European web hosting: 5 EU hosts we checked, from the company behind them to the data center

o2switch is a French company based in Clermont-Ferrand, in central France. It runs its own data centers in the same city, with its staff on site. That makes it the cleanest answer on this page to "where is my data and who controls it": one company, one country, one location.

There are three plans. Grow costs €84 excl. VAT a year, so €7 a month. Cloud starts at €22.32 excl. VAT for the first year, or €1.86 a month. Pro is built for busy sites. Resources are spelled out, which is rare in shared hosting: 8 CPU threads and 16 GB of shared memory on Grow, 12 threads and 48 GB on Cloud, 24 and 64 GB on Pro. Backups run daily and are kept 30 days on Grow, 45 on Cloud and 90 on Pro. Cloud and Pro also add 250 GB of Nextcloud storage (a Dropbox-style file space hosted by o2switch) and one free domain renewal.

Support. Phone, email, tickets and live chat, around the clock. Public customer reviews keep coming back to the same point: fast answers from people who know cPanel inside out.

The catch. The site, the panel and the support are in French. If your team does not read French, this is a real cost, not a detail. The first-year price also lasts one year only: renewal is at the "current rate", which is much higher, so budget on three years. Negative reviews mention a few multi-day outages on specific accounts and slow webmail at times.

Tip: use the 30-day no-questions refund to move your site over and check load times before you commit to a 12, 24 or 36-month term.

Best for. A French-speaking business, or a European company that sells into France and wants its site hosted there. Not for an English-only team, or an app that needs root access: compare VPS hosting instead.

OVHcloud is a listed French company headquartered in Roubaix, and the largest cloud provider born in Europe. Shared hosting runs in its French data centers. Users on its own forum report that shared plans sit in Gravelines, with no choice of location.

Prices on the French site are low to start with: Starter at €1.59 excl. VAT a month for the first year, then €2.59; Perso at €2.99, then €5.99, with 100 GB and up to 15 sites; Pro at €1.99, then €9.99. That last jump is five times the intro price. OVHcloud publishes an observed availability of 99.9%.

The catch. OVHcloud raised shared hosting prices in 2026, applied at renewal, and long-time customers on the official forum were not happy: one reported his Perso plan doubling. Automatic backups are not contractual, so OVHcloud does not promise it can restore your site. Customers who lost data in the 2021 Strasbourg fire without their own copy learned that the hard way. Support is the most frequent complaint about OVHcloud, in every language.

Two forum tips. An OVHcloud representative confirmed you can renew early, up to four years ahead, to lock in the old price before an increase. And keep half your storage free if you ever need to restore a backup: the restore needs room to unpack.

Best for. A tight budget that still wants a big European name, or an agency running many sites from one account. Not for anyone who expects quick, friendly support.

Hetzner is a German company, and its web hosting runs in Nuremberg. Developers know it for its servers, but it also sells plain shared hosting, and that offer is the most transparent on this page: the price you see is the price you keep, billed monthly, with no commitment.

The range starts with Webhosting S at €1.60 a month excl. VAT, then M at €4.12, L at €8.32 and XL at €16.72. Every plan comes with unlimited mailboxes, which saves you from paying a separate email provider. Users who have stayed two years or more describe it as flawless, and it keeps coming up as the safe pick for reliable EU hosting on a budget.

The catch. Phone support is only included on the XL plan. On smaller plans you work by email and ticket, which suits developers better than small business owners. The setup fee line next to some plans is shown as €0 but laid out in a confusing way, so check your basket before paying.

Tip: because there is no intro discount, Hetzner often comes out cheapest over three years even when its monthly price looks higher than a $1 promo. Run the sum before you sign up anywhere else.

Best for. A developer, a freelancer or a small business comfortable with tickets, who wants German hosting with a stable bill. Not for someone who wants to call a human on the entry plan.

IONOS belongs to IONOS Group, headquartered in Montabaur, Germany. It describes its infrastructure as geo-redundant and European. There's a twist that matters for this page: ionos.com, the site US visitors land on, is run by an American subsidiary. If you want a contract with a European entity, sign up through a European IONOS site such as the German, French or Spanish one.

On ionos.com, the Plus plan costs $1 a month for the first year. The renewal is where it hurts: on the French site, the same Plus plan goes from €1 to €11 excl. VAT a month, eleven times the intro price. Plans are monthly with no long commitment, IONOS guarantees 99.99% uptime, and you get 30 days to ask for a refund.

The catch. That renewal multiplier is the biggest on this page. The entry Standard plan also comes with only one mailbox. Choose the plan for year two, not for the banner.

Tip: set a calendar reminder two weeks before your first anniversary. That's when to decide whether to stay at the full price, move down a plan, or migrate.

Best for. A beginner who wants a cheap first year with a well-known brand. Not for anyone who needs to avoid US jurisdiction and signs up on ionos.com without thinking.

Hostinger is a Lithuanian company founded in 2004. It runs data centers in several countries and lets you pick the location when you set up a site, including Paris (opened in 2022), Germany, Lithuania and the UK. That makes it European by ownership, with EU data available if you choose it.

The Premium plan is $2.49 a month, but only if you prepay 48 months. After that term, the price climbs to roughly four times the intro rate. Email is free for the first year only, and backups on Premium are weekly, not daily.

The catch. Hostinger's own guide to the "best European hosting" ranks Hostinger first. Read any ranking from a host about hosts with that in mind. Also, the location default may not be the one you want: choose an EU data center yourself at setup.

Tip: if you already host with Hostinger and want out, our guide to switching from Hostinger covers the migration step by step.

Best for. A first-time site owner who wants the simplest panel and accepts a long prepay. Not for a business that needs daily backups on the entry plan.