SME public cloud 2026: AWS vs Azure vs OVHcloud.
Comparison of the 3 public clouds for French SMEs. Sovereignty, pricing, services, support.
AWS (Amazon Web Services)
Tech SME / startup / B2B SaaS needing international scale
- ✓Broadest service catalog (EC2, RDS, Lambda, S3, ElastiCache, Bedrock AI, etc.)
- ✓Operational maturity: SLA, monitoring, automation
- ✓Huge community + documentation
- ✓Paris (eu-west-3) + Marseille + Frankfurt + Stockholm regions
- ✓Generous 12-month free tier to get started
- ✓Skills readily available on the market
- −Subject to the US Cloud Act: not recommended for ultra-sensitive data or OIV
- −Complex pricing (egress, traffic, requests) → sometimes unpredictable bills
- −Console UX can be unwelcoming for non-experts
- −Paid support (Business from $100/month min)
Tech SMEs wanting scale, multi-region, advanced managed services (AI, ML, analytics)
Microsoft Azure
SME running Microsoft 365 / Active Directory / SQL Server
- ✓Native integration with AD / Entra ID / M365
- ✓Bring Your Own License for Microsoft (Windows Server, SQL) with discounts
- ✓Azure Arc: hybrid resource management (on-prem + cloud)
- ✓France Central region (Paris) + EU Bleu (sovereign via Bleu late 2025)
- ✓Credits included in some enterprise agreements
- ✓Defender for Cloud unifies endpoint + cloud security
- −Subject to the US Cloud Act (except Bleu for sovereign offers)
- −Microsoft license pricing on Azure marked up if not BYOL
- −Documentation sometimes incomplete on recent services
- −Standard support is paid (similar to AWS)
100% Microsoft SMEs seeking ecosystem consistency + unified billing
OVHcloud
French SME seeking sovereignty + predictable pricing + FR support
- ✓French sovereignty: no US Cloud Act
- ✓Datacenters in Roubaix, Strasbourg, Gravelines, Beauharnois (FR/EU/CA)
- ✓Simple pricing, no egress fees on most offers
- ✓Competitive on Hosted Private Cloud, VPS, Bare Metal
- ✓Public Cloud catalog (OpenStack + S3 compatible)
- ✓French technical support included
- ✓SecNumCloud certified (Bare Metal Pod offer): qualified for OIV
- −Managed services catalog less extensive than AWS/Azure (no Bedrock AI, limited ML services)
- −Console + tooling maturity below the hyperscalers
- −The SBG2 2021 incident remains a memorable mark (since then: improved redundancy)
- −Some native third-party services unavailable
French SMEs, OIV, public administrations, sensitive data, needing sovereignty + fixed pricing
Detailed comparison table
| Criterion | AWS | Azure | OVHcloud |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vendor origin | USA (Amazon) | USA (Microsoft) | France |
| Subject to Cloud Act | Yes | Yes (except Bleu) | No |
| France datacenters | Paris (eu-west-3) | France Central (Paris) | Roubaix, Strasbourg, Gravelines |
| SecNumCloud certification | No | Bleu (in progress) | Yes (Bare Metal Pod) |
| Compute (VM) | EC2 | Virtual Machines | Public Cloud Instances + VPS + Bare Metal |
| S3-like object storage | S3 (the reference) | Blob Storage | S3-compatible Object Storage |
| Managed database | RDS (Postgres/MySQL/etc) | Azure SQL / Postgres flex | Cloud Databases (Postgres/MySQL/MongoDB) |
| Managed Kubernetes | EKS | AKS | OVH Managed Kubernetes |
| AI / ML services | Bedrock, SageMaker, Comprehend | Azure OpenAI, ML Studio, AI Foundry | AI Notebooks / Training (limited) |
| Egress pricing (outbound) | High (~$0.09/GB) | High (~$0.087/GB) | Often free or very low |
| Standard support | Paid (Basic free, Business $100/month min) | Paid (Basic free, Pro $100/month) | Standard included, Premium paid |
| Free tier | Generous 12 months | 12 months + $200 credit | No global free tier |
| Marketplace catalog | Very rich | Rich (M365-integrated) | Modest |
| Skills available in FR | Very strong | Very strong | Strong |
Recommendation by profile
→ AWS
Unbeatable service catalog + operational maturity. Skills readily available.
→ Azure
Ecosystem consistency, Microsoft BYOL, unified Entra/Defender integration.
→ OVHcloud (Bare Metal Pod SecNumCloud)
No Cloud Act, SecNumCloud certification, France datacenters, FR support included.
How these products were selected
This page does not rank the market. The products compared were selected because each meets at least one public, verifiable criterion: listed in the ANSSI catalogue of certified and qualified products, included in an independent comparative test published in open access, or covered by an official price list available online. What the sources do not say is not asserted here.
- 1.Catalogue des produits, services, profils de protection, sites certifiés, qualifiés et agréés, ANSSI, 2026-09-08, checked 2026-09-09.OVH holds three SecNumCloud IaaS qualifications. Neither AWS, nor Microsoft, nor Google appears in this list.
- 2.SecNumCloud pour les fournisseurs de services cloud, ANSSI, checked 2026-09-09.What the SecNumCloud qualification requires of a provider.
- 3.Q2 Cloud Market Passes $143 Billion, Synergy Research Group, 2026-07-30, checked 2026-09-09.Worldwide cloud infrastructure market in Q2 2026: Amazon 28%, Microsoft 20%, Google 15%. The third player worldwide is Google, not OVHcloud.
- 4.European Cloud Providers Local Market Share Now Holds Steady at 15%, Synergy Research Group, 2025-07-24, checked 2026-09-09.European providers hold about 15% of their home market. OVHcloud is named there without a figure of its own.
Vendor pricing changes without notice: the check date says when we last looked. Spotted an error or a source worth adding? Write to us and the page is corrected.
Cloud migration or new project?
Existing-environment audit + landing zone + sizing + phased migration + team training. On AWS, Azure or OVHcloud.