STACKIT
6.2/10STACKIT is a sovereign European public cloud from the Schwarz Group that offers compute, Kubernetes, storage, databases and AI services hosted only in Germany and Austria.
Data last updated November 2026 · Our methodology
Overview
STACKIT is the cloud platform of the Schwarz Group, the parent of Lidl and Kaufland, and is run inside Schwarz Digits. It began in 2018 as an internal cloud and opened to outside customers in 2022. The catalogue covers Compute Engine virtual machines, including GPU and confidential servers, the STACKIT Kubernetes Engine (built on Gardener), Cloud Foundry, block, file and S3-compatible object storage, and managed PostgreSQL, MongoDB, SQL Server, MariaDB, OpenSearch, key-value and RabbitMQ services. It also offers load balancers, DNS, CDN, secrets and key management, observability, and AI model serving. All services run in seven data centres in Germany and Austria, grouped into two regions (Germany-South and Austria-West) with three availability zones each. The compliance list includes BSI C5 Type 2, ISO 27001, 27017 and 27018, TISAX and DORA readiness. That makes STACKIT a fit for German and Austrian enterprises, public bodies, banks and other regulated organisations that must keep data under EU jurisdiction. Pricing is pay-as-you-go, metered hourly and reported per project. Prices are published in a calculator and a PDF price list, there is no free tier, and Advanced and Ultimate support plans are sold separately. An official Terraform provider, a CLI and APIs support infrastructure-as-code, and SAP hosting is available. The main limitation is breadth. The service catalogue, partner ecosystem and community resources are much smaller than those of AWS or Azure, both regions sit in the DACH area, and some APIs and products such as the container registry are still in beta.
Our Rating
Who STACKIT is best for
Good fit
It works with the BSI on sovereign cloud and supplies the infrastructure layer for the federal Germany-Stack AI Cloud.
Its compliance certifications, SAP hosting and Schwarz Group backing suit large regulated companies in the DACH region.
It positions itself as a DORA-compliant ICT provider and is reported to be in production use at banks.
Less suited
The Terraform provider and documentation are praised, but the catalogue and community are smaller than the hyperscalers'.
There is no free tier, and Kubernetes base costs are high for small workloads.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Broad compliance list, including BSI C5 Type 2, ISO 27001, 27017 and 27018, TISAX Level 3 and DORA readiness, which is useful for regulated buyers.
- All data is processed in German and Austrian data centres by an operator owned by the privately held Schwarz Group, which avoids US CLOUD Act exposure.
- Pricing is transparent, with hourly pay-as-you-go metering, a public calculator and a downloadable price list. One review also reports free data egress.
- An official Terraform provider and CLI are described by users as well maintained and covering most needed resources.
- Managed Kubernetes is CNCF-compliant and built on open-source Gardener, which helps portability.
Cons
- The service catalogue and partner ecosystem are much smaller than those of AWS, Azure or GCP.
- There are only two regions, both in Germany and Austria, which limits global reach and cross-continent disaster recovery.
- There is no free tier or reserved-instance discount, and one review estimates compute costs 15 to 20 percent above AWS or GCP.
- Some APIs and products, such as the container registry, are still in beta, and the registry has no Terraform resource.
- Independent customer reviews are scarce, and the single-AZ VM SLA is reported at 99.5 percent.
Key Features
STACKIT Pricing
Enterprise / custom agreement
- Individual price estimates through sales
- Advanced or Ultimate support plans available
Pay-as-you-go
- Hourly usage metering
- Public calculator and PDF price list
- Costs shown per project and service bundle
- Prices vary by region and by single-zone or metro (-m) deployment
Frequently Asked Questions
No free tier or trial is advertised. Services are billed pay-as-you-go by the hour.
Data is hosted in seven data centres in Germany and Austria, in two regions, Germany-South and Austria-West, each with three availability zones.
STACKIT lists BSI C5 Type 2, ISO 27001 (including IT-Grundschutz), ISO 27017, ISO 27018, ISO 20000, ISO 50001, TISAX Level 3, ISAE 3000/SOC 2 and ISAE 3402 reports, and DORA compliance.
Yes. There is an official Terraform provider, a CLI and APIs. Some resources are in beta and need an opt-in.
Each cluster pays an hourly control-plane fee, listed at about 0.0996 euros per hour. Worker nodes, storage and load balancers are billed separately as compute and network resources.
Standard support is available by phone, email and a help centre. Advanced and Ultimate support plans are sold separately, and their prices are not public.
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