Scaleway 4: Scaleway Pricing vs AWS - What You Actually Save
Cost is almost always part of the conversation when looking at a cloud migration. With Scaleway, the data sovereignty case already stands on its own, but for most standard workloads, it also comes with a meaningful cost saving.
This post uses percentages rather than specific figures. Cloud pricing changes often, and exact numbers can go out of date quickly. The relative differences, though, have been fairly consistent: Scaleway is noticeably cheaper than AWS across the services where most businesses spend the most. Before building a migration business case, it is still worth checking current pricing directly on both providers’ sites.
Compute: Virtual Instances vs EC2
For equivalent compute specifications, with the same vCPU count and RAM, Scaleway Virtual Instances typically cost around 30 to 45% less than comparable AWS EC2 instances. The exact saving depends on the instance family and region, but compute focused and general purpose workloads usually see the biggest gaps.
Scaleway’s per second billing also means you only pay for the time an instance is actually running. That matters most for CI/CD pipelines, batch jobs, and any workload with predictable off peak periods.
Object Storage vs S3
Scaleway Object Storage pricing is broadly in line with S3 Standard when it comes to storage itself. The bigger difference is egress.
AWS charges for data transferred out of S3, both to the internet and, in some cases, between services in the same region. At scale, those egress charges can make up a significant part of an AWS bill. Scaleway does not charge egress fees within the Scaleway network, so data moving from Object Storage to a Virtual Instance or Kubernetes cluster in the same region does not add any extra cost.
For data heavy workloads such as media processing, data pipelines, and analytics, removing those egress fees alone can mean savings of 20 to 40% on the storage and transfer side of the bill.
Managed Databases vs RDS
Scaleway Managed Database pricing is typically around 40 to 55% lower than equivalent RDS setups across PostgreSQL and MySQL. Part of that gap comes from the instance cost itself, and part comes from the fact that Scaleway does not charge separately for automated backups up to the size of the database.
For businesses running multiple database instances across production, staging, and development, those savings can add up quickly.
Kubernetes: The Free Control Plane
AWS EKS charges for the control plane on every cluster — approximately €0.10 per hour per cluster. Across a typical setup of three environments (production, staging, development), that is roughly €220 per year in control plane fees alone, before any worker node costs.
Scaleway Kapsule has no control plane fee. You pay only for the worker nodes you run. For teams running multiple clusters, or for smaller businesses where every line of the infrastructure bill matters, this is a straightforward saving.
Messaging: Kafka and Queues
AWS charges for Kinesis Data Streams by shard, per hour, and by PUT payload unit. For even moderate event streaming workloads, the costs can build up quickly.
Scaleway’s managed Apache Kafka service and its NATS based messaging are priced by the amount of data processed, rather than by shard. For workloads with variable throughput, that usually makes costs easier to predict and often cheaper, typically around 35 to 50% lower than comparable Kinesis setups.
Overall Bill Reduction
For a typical web application running on AWS, with compute, object storage, a managed database, a Kubernetes cluster, and outbound data transfer, businesses moving to Scaleway often see total cloud spend fall by around 35 to 50%.
The biggest savings usually come from three areas: egress fees, which disappear within the Scaleway network, the free Kubernetes control plane, and lower base pricing for compute and databases.
Where AWS Is Comparable or Better
Scaleway’s reserved pricing options are not as mature as AWS Reserved Instances and Savings Plans. If you are already committed to long term reservations on AWS, it is worth factoring in any termination costs and the structure of those reservations before setting a migration timeline.
AWS’s global edge network through CloudFront is also more extensive than Scaleway’s CDN offering. For businesses with heavy CDN spend and users spread across multiple regions, that is something you should model carefully.
Running the Numbers for Your Stack
The percentages above reflect common configurations. Your actual savings will depend on your specific mix of services, regions, and usage patterns. Scaleway’s pricing calculator is publicly available and detailed enough to help you build a sensible estimate before committing.
iWorks can run this comparison for you based on your actual AWS Cost Explorer data. Get in touch and we’ll turn it into a clear picture.
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