Frameworks · Updated 10 November 2026 · 9 min read

Where to host Directus in Europe in 2026

Directus Cloud in Frankfurt, Sliplane, Clever Cloud, Coolify on Hetzner and Scaleway compared for running the Directus image, its database and its file uploads in Europe.

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The quickest route is Directus Cloud with its Frankfurt region, run by the Directus team itself, though the company behind it is incorporated in Delaware. If you'd rather self-host with a European provider, Sliplane runs the Directus Docker image next to a managed Postgres and S3-compatible storage, Clever Cloud builds it from a short Dockerfile and is a French provider certified to ISO/IEC 27001, and Coolify on Hetzner is the low-budget option when you can look after a Linux server.

Directus hosting options at a glance

Platform	Company	Runs the Directus image	Database	File uploads	Starts at
Directus Cloud	Monospace Inc., Delaware, USA	Managed for you	Included	Included	$89 a month billed yearly on Core
Sliplane	Berlin, Germany	Yes	Managed PostgreSQL from €19 excl. VAT	S3-compatible, first 1 GB free	€9 per server, excl. VAT
Clever Cloud	France	Yes, through a Dockerfile	Managed PostgreSQL or MySQL add-on	Cellar, S3-compatible	Billed by the second
Coolify on Hetzner	Germany, with open-source Coolify	Yes, one-click template	SQLite or Postgres in containers you run	Your own volume or bucket	Servers listed from €5.49 a month excl. VAT
Scaleway	France	Yes, as a serverless container	Managed Database, sold separately	Object Storage, sold separately	Free monthly allowance, then billed by use
Eurobase	Warsaw, Poland	No	No managed database	Not documented	Free, then €10 a month + VAT

Prices are from each provider's own page, checked on 9 and 10 November 2026.

What Directus needs from a host

Directus is published as a Docker image, directus/directus, and its docs say that installing it from npm instead needs Node.js 26 or newer. Before you pick a host, check these points against its requirements page:

A place to run a container. The minimum is 0.25 vCPU and 512 MB of memory per container, and Directus recommends two containers with 1 vCPU and 2 GB each. Size the plan for that, not for a hello-world app.
A supported SQL database. Directus works with the LTS versions of PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, SQLite, MS SQL Server, CockroachDB and OracleDB. A managed Postgres is the usual choice for production.
Somewhere files survive a restart. Docker containers are ephemeral, so uploads go either to a mounted volume or to an external storage adapter such as an S3-compatible bucket.
Redis if you scale out. It's optional for one container, but Directus needs it to run several instances side by side.
Environment variables. At minimum a database connection and a SECRET, set in your host's dashboard.
The license. Directus uses the Monospace Sustainable Core License. The free core tier needs no license, and companies under $5M in yearly revenue with fewer than 50 employees can apply for the Open Innovation Grant.

1. Directus Cloud

The Directus team runs your project, handles updates and scaling, and lets you pick Europe, Frankfurt as the datacenter region, next to regions in the US and Singapore. Standard projects share infrastructure, each in its own container with a dedicated minimum of resources. Enterprise projects get a dedicated database.

Best for: teams that want Directus without running anything, and accept a US company as the provider.
Price: Cloud adds $89 a month billed yearly, or $99 monthly, on the Core and Team license tiers. Open Innovation Grant holders pay $99 a month for Cloud hosting. Each tier has limits on seats, collections and Flows, and Core allows 3 seats.
What it lacks: a European company behind the contract. Monospace Inc. is incorporated in Delaware, which matters if you're weighing an EU region against an EU company.

2. Sliplane

Sliplane, headquartered in Berlin, deploys from a GitHub repository or a container registry, so you can point it at directus/directus with a pinned version tag. It also sells managed PostgreSQL with backups and S3-compatible object storage, which covers the database and uploads without a second provider.

Best for: one or two Directus projects at a fixed server price, with everything on a single bill.
Price: servers from €9 for 1 vCPU, 1 GB of RAM and 20 GB of storage, excl. VAT. Managed PostgreSQL starts at €19 a month excl. VAT with 10 GB included, and object storage gives you 1 GB free, then €5 a month per 250 GB block.
What it lacks: room on the 1 GB Starter server for the 2 GB per container Directus recommends. Its regions also include the US and Singapore, so choose a European one when you create the server.

3. Clever Cloud

Clever Cloud builds an image from a Dockerfile at the root of your repository, so a short Dockerfile based on the official Directus image works. The container has to listen on port 8080, so set Directus to that port in its environment variables. PostgreSQL and MySQL come as managed add-ons, and Cellar is its S3-compatible storage, hosted in European datacenters. Clever Cloud is a French company certified to ISO/IEC 27001:2022.

Best for: teams that need a certified French provider for the app, the database and the files.
Price: per-second billing for the instances and add-ons you run, and you can start on free credits without a payment card. Size the instance for Directus before you compare.
What it lacks: Docker Compose and persistent volumes for Docker apps, so the database, Redis and uploads live in add-ons rather than next to Directus.

4. Coolify on Hetzner

Coolify, the open-source self-hosting tool, has a one-click Directus service in two variants: a single container with SQLite for testing, and Directus with PostgreSQL 16 and Redis 7 for production. Hetzner, a German host, supplies the server and, if you want it, S3-compatible object storage with a base price of €6.49 a month excl. VAT that includes 1 TB of storage and 1 TB of egress.

Best for: a tight budget and someone on the team who can patch a server and test restores.
Price: Hetzner's CPX02 is listed at €5.49 a month excl. VAT in Helsinki and €6.49 in Falkenstein or Nuremberg, but its cheapest plans showed as unavailable to order on 10 November 2026. Self-hosted Coolify costs nothing.
What it lacks: a managed database. Backups, upgrades and security of the server stay with you.

5. Scaleway

On Scaleway, the French cloud provider, you'd push the Directus image to Serverless Containers, which runs in Paris, Amsterdam, Warsaw or Milan and goes from zero up to 200 instances. Postgres comes from its Managed Database, with backups, read replicas and an optional high-availability setup, and uploads go to its Object Storage.

Best for: teams already on Scaleway who want each piece as a separate managed product.
Price: the container is free up to 400,000 GB-s of memory and 200,000 vCPU-s a month. Past that, you pay €0.20 per 100,000 GB-s and €1 per 100,000 vCPU-s, with the database and storage billed on top.
What it lacks: a managed Directus setup. You wire the container, database and bucket together yourself, and add Redis before you run more than one instance.

6. Eurobase, for the site in front of Directus

Eurobase can't run Directus itself today. It builds Node.js apps from source on Node.js 20, 22 or 24 with Paketo buildpacks, doesn't run Docker images or Dockerfiles, and has no managed Postgres. Directus from npm needs Node.js 26, so neither route works.

Where it fits is the frontend that reads from Directus: a Next.js, Nuxt, Astro or SvelteKit site that calls the Directus API, deployed from your repository on European infrastructure run by Scaleway, a French provider. Keep Directus on one of the hosts above and put its URL and token in the project's variables and secrets. The Next.js and Nuxt guides cover that side.

Best for: the public website or app that consumes a Directus API hosted elsewhere in Europe.
Price: a Free plan, then €10 or €20 a month + VAT for the workspace. There are no usage charges today: work over a limit is refused, apps on V8 isolates and Functions stop until the monthly reset, and containers and static sites keep serving.
What it lacks: Docker images, Node.js 26, managed Postgres, MySQL or Redis, and preview deployments. ISO 27001 and SOC 2 are in progress, not yet held.

How to choose

Decide who runs Directus. If nobody on the team wants to, start with Directus Cloud and check the contract.
If the provider must be a European company, choose between Sliplane for a fixed price, Clever Cloud for certification and Coolify on Hetzner for the lowest bill.
Keep the database and the bucket in the same provider or region as the container, so the trips between Directus and its data stay short.
Host the frontend wherever suits it. It only needs the Directus URL.

Frequently asked questions

Can I host Directus Cloud in the EU?

Yes. Directus Cloud lets you pick Europe, Frankfurt as the datacenter region when you create a project. The provider is still Monospace Inc., a Delaware company, so the region and the contract are two separate questions.

Is Directus free to self-host?

The core tier needs no license, within its limits of 3 seats, 25 collections and 5 Flows. Companies under $5M in yearly revenue and with fewer than 50 employees can apply for the Open Innovation Grant, which removes those limits at no cost when self-hosted. Anyone else who needs more than the core limits pays for a license.

How much memory does Directus need?

Its docs give 0.25 vCPU and 512 MB per container as the minimum and recommend two containers of 1 vCPU and 2 GB each. Plan for the recommended size if editors use the Studio every day.

Where should Directus store uploaded files?

Not inside the container, which loses its files on a restart. Mount a volume on a server you control, or set a storage adapter for an S3-compatible bucket such as Sliplane, Clever Cloud Cellar, Hetzner or another European object store.

Which database should I use for Directus in production?

PostgreSQL is the common pick, and every European provider here sells or runs one. SQLite works for testing on a single server. Managed Postgres in Europe compares the providers.