Nine
Zurich hosting company running Kubernetes in its own data centres, with every price listed in Swiss francs and engineers on call around the clock
Quick Overview
| Company | Nine Internet Solutions AG |
|---|---|
| Category | Kubernetes Platforms |
| Headquarters | Zurich, Switzerland |
| Founded | Not stated |
| EU Presence | Yes - Switzerland (CH) |
| Data Location | Nine's own data centres in the Zurich area |
| Open Source | No |
| GDPR Compliant | Yes |
| Self-Hosting | No |
| Main Features | Managed control plane (three nodes), node pools with autoscaling, nightly Velero backups kept 30 days, LoadBalancer and network policies, optional Argo CD, Grafana, Loki, KEDA and registry |
| Pricing | Full cluster from CHF 305.30 per month; worker nodes from CHF 31.70; billed per minute |
| Best For | Swiss and European teams that need clusters under Swiss jurisdiction with engineers they can phone |
| Replaces | Red Hat OpenShift, Amazon EKS, Google Kubernetes Engine |
Detailed Review
Nine is an infrastructure company in Zurich (Badenerstrasse 47) and the NKE page says clusters run in its own data centres there. The Trust Centre describes two separate sites in the Zurich area linked by a redundant dark fibre ring, and the product page advertises "No CLOUD Act".
The service is built on standard Kubernetes with no proprietary API, so kubectl and Helm work as usual. Nine runs the control plane on three nodes, handles upgrades and backups, and offers a list of optional services that it also operates.
Price list in francs
A full cluster starts at CHF 305.30 per month, covering the control plane and one nine-standard-1 worker. Further workers cost CHF 31.70, 60.20 and 117.20 for the standard-1, -2 and -4 sizes, and custom nodes are priced at CHF 6.50 per vCPU and CHF 5.50 per GiB of RAM.
Billing is per minute. The base price includes node autoscaling, backup and restore, and 24/7 expert support, but not the SLA, which is added through the price calculator.
What Nine operates for you
Backups run nightly with 30 days of retention, and namespaces can be restored with Velero. Upgrades of the control plane and workers happen in a maintenance window, and the page warns that brief interruptions are possible.
Optional paid services include Argo CD, Grafana, Loki, Alertmanager, External Secrets Operator, Sealed Secrets, KEDA, audit logging and an OCI registry, each added from the Cockpit console.
Permissions and vCluster
Administrators manage all namespaces that Nine does not own but do not receive unrestricted cluster-admin rights, and the page states that ClusterRoleBindings and CRDs cannot be created. Teams needing those rights are pointed to Nine's vCluster product.
Persistent volumes are encrypted at rest with AES-256, and Nine reports ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 audited by Swiss Safety Center AG.
Limitations to Consider
No cluster-admin rights, ClusterRoleBindings or CRDs on the standard offer, which rules out some operators until you move to vCluster. The SLA is an extra and the supported Kubernetes versions are not stated on the product page. Hosting is limited to the Zurich area and prices are in CHF. For a platform stack above the cluster, see Giant Swarm.
Who Should Use Nine
Swiss companies, public bodies and EU firms that want Kubernetes under Swiss law, with predictable francs-based pricing and a vendor that answers the phone.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Own data centres in Zurich
- Prices published down to the node size
- Nightly backups included by default
- 24/7 monitoring by engineers
- Standard Kubernetes with no proprietary API
Cons
- No cluster-admin on the standard offer
- SLA not included in the base price
- Single metro region
- Observability stack is a paid add-on
Alternatives to Nine
Other European kubernetes platforms worth comparing before you decide:
Giant Swarm
Germany · Curated open source platform stack, run for you or by you
Cloudfleet
Germany · One managed cluster spanning several clouds and your own servers
Kubermatic
Germany · Kubernetes management platform for fleets across clouds and edge
Exoscale
Switzerland · Swiss cloud with a free-tier SKS control plane and Pro tier
See all European kubernetes platforms or compare them directly against Red Hat OpenShift on our alternatives page.
Frequently Asked Questions
In Nine's own data centres in the Zurich area, according to the product page and the Trust Centre; data stays in Switzerland.
Not in the base price. A tiered SLA with availability of up to 99.9% during operating hours is added through the price calculator.
Not on the standard offer. The page says CRDs and ClusterRoleBindings are not possible and refers to vCluster for full cluster-admin.