Build a Complete SaaS Infrastructure for Under €50/Month on European Cloud

Launching a SaaS product doesn't require a $500/month cloud bill. With European infrastructure providers, you can build a complete production stack—application server, managed database, cache, and object storage—for under €50/month. This guide shows you exactly how.

The Stack

For under €44/month, you get a production-ready infrastructure stack running entirely on European hardware in Germany. Every component includes automated backups and monitoring.

What This Stack Handles

This infrastructure comfortably supports:

• Users: 1,000-10,000 monthly active users
• Requests: Tens of thousands of requests per day
• Data: Up to 25 GB of structured data + 1 TB of file storage
• Frameworks: Laravel, Django, Rails, Next.js, Express—any web framework
• Traffic: 20 TB included per VPS (more than most SaaS apps need)

The Same Stack on AWS

The DanubeData stack is 3x cheaper than the AWS equivalent, with the same capabilities for a typical SaaS application.

Setting Up Each Component

1. Application Server (VPS)

The DD Micro VPS with dedicated CPU gives you 2 vCPU and 4 GB RAM on AMD EPYC processors with NVMe storage. This handles most web frameworks comfortably:

• Laravel/PHP: Nginx + PHP-FPM + Octane can handle thousands of requests per second
• Django/Python: Gunicorn with 4 workers behind Nginx
• Rails/Ruby: Puma with 2-4 workers
• Next.js/Node: PM2 or Docker with Node.js process

You get full root access, so install whatever runtime, tools, or services you need. Deploy with Docker, bare metal, or your preferred method.

2. Managed PostgreSQL

The Small plan provides 1 vCPU, 2 GB RAM, and 25 GB NVMe storage—enough for most early-stage SaaS databases. Key features you get out of the box:

• Automated daily backups with offsite storage
• SSL/TLS connections for encrypted data in transit
• Monitoring with CPU, memory, and connection metrics
• Read replicas available when you need to scale reads

Connect from your VPS over private networking for sub-millisecond latency. No public internet hops between your application and database.

3. Managed Redis Cache

The Micro plan provides 256 MB of Redis memory. This is sufficient for:

• Session storage: 10,000+ concurrent sessions
• Application caching: Query results, API responses, computed data
• Queue backend: Laravel queues, Celery tasks, Sidekiq jobs
• Rate limiting: Per-user or per-IP request limits

If you prefer, you can choose Valkey (open-source Redis fork) at the same price, or Dragonfly (multi-threaded, 25x faster) at €6.99/month.

4. S3-Compatible Object Storage

The €3.99/month base includes 1 TB of storage and 1 TB of egress traffic. Use it for:

• User file uploads: Documents, images, media
• Application backups: Database dumps, configuration archives
• Static assets: CSS, JavaScript, images (serve via CDN)
• Data exports: Generated reports, CSV exports

Works with any S3 SDK—use the AWS SDK in your language of choice, just change the endpoint URL.

Scaling the Stack

As your SaaS grows, each component can be upgraded independently:

Upgrades happen from the dashboard—resize your VPS, scale your database, add a read replica, or increase cache memory. No migration, no re-provisioning, no downtime.

What You Get That AWS Charges Extra For

• 20 TB traffic included per VPS (AWS charges per GB egress)
• Automated backups included in every managed service (AWS charges for backup storage)
• Monitoring included in the dashboard (AWS CloudWatch has per-metric charges)
• IPv4 address included (AWS started charging $3.60/month per IPv4 in 2024)
• No load balancer fee—terminate TLS on your VPS with Caddy or Nginx

GDPR Compliance Built In

Every component in this stack runs on dedicated servers in Falkenstein, Germany:

• Data never leaves the EU: No transatlantic data transfers
• European company: No US CLOUD Act exposure
• Simple DPA: Single data processing agreement for all services
• Data portability: Export everything at any time

For SaaS products serving European customers, this eliminates the GDPR complexity of using US cloud providers.

Getting Started

1. Create a DanubeData account (get €50 signup credit)
2. Deploy a VPS and install your application
3. Create a managed PostgreSQL instance
4. Add a Redis cache instance
5. Create an S3 bucket for file storage
6. Connect everything over private networking

Your entire infrastructure is ready in under 15 minutes, with automated backups and monitoring from day one.

Start building your SaaS on European infrastructure.