
| EU data residency | Yes, including jurisdiction — German company, no US cloud in the path |
| Deploy method | Docker image, Git repo with a Dockerfile, or a pasted docker-compose.yml |
Where it is strong
- Docker Compose import: paste the file and it creates apps, databases and volumes from it.
- Free permanent database tier (PostgreSQL 256 MB, MySQL 256 MB, Redis 128 MB, 1 GB volume), with no cap on instances.
- Managed PostgreSQL and MySQL run replicated with automatic failover on every plan, and measured 2,708 pgbench TPS on a 2 vCPU / 4 GB plan against 1,080 for an equivalent AWS RDS instance.
Where it falls short
- One region today, in Germany. More are planned; there is no edge network and no scale-to-zero.
- No object storage, CDN, managed DNS or transactional email — you bring an external provider for those.
- Hostim.dev price list — Hostim.dev (checked 2026-08-06)
- PostgreSQL benchmark: AWS RDS vs Hostim vs self-hosted — Hostim.dev blog, July 2026 (checked 2026-08-06)
Northflank
UK company · EU West regionThe most complete container platform here. Pipelines, preview environments, GPUs, and the option to run everything inside your own AWS, GCP or Azure account. Large enough that a one-container project will not use most of it.
| Entry price | $2.70/month for 0.1 shared vCPU and 256 MB; $24/month for a dedicated 1 vCPU / 2 GB plan |
|---|---|
| Billing | Per plan, prorated to the second. Egress $0.06/GB, SSD $0.15/GB-month |
| EU regions | EU West, plus 600+ bring-your-own-cloud regions |
| EU data residency | Region yes; the company is UK-based, outside the EU |
| Deploy method | Git, Dockerfile, container image, or templates |
Where it is strong
- Free sandbox with 2 services, 1 database and 2 cron jobs.
- Bring-your-own-cloud keeps data in an account you control, which solves a lot of compliance arguments.
- No per-seat pricing, so adding teammates is free.
Where it falls short
- Highest egress rate in this list at $0.06/GB.
- Priced in USD from a UK company — currency risk on both ends for EU buyers.
- The learning curve is closer to a cloud than to a PaaS.
- Northflank pricing — Northflank (checked 2026-08-06)
Koyeb
French company · Frankfurt regionFrench-owned, serverless containers on bare metal, scale-to-zero, and a Frankfurt region. The catch is the plan fee, and the fact that the company is now heading toward AI and GPU infrastructure.
| Entry price | Pro plan $29/month including $10 of compute; compute billed on top |
|---|---|
| Billing | Per second plus plan fee. 1 TB bandwidth included, then $0.02/GB in the EU and US |
| EU regions | Frankfurt, within 7 regions across US, EU and Asia |
| EU data residency | Possible by region choice; the company is French |
| Deploy method | Git push or any container image |
Where it is strong
- Scale-to-zero with per-second billing, so idle services are nearly free.
- Generous included bandwidth at 1 TB per month.
- European ownership with a real EU region, which is rare in this half of the list.
Where it falls short
- $29/month lands before any compute. For one small container that is the most expensive start here.
- Serverless Postgres is $29.76/month for the smallest always-on size.
- The roadmap is moving toward GPU and AI workloads after the announcement that Koyeb is joining Mistral AI.
- Koyeb pricing — Koyeb (checked 2026-08-06)
Sevalla
Kinsta · Google CloudKinsta’s container platform, built on Google Kubernetes Engine and fronted by Cloudflare. Pleasant to use and well documented. It sits on a US hyperscaler, which is the thing most people are trying to leave when they search for EU hosting.
| Entry price | $5/month for the H1 pod (0.3 CPU, 0.3 GB) with no custom domain support; $10/month for S1 (0.5 CPU, 1 GB); $40/month for S2 (1 CPU, 2 GB) |
|---|---|
| Billing | Usage-based, per pod size |
| EU regions | Several, within 25 Google Cloud data centre locations |
| EU data residency | Region yes; the underlying infrastructure is Google Cloud |
| Deploy method | Git push, Dockerfile, or container image |
Where it is strong
- Applications, databases, static sites and object storage in one console.
- Cloudflare in front of every app, with a large edge network.
- Backed by Kinsta, an established hosting company with real support hours.
Where it falls short
- The jump from S1 to S2 is $10 to $40 per month. The price curve is steep once you outgrow the smallest pod.
- The cheapest $5 pod does not support custom domains, so the real entry price is $10.
- Google Cloud underneath means the US CLOUD Act question does not go away.
- Sevalla application hosting pricing — Sevalla (checked 2026-08-06)
- Sevalla overview — Kinsta docs (checked 2026-08-06)
How this list was made
Prices are taken from each vendor’s published price list on the date shown beside the source link, in the currency the vendor bills in. Where a platform meters usage, the monthly number is the published rate for a service that runs all month.
A platform was included if it runs arbitrary Docker containers, publishes prices openly, and has at least one European region. Purely European-owned platforms without a global footprint — Clever Cloud, Scalingo, Scaleway — are covered separately in 7 European alternatives to Railway. Self-hosted options such as Coolify, CapRover and Dokku are not on this list because they are software you install, not a platform you buy.
Vendor prices move. Check the linked price list before you plan a budget from these numbers.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best EU Docker hosting platform in 2026?
For the smoothest managed experience with an EU region, Render (Frankfurt). For the cheapest compute and the widest region choice, Fly.io. For full European ownership with no US hyperscaler in the path, Hostim, at €2.50/month for 1 vCPU and 1 GB. For teams that need pipelines, GPUs or bring-your-own-cloud, Northflank. There is no single winner — the answer depends on whether you need an EU region or EU jurisdiction.
Is an EU region the same as EU data residency?
No. An EU region means the servers stand in Europe. EU jurisdiction means the company running them is subject to EU law only. Render, Fly.io and Sevalla all offer EU regions but are US-owned or built on US cloud infrastructure, so US legal process such as the CLOUD Act can still reach the data. Hostim, Koyeb, Clever Cloud and Scalingo are European companies. Northflank is British, which is outside the EU but currently covered by an adequacy decision.
Which EU Docker host is cheapest for one always-on container?
Hostim at €2.50/month for 1 vCPU and 1 GB RAM, flat, with a free managed database attached. Fly.io is $2.32/month for a 256 MB machine left running, but RAM is billed on top at roughly $5 per GB per 30 days, and there is no free database. Northflank starts at $2.70/month for 0.1 vCPU and 256 MB. Sevalla starts at $5/month, but that pod does not support custom domains.
Can I run a docker-compose.yml directly on these platforms?
Only some of them. Hostim accepts a pasted docker-compose.yml and creates the apps, managed databases and volumes from it. Render, Fly.io, Koyeb, Northflank and Sevalla all want a Dockerfile or a prebuilt image, and each service is configured separately in their UI or config file. If your project is already a Compose stack, that difference is a few hours of work per project.
Do these platforms charge for bandwidth?
Most do. Fly.io and Koyeb charge $0.02/GB of egress in the EU and US, Northflank $0.06/GB, and Render bills extra bandwidth at $0.15/GB above an allowance of 5 GB on Hobby or 25 GB on Pro. Koyeb includes 1 TB per month before charging. Hostim includes traffic in the plan price and does not bill egress or ingress separately.
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