Why Dutch Companies Are Slow to Adopt European Cloud Solutions

European Cloud Solutions Are Gaining Ground

In recent years, significant investments have been made in European cloud infrastructure. Providers like OVHcloud and Open Telekom Cloud now offer scalable alternatives to the American hyperscalers. STACKIT, part of the Schwarz Group (known for Lidl and Kaufland), is building a strong German cloud ecosystem. An especially interesting player in this landscape is UpCloud, a Finnish cloud provider that explicitly positions itself as European-owned and European-operated.

With data centers in Amsterdam, Frankfurt, and Helsinki, UpCloud delivers low latency, high performance, and full GDPR compliance. Its offering focuses on transparent pricing, managed databases, object storage, private cloud solutions, and a strict European access policy: only EU personnel can access EU data centers. This makes UpCloud a concrete and credible alternative for organizations that take data security and compliance within European borders seriously.

Yet the reality is that Dutch organizations are still not making the switch at scale. The reasons are diverse, ranging from practical considerations to cultural barriers.

1. Hyperscalers Are Mature and Trusted

The American cloud giants have built up decades of head start. They operate vast global networks, offer extensive service catalogs, and provide a true one-stop-shop experience. Their ecosystems are so deeply integrated that switching feels like a leap into the unknown.

For many organizations, stability, support, and existing integrations outweigh the benefits of European data residency. The tools are familiar, teams are trained, and processes are running smoothly. Why take that risk?

2. Lack of European Alternatives for Email and Office Productivity

One important and often underestimated reason: there are still no fully comparable European alternatives to office platforms like Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace. Solutions such as Nextcloud Office, OnlyOffice, or Tutanota are promising, but they lack the depth, polish, and user experience of the dominant suites.

As a result, most organizations remain dependent on American SaaS platforms for daily work. Email, Teams meetings, documents, calendars: everything runs on U.S.-based systems. Even if the underlying infrastructure is European (for example via UpCloud), the digital workplace often remains in American hands. That makes full sovereignty difficult to achieve.

3. Migration Complexity and Risk

A cloud migration is rarely a simple lift-and-shift. Data migration, legacy dependencies, API incompatibilities, and latency differences all add complexity. Moving to UpCloud also requires careful planning, testing phases, and often a hybrid strategy where old and new systems coexist temporarily.

Your database has been running reliably for years. Your applications are tightly integrated with it. Are you going to disrupt all of that for a principled choice? For many IT managers, the answer is: preferably not.

4. Organizational and Cultural Barriers

Cloud migration is as much an organizational challenge as it is a technical one. IT teams are often trained on hyperscaler tooling. CFOs and security officers trust familiar compliance models. New vendors, no matter how strong, require trust, references, and time.

European providers are also relatively smaller. They don’t have the same marketing power or partner ecosystems as their American competitors, which means they often stay under the radar of decision-makers. You know AWS because they’re everywhere. UpCloud? You may need to Google them first.

5. Infrastructure, Cost, and Scale

UpCloud delivers strong performance within Europe but does not yet offer the same global footprint as AWS or Azure. For organizations with international customers, that can be a limiting factor. Costs also play a role. Migration requires investments in time, expertise, and temporarily duplicated infrastructure.

While European clouds are often more transparent and predictable in their pricing, hyperscalers can still be slightly cheaper at very large scale or with long-term contracts. A few percentage points can translate into thousands of euros per year.

6. Legal and Regulatory Differences

GDPR provides a shared framework, but implementation varies by member state. What is considered a “sovereign cloud” in Germany may be interpreted differently in the Netherlands or France. This adds complexity to compliance decisions, especially for organizations operating internationally.

You might think that choosing a European cloud solves everything, until you discover that French customers have different requirements than your German partners. Compliance quickly turns into a legal puzzle.

The Way Forward: Pragmatic and Phased

Moving to a European cloud doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing decision. A pragmatic, phased approach often works best.

Start small. Run new or non-critical workloads on European clouds like UpCloud. Test performance, experience the differences, and build confidence.

Adopt a hybrid strategy. Combine European infrastructure with existing hyperscaler services. Keep Microsoft 365 for productivity, but move database workloads to Europe.

Run pilots. Test performance, availability, and compliance in practice. Measure latency, monitor costs, and evaluate support.

Involve governance and security teams early. Without their buy-in, the initiative will stall.

Work with experienced partners who understand multicloud architectures and data migration. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

This approach builds experience and trust without disrupting critical business processes.

The Transition Is Inevitable

The move toward European cloud infrastructure is inevitable but the transition requires nuance, vision, and realism. Dependencies on American software ecosystems, migration complexity, and cost considerations slow adoption. Still, more organizations are recognizing that digital sovereignty is a strategic necessity.

With providers like UpCloud, a mature European alternative is finally emerging, one that meets both technical and legal requirements. The real question is no longer if organizations will switch, but when they will take the first steps.

At OptimaData, we don’t see this as an either-or choice, but as a both-and approach. We support organizations daily with cloud migrations, database optimization, and data platform architecture, vendor-independent. Whether you choose AWS, Azure, or a European provider like UpCloud, we ensure your databases perform at their best.

Ready for a European Cloud Strategy?

Curious whether a European cloud fits your IT strategy? Schedule a no-obligation consultation with one of our cloud specialists. Together, we’ll explore how you can modernize securely, compliantly, and future-proof. Get in touch for a short conversation about your options.