Cloud Ferro Review 2025. Is cloudferro.com good or bad on providing Cloud services?

📄 Editorial Review

(3*) 🔧 Services: Cloud
⇔ Redirected domains: creodias.eu creodiasc.com
CloudFerro is a European cloud services provider headquartered in Warsaw, Poland, established in 2015 and built around the idea of sovereign, open-source cloud infrastructure for specialized industries. Rather than classic shared web hosting, they concentrate on public and private cloud, big-data processing, AI computing and massive Earth Observation (EO) data repositories. Their platforms are heavily used by the European space sector, climate research institutions and scientific projects that need petabyte-scale storage and scalable compute close to satellite data.

They position themselves as a fully European company: European ownership, European legal jurisdiction, and data centers located only in EU countries. Operations are run under ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 standards and they highlight participation in European digital sovereignty initiatives. CloudFerro is a prime contractor for major institutions such as ESA, ECMWF, EUMETSAT and DLR, and operates several well-known EO platforms and data lakes (for example Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem, CREODIAS, CODE-DE, WEkEO, EO-Lab and others) on top of their cloud.

CREODIAS is a specialized cloud platform for Earth Observation (EO) data and compute, operated by CloudFerro S.A. (Warsaw, Poland).

Their cloud portfolio is structured around four public OpenStack-based regions: WAW3-1, WAW3-2 and WAW4-1 in Poland, and FRA1-2 in Germany. On top of these regions they offer:

• Public cloud compute – virtual machines (VMs) with full root access, including general-purpose, high-memory and disk-optimized flavours, plus Spot Virtual Machines for lower-priority workloads, and Dedicated Solutions (DS) where a VM occupies the entire physical server. GPU-equipped VMs and bare-metal-class configurations are available for AI and HPC use cases.
• Kubernetes as a Service – managed Kubernetes clusters tightly integrated with the EO data repositories, aimed at developers and data scientists who want containerized workflows without maintaining the control plane themselves.
• Storage services – object storage (S3-compatible), block volumes, ephemeral storage and VM image storage, including backup-oriented services and large-scale data repositories for EO workloads.
• Network and access services – load balancing, firewall, internet connectivity and service management components such as managed identity (Keycloak), API access and dedicated management panels.
• Private cloud and white-label public clouds – tailored OpenStack-based environments deployed in customer-chosen locations across Europe, including "white label" clouds that integrators or institutions can brand as their own.
• EO data and tools – a central part of the offer is access to over 90 PB of Earth Observation data (Sentinel missions and other Copernicus data), together with catalogues, data acquisition and dissemination services, processing tools and domain-specific platforms.
• AI solutions – including AI computing services and a managed generative-AI platform called Sherlock (with OpenAI-compatible endpoints), as well as domain-specific AI/ML solutions that exploit EO archives.

CloudFerro strongly emphasizes technical transparency and independence: their platforms are built on OpenStack, Ceph, Kubernetes, Prometheus/Grafana and ELK, with servers designed and assembled in-house. They present this combination of open source, in-house hardware and fully European data residency as an alternative to hyperscalers for organizations that need both performance and regulatory control. The service is clearly aimed at technically adept users, institutions and enterprises rather than non-technical website owners.
The website is available in English and Polish, and documentation, support and marketing materials are primarily in English, reflecting their pan-European target audience.

CREODIAS is a specialized cloud platform for Earth Observation (EO) data and compute, operated by CloudFerro S.A. (Warsaw, Poland).

💰 Price & Cost

CloudFerro’s pricing is designed like a modern IaaS provider rather than a fixed shared-hosting package. There are no "Starter / Pro shared hosting" style bundles; instead, every region (WAW3-1, WAW3-2, WAW4-1, FRA1-2) has detailed pricing tables for compute, storage, networking and related services.
Key elements of the pricing model:

• Currency and VAT – all prices are listed as net prices in EUR, excluding VAT. Infrastructure usage is billed in hourly cycles for metered services, with longer fixed terms priced per month, half-year or year.
• Pay-per-use (prepaid credits) – customers can top up Billing Units (BU) via the ecommerce portal (1 BU = 1 EUR) and consume resources as they go. The credit decreases only when resources are actively used, which suits variable and experimental workloads.
• Pay As You Go (postpaid) – a classic postpaid model with a monthly invoice based on actual usage. This is convenient for organizations that prefer invoicing over prepayment.
• Fixed Term (contracted) – for long-lived workloads, customers can commit to one month or longer (up to a year or more) and receive significantly lower rates in exchange for a fixed commitment. Billing for these contracts is usually upfront, and the allocation remains active for the agreed duration.
• Science discounts and project funding – universities and research institutes receive an automatic 18% discount on services regardless of billing model. CloudFerro also actively participates in European funding schemes (Horizon Europe, ESA programs, OCRE, etc.) and offers financing options that integrate with such frameworks.

Detailed price lists for virtual machines show granular hourly pricing for many flavours (number of vCores, RAM, storage type) and often list alternative prices for monthly or yearly fixed-term contracts. Spot Virtual Machines are advertised as being up to roughly two-thirds cheaper than equivalent regular VMs, making them attractive for batch jobs and non-critical workloads.
Payment methods include:

• Online payments via Stripe (card payments and instant transfers) in the ecommerce portal.
• Bank transfers (including SWIFT) for customers preferring classic invoicing and wire payments.

A Cloud Free Trial is promoted in the pricing section, allowing new users to test the platform before committing, although the exact quota and duration are not heavily advertised in the main marketing text.
There is no standard consumer "30-day money-back guarantee" mentioned. Instead, the commercial focus is on SLA-backed service credits (Billing Units) when availability commitments are not met, rather than refunds of paid invoices.

🏢 Data Center

CloudFerro hosts its infrastructure exclusively in European data centers and stresses compliance with EU standards and GDPR. The main public cloud locations are:

• WAW3-1 (Poland) – public cloud region hosted in data centers operated by Netia in Warsaw.
• WAW3-2 (Poland) – another Warsaw region, also in Netia facilities, representing a newer and more powerful OpenStack deployment closely linked to the main EO data repository.
• WAW4-1 (Poland) – public cloud region located in an Orange data center in Łazy near Warsaw.
• FRA1-2 (Germany) – public cloud region located in a NTT / E-shelter data center in Frankfurt am Main.

All these locations are described as Tier III-compliant facilities with at least N+1 redundancy for power and cooling. CloudFerro emphasizes physical and fire safety, protection against unauthorized access, resilience to natural disasters, and collaboration with carefully selected colocation partners. They underline an eco-conscious approach: data centers powered by renewable energy where possible, focus on energy-efficient hardware and maximizing hardware lifespan to reduce environmental impact.

On top of the four public cloud regions, CloudFerro also operates private cloud locations and customer-specific data hubs in several countries (Poland, Germany, Italy, Finland and others), often as part of large institutional contracts. All infrastructures are compatible with ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 standards and relevant regional norms.

For network connectivity, they maintain their own backbone network linking all cloud locations, supporting redundant internet uplinks and high-speed connections (multiple 100 Gbit/s links) to the main EO data repositories. This design allows low-latency communication between regions and efficient data movement for large-scale processing.

Uptime guarantee

Service availability is formally defined in their Service Level Appendix. CloudFerro commits to at least 99.5% service availability per calendar month for covered services. If availability drops below this threshold (excluding scheduled maintenance and force majeure), customers are compensated with Billing Units according to well-specified tiers:

• If availability remains between 99.5% and 97.5%, credits equivalent to 5 days of service fees.
• Between 97.5% and 95%, credits equivalent to 10 days of service fees.
• At or below 95%, credits equivalent to 20 days of service fees.

Additionally, separate provisions cover "service failures" and allow credits up to 300% of the affected service’s price for the period of failure, with an overall cap of three times the monthly fee. This SLA-driven approach is typical for infrastructure providers and gives enterprise customers a clear contractual framework for downtime compensation.

✍️ Customer Support

CloudFerro promotes "premium support at no extra cost" for all cloud customers. Rather than charging for higher support tiers, they position support as an integral part of the service.
Key aspects:

• Support channels – day-to-day support is provided via a ticketing system accessible through the customer account portal. There are also email addresses for sales and project-based support (e.g. sales at cloudferro.com and info at cloudferro.com and a central office phone line. For some framework agreements (like OCRE), specialized contact addresses and DACH-region partners (Urbetho CF GmbH) are available.
• Availability and language – the support team operates Monday to Friday, 8:00–20:00 CET and provides assistance in Polish and English.
• Team profile – support is delivered by engineers and IT specialists based in Warsaw, with experience in networks, systems, software development and large-scale projects. CloudFerro underlines that it runs its own operations and does not rely on external support entities, which is important for customers concerned about outsourcing.
• Service Level Agreements – support and incident handling are governed by SLAs that differ by project and service; severity levels, response expectations and credit calculations are formally documented.
• Self-service resources – extensive Cloud Docs, a knowledge base, FAQs and webinars & trainings are linked from the Support section, helping users onboard themselves to the platform, understand OpenStack concepts and work with EO data.

Overall, the support experience is tailored to organizations with ongoing projects: the messaging centers on long-term cooperation, problem-solving and continuous monitoring of the environment rather than one-off ticket handling. Customers who expect hand-holding for small personal websites may find the environment more technical than they are used to, while research institutions and enterprises will likely appreciate the engineering-driven approach.

🔨 Control Panel

CloudFerro does not offer traditional web-hosting panels like cPanel or Plesk. Instead, their environment is managed through cloud-level dashboards and APIs typical of IaaS providers:

• EO Cloud / CloudFerro Dashboard – a web dashboard (based on OpenStack Horizon concepts) where users can create and manage virtual machines, attach volumes, configure networks, manage security rules, and access images and snapshots.
• Horizon Dashboard for dedicated solutions – dedicated (DS) servers are provisioned in the same way as standard VMs and are managed via Horizon, REST API and command-line tools.
• Client Panel and Cloud Management Panel – separate sections in the "Service management" area provide access to account-level information, billing, identity management and API credentials.
• APIs and CLI – users can interact with the platform programmatically via REST APIs, OpenStack command-line clients, and orchestration scripts using OpenStack Heat. There is also S3-compatible API access for object storage.

Operating systems are installed as VM images; CloudFerro offers a range of Linux distributions (e.g. Ubuntu, AlmaLinux, CentOS) and Windows, and they also mention macOS in the context of development workflows. Users receive full root access to their VMs, so software stacks, web servers and applications are entirely under the user’s control.

For customers coming from classic shared hosting, the lack of a simple site-builder or one-click CMS installer may feel limiting. For DevOps teams, researchers and enterprises familiar with cloud platforms, the OpenStack-style dashboards and strong API support are an advantage.

🎯 Conclusion

CloudFerro is clearly positioned as a specialized European cloud provider, not as a mainstream low-cost web host. Its strengths lie in:

• European sovereignty and compliance – EU-based ownership, EU-only data centers, ISO-certified operations and strong alignment with European digital sovereignty initiatives.
• Open-source and in-house infrastructure – reliance on OpenStack, Ceph and Kubernetes, combined with self-designed server hardware and their own network backbone, gives technically minded customers transparency and flexibility.
• Deep specialization in EO and big data – with more than 90 PB of satellite data on tap and multiple major European EO platforms running on their infrastructure, CloudFerro has strong credibility for data-intensive workloads.
• Flexible pricing and billing – hourly billing, fixed-term discounts, project-friendly funding options and research discounts make it easier for institutions to align cloud spending with grants and long-term projects.
• Structured SLA and uptime guarantees – a documented 99.5% monthly availability commitment with clear compensation rules adds predictability for mission-critical projects.

On the flip side, the service is not aimed at beginners looking for a simple place to host a blog or a small company website. There are no simple shared-hosting bundles, no built-in website builders, and no consumer-style money-back guarantees. The platform expects users to be comfortable with virtual machines, storage services, networking and APIs—or to work with integrators who are.

For space and climate projects, research institutes, public agencies, and enterprises needing a European, open-source-based cloud tightly integrated with EO data, CloudFerro is a compelling option. For small non-technical customers who just want a quick WordPress site, a more traditional shared-hosting provider will likely be easier to manage.

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