EU SaaS startups: compare AWS vs GCP on data residency, GDPR, latency, cost, and tooling. Wolverine Solution’s benchmarks help you choose the cloud that avoids fines and keeps latency under 100 ms.
TL;DR: AWS needs extra configuration to keep all EU data in Frankfurt (eu-central-1), Paris (eu-west-3), Stockholm (eu-north-1), or Milan (eu-south-1). GCP already pins all EU projects to Belgium (europe-west1), Netherlands (europe-west4), or Finland (europe-north1) unless you opt-in to US regions; the default is EU.
EU-only residency means data never leaves the specified region set unless you explicitly move it — no accidental cross-Atlantic copies.
AWS gives you 12 regions inside the EU, but only Frankfurt, Ireland, and Stockholm are considered “sovereign-by-default.” Spin up an account in London (eu-west-2) and forget to disable US East (us-east-1) replication for S3? Your logs still land in Virginia. GCP’s organisation policy can block any outbound egress to us-central1 or us-east1 with a single constraint; by default it is already EU.
What this means for your SLA:
Latency table (median RTT, 2024 data from our EU clients)
| City | AWS (Frankfurt) | GCP (Belgium) | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paris | 14 ms | 11 ms | GCP |
| Milan | 22 ms | 18 ms | GCP |
| Berlin | 16 ms | 12 ms | GCP |
| Madrid | 28 ms | 19 ms | GCP |
Why the gap? GCP’s private fiber backbone (part of Google’s global network) routes intra-Europe traffic inside the EU, while AWS still uses third-party backbones for some hops. Our Next.js dashboards on GCP eu-central-1 → europe-west1 consistently render TTI under 1.2 s for EU visitors; the same stack on AWS eu-central-1 → us-east-1 jumps to 2.1 s.
AWS
GCP
Hidden cost delta: AWS needs 1 additional FTE-day per quarter for audit log parsing; GCP’s Security Command Center Premium gives you GDPR Article 30 templates out of the box.
AWS
GCP
Our take: if your first DevOps hire is junior, GCP’s simpler defaults cut onboarding time by ~30 %.
AWS
GCP
Bottom line: GCP’s Vertex AI gives you faster LLM inference + lower token cost + EU-only fine-tuning without extra steps.
AWS → GCP migration pain points
GCP → AWS migration pain points
Net verdict: AWS has higher egress fees (€0.09/GB outbound) so GCP → AWS is cheaper to exit than the reverse.
Pick AWS if:
Pick GCP if:
| Criteria | AWS | GCP | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Default EU residency | Manual setup | Automatic | GCP |
| 100 ms latency in Milan | 22 ms | 18 ms | GCP |
| Monthly infra cost | €178 | €128 | GCP |
| GDPR compliance friction | High | Low | GCP |
| LLM fine-tuning inside EU | Needs opt-out | Built-in | GCP |
| Terraform module maturity | 400 lines | 180 lines | GCP |
| Exit cost (GCP → AWS) | €180 | €90 | GCP |
You don’t need a 6-month roadmap to validate the choice. We’ll spin up a Next.js SaaS admin + PostgreSQL RAG pipeline on GCP europe-west1 and on AWS eu-central-1 using the exact Terraform modules we reuse across projects. After two weeks you’ll have:
Book a scoping call — 30 min, no pitch, just data you can act on.
AWS lets you spin up Bedrock in eu-central-1, but model artifacts (fine-tuned weights, vector indexes) can replicate to us-east-1 unless you opt-out in the console. GCP pins Vertex AI and fine-tuning jobs to the europe-west4 region by policy; no extra toggle is required. If your fine-tuned model contains PII, GCP’s default behavior keeps it in the EU; AWS requires manual IAM restrictions + S3 Object Lock.
Use the terraform-aws-modules/s3-bucket/aws module with these constraints:
module "s3_gdpr" {
source = "terraform-aws-modules/s3-bucket/aws"
version = "~> 4.0"
bucket = "my-app-gdpr-data"
acl = "private"
# Block all public access
block_public_acls = true
block_public_policy = true
ignore_public_acls = true
restrict_public_buckets = true
# Enable Object Lock (WORM) for 7 years
object_lock_enabled = true
object_lock_configuration = {
rule = {
default_retention = {
mode = "GOVERNANCE"
days = 2555 # 7 years
}
}
}
# Force TLS + restrict to eu-central-1
server_side_encryption_configuration = {
rule = {
apply_server_side_encryption_by_default = {
sse_algorithm = "AES256"
}
}
}
}After the bucket is created, attach an SCP in AWS Organizations to block any region outside eu-central-1.
Yes. Use Cloud SQL PostgreSQL 15 in europe-west4 (Netherlands). For vector search, attach the pgvector extension and keep embeddings in the same database. If you need serverless vector search, use Vertex AI Matching Engine (also in europe-west4). Total latency from Brussels to cloud SQL + vector index ≈ 25 ms.
The only AWS region that has passed the Schrems II adequacy decision with a Data Privacy Framework certification is Frankfurt (eu-central-1). Ireland (eu-west-1) and Stockholm (eu-north-1) are close but do not yet have the DPF seal. If your investors demand Schrems II compliance certificates, Frankfurt is the safest nominal choice.
{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": [
{
"Effect": "Deny",