HostStack vs Clever Cloud: two European PaaS
A Danish PaaS and a French one. Both keep the company and the data in Europe — so this comes down to price, how Postgres is run, and which one fits your app.
By Michael Michelsen, Founder of HostStack · Updated October 2026
Clever Cloud prices checked 12 October 2026 against its public pricing pages.
The short answer
Clever Cloud and HostStack are the same kind of product — git push, a running app, managed databases beside it — from two European companies. Clever Cloud has things HostStack does not: its own datacenter in Paris, zones on OVHcloud, Scaleway and IONOS, ISO 27001 and HDS certification for health data, and add-ons from Keycloak to Pulsar.
HostStack is cheaper per gigabyte. A 2 GB app is €20/mo here and about €32 per 30 days on Clever Cloud; a 1 GB Postgres is €15/mo with 20 GB of storage where Clever’s 1 GB plans reach 25 GB at €30. HostStack also runs Standard and Pro Postgres as a three-node cluster with automatic failover at no extra cost (beta), and builds a preview environment for every pull request without a CI workflow.
Choose Clever Cloud for health data in France, for more vCPU per euro on compute-heavy apps, for vertical autoscaling and per-second billing, or for regions outside Europe. Choose HostStack for the lower bill and the database failover.
HostStack or Clever Cloud? Pick by workload
| Your app | Better fit | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Health data hosted in France (HDS) | Clever Cloud | HDS-certified in its French zones. HostStack has no HDS certification and no French region. |
| CPU-heavy app, sized by vCPU rather than memory | Clever Cloud | Its flavours carry more vCPU per gigabyte: 2 vCPU at 2 GB against 1 on HostStack. |
| Bursty traffic you want billed by the second | Clever Cloud | Per-second billing with vertical and horizontal autoscaling. HostStack bills a flat monthly price. |
| Postgres that fails over on its own | HostStack | A three-node Patroni cluster on Standard and Pro at no extra cost (beta). |
| A small team watching the bill | HostStack | Lower prices per gigabyte for both apps and Postgres, with storage included. |
| Users in North America, Asia or Australia | Clever Cloud | Zones in Montreal, Singapore and Sydney. HostStack runs in Helsinki only. |
Where HostStack differs from Clever Cloud
- Less per gigabyte of memory: a 2 GB service is €20/mo against about €32 per 30 days for Clever Cloud’s S, and a 4 GB one €40 against about €76
- A 1 GB Postgres with 20 GB of storage for €15/mo. Clever Cloud’s 1 GB plans start at €15 with 2 GB of storage; 25 GB is €30
- Automatic Postgres failover: a three-node Patroni cluster on Standard and Pro at no extra cost (beta). Clever Cloud’s replicas are set up through support and promoted, not failed over automatically per its docs
- A preview environment per pull request, built in. On Clever Cloud review apps run through a GitHub Action
- A free Starter Postgres (512 MB, 5 GB) with nightly backups that does not expire. Clever Cloud’s free DEV Postgres is shared, capped at 256 MB of data and has no backups
- Cloud dev boxes with coding agents, and deploys onto hardware you already own, from the same dashboard
Features: HostStack vs Clever Cloud
| Feature | HostStack | Clever Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| Legal incorporation | EU (Denmark) | EU (Clever Cloud SAS, France) |
| Infrastructure | Hetzner, Helsinki | Own datacenter in Paris; OVHcloud, Scaleway, IONOS zones |
| Regions | 1 live (Helsinki, FI) | Paris, Roubaix, Warsaw, London, Montreal, Singapore, Sydney |
| Certifications | None yet (pursuing ISO 27001) | ISO 27001:2022, HDS (French zones) |
| Git-push deploys | ||
| Dockerfile deploys | ||
| Zero-downtime deploys | ||
| Autoscaling | Horizontal (CPU, memory, requests) | Horizontal and vertical |
| Cron jobs | Cron services; scheduled workflows | Yes, except in the Docker runtime |
| Preview per pull request | Built in | Via a GitHub Action |
| Managed PostgreSQL | Versions 15–18 | Versions 14–18 |
| Postgres failover | 3-node Patroni, automatic (beta) | Up to 2 replicas via support, promoted |
| Point-in-time recovery | pgBackRest, on request | |
| Postgres backups | Nightly, 7 kept, every plan | Daily, 7 kept; none on DEV |
| Other managed services | MySQL, MariaDB, MongoDB, Redis, S3 storage | MySQL, MongoDB, Redis, Cellar S3, Keycloak, Matomo, Pulsar, more |
| Billing | Flat monthly, prorated | Per second |
| CLI + Terraform | CLI; Terraform in preview | Clever Tools; Terraform provider |
Pricing: HostStack vs Clever Cloud
| Tier | HostStack | Clever Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| Free | 1 Nano service + 1 Starter Postgres per user, no expiry | Signup credit, no card; free shared DEV Postgres (256 MB, no backups) |
| Cheapest always-on app | €1/mo Pico (128 MB) | €4.50 per 30 days pico (337 MB, reduced CPU priority) |
| ~512 MB app | €5/mo Micro (512 MB, 0.5 vCPU) | €6 per 30 days nano (582 MB, 1 vCPU) |
| 2 GB app | €20/mo Standard (1 vCPU) | €32 per 30 days S (2 vCPU) |
| 4 GB app | €40/mo Large (2 vCPU) | €76 per 30 days M (4 vCPU) |
| Small Postgres | €4/mo Micro (256 MB, 1 GB) | €5.25/mo (512 MB, 1 GB) |
| 1 GB Postgres | €15/mo Standard (20 GB, 3-node HA option) | €15/mo (2 GB) to €30/mo (25 GB) |
| 4 GB Postgres, ~40 GB | €50/mo Pro (2 vCPU, 40 GB) | €98/mo (4 vCPU, 40 GB) |
What a month costs: worked examples
List prices before tax, in each provider's own currency. Clever Cloud figures checked 12 October 2026.
A typical web app with Postgres
A 2 GB web app, a 512 MB worker, and a 1 GB Postgres holding about 15 GB of data.
| Line item | HostStack | Clever Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| Web app (2 GB) | €20 Standard (1 vCPU) | €32 S (2 vCPU) |
| Worker (~512 MB) | €5 Micro | €6 nano |
| Postgres (1 GB, ≥15 GB) | €15 Standard (20 GB) | €25 (15 GB) |
| Total / month | €40 | about €63 |
HostStack is cheaper on every line. Clever Cloud’s web app has twice the vCPU, so for a CPU-bound app the gap is smaller than the totals suggest.
When NOT to choose HostStack
Clever Cloud is the better fit in some cases. Here's when we'd tell you so.
You host health data in France and need an HDS-certified provider, or your procurement asks for ISO 27001. Clever Cloud holds both; HostStack holds neither.
Your app is CPU-bound. Clever Cloud’s flavours carry more vCPU per gigabyte of memory.
You need a region outside Europe, or a French one specifically.
You rely on add-ons HostStack does not offer, such as Keycloak, Matomo, Metabase or Pulsar.
You need point-in-time recovery for Postgres. Clever Cloud can set up pgBackRest on request; HostStack has none yet.
Migrate from Clever Cloud
Clever Cloud concepts, translated
| On Clever Cloud | On HostStack |
|---|---|
| Application | A service in a project — web, worker, private or static — built from your repo or Dockerfile. Deploying |
| Scaler / flavour | Instance count and size. Autoscaling adds instances on CPU, memory or requests. Autoscaling |
| Add-on (PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis…) | A managed database linked to a service; its URL is injected on the next deploy. Managed databases |
| Cron (clevercloud/cron.json) | A cron service: one command on a standard cron schedule, in UTC. Cron jobs |
| Review apps (GitHub Action) | A preview environment per pull request, built in. It shares the service’s databases. Preview environments |
| Cellar (S3) | Managed S3-compatible object storage, or bring your own bucket. |
| Clever Tools | The hoststack CLI; hoststack env import loads a .env file. CLI |
Open a HostStack account
Sign up with an email — no card needed to try it. Create a project in the Helsinki region.
Connect the repo
Connect the GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket or Codeberg repository you push to Clever Cloud from. HostStack detects the framework, or builds your Dockerfile.
Carry over env vars
Export the application’s environment variables to a .env file and run hoststack env import svc_… .env, which previews the change until you add --apply.
Move the database
Create a managed database of the same engine, turn on external access for Postgres, and pipe a dump from the Clever Cloud add-on into it. Link it to the service so its URL is injected.
Cut over DNS
Point your domain at HostStack and wait for the Let’s Encrypt certificate, then stop the Clever Cloud application and delete the add-on once the data is checked.
Reference for the move: environment variables (including hoststack env import for a .env export), managed databases, the CLI and, to script the whole thing, the TypeScript SDK.
Frequently asked questions
Are Clever Cloud and HostStack both European?
Yes. Clever Cloud SAS is registered in Nantes, France, and runs its own infrastructure in Paris alongside zones on OVHcloud, Scaleway and IONOS. HostStack is operated by MICCI, a Danish company, on Hetzner hardware in Helsinki, Finland. Neither has a US parent, so the choice between them is about price, features and fit rather than data residency.
Is HostStack cheaper than Clever Cloud?
Per gigabyte of memory, generally yes. A 512 MB HostStack service is €5/month; Clever Cloud’s nano (582 MB) is about €6 per 30 days. At 2 GB it is €20 against about €32 for Clever’s S. For Postgres, a 1 GB HostStack Standard is €15/month with 20 GB of storage and an optional three-node cluster, where Clever’s 1 GB plans run from €15 with 2 GB of storage to €30 with 25 GB. Clever gives more vCPU per gigabyte (its S flavour has 2 vCPU, HostStack Standard has 1) and bills by the second, which suits bursty workloads.
Which one is better for health data in France?
Clever Cloud. It is HDS-certified (Hébergeur de Données de Santé) in its French zones and ISO 27001:2022 certified, and it is working toward SecNumCloud qualification. HostStack holds neither certification and has no region in France.
How does Postgres high availability differ?
HostStack’s Standard and Pro Postgres can run as a three-node Patroni cluster with automatic failover at no extra cost (in beta, enabled per team). Clever Cloud offers up to two read-only standby replicas, set up through its support team, and its documentation describes promoting a replica rather than automatic failover. Clever Cloud can enable point-in-time recovery with pgBackRest on request; HostStack has no point-in-time recovery yet.
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