Nodion
German PaaS for apps, managed databases, S3 storage, CDN and email in one project, billed per second
Quick Overview
| Company | Nodion GmbH |
|---|---|
| Category | Cloud Computing |
| Headquarters | Stuttgart, Germany |
| Founded | 2019 |
| EU Presence | EU (Germany) |
| Data Location | Selectable region per service; EU Central (Frankfurt, Germany) for apps, databases and object storage, plus US East, US West and APAC (Singapore) regions. Control plane and APIs hosted in Germany on Leaseweb Deutschland GmbH infrastructure. |
| Open Source | No |
| Compliance | Nodion itself lists none; the Frankfurt datacenter is stated as ISO 27001, ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 50001, PCI DSS and SOC 2, and the provider Leaseweb as ISO 27001, SOC 1 and PCI DSS |
| Pricing | Usage-based, billed per second, prices in EUR excl. VAT. Apps: Discovery (shared CPU) from DS-G2-256MB at about €1.00/month, 512 MB about €2.00, 1 GB about €4.00, 2 GB about €8.00; General Purpose (dedicated vCPU) from GP-G2-4GB1C at about €16.00/month up to GP-G2-32GB16C at about €160.00/month. Managed databases from about €1.50/month (Discovery, 256 MB, 4 GB NVMe) and about €24.00/month (General Purpose, 4 GB, 1 vCPU, 64 GB). Object storage about €0.010 (Basic), €0.02 (Standard) or €0.04 (Premium) per GB/month; outbound traffic from object storage and CDN €0.005/GB. Block storage about €0.15 (network) or €0.25 (local) per GB/month. Transactional email €0.00025 per delivered email. Every instance includes 1 TB free outbound traffic per month, then €0.04/GB. No recurring free allowance; new accounts can earn up to €15 in credit at sign-up. Payment by SEPA Direct Debit or card; invoice billing (Net 14) above €2,500/month. Support: Basic included; Standard €29/month + 3% of usage; Premium €499/month + 3%; Enterprise €9,999/month + 3%. |
| Free Option | No free tier; new accounts can earn up to €15 in credit at sign-up |
| Replaces | Heroku, Render, Railway |
Detailed Review
Nodion is a platform-as-a-service from Stuttgart that aims at the Heroku, Render and Railway crowd rather than at raw infrastructure buyers. You connect a Git repository (GitHub, GitLab, Gitea or Forgejo), bring a Dockerfile, let buildpacks detect the stack, or push a finished image, and the platform handles builds, TLS, logs, metrics, preview environments per pull request and per-process scaling. Web, worker and release processes live in one app, each with its own size and replica count.
What sets it apart on this page is the breadth of services next to the app, all in the same project and region: managed Postgres, MySQL, Valkey and ClickHouse, persistent NVMe volumes, S3-compatible object storage, a CDN, free managed DNS, uptime monitoring and transactional email over SMTP, plus an OpenAI-compatible AI inference endpoint.
Everything is reachable through the dashboard, a CLI, a REST API or an MCP server for coding agents. A catalogue of one-click open source apps such as n8n, Plausible and Outline is included.
Nodion GmbH is a German company (HRB 770829, Stuttgart) and the control plane runs in Germany on Leaseweb infrastructure, with a Frankfurt region for apps, databases and storage. The honest caveats: it also offers US and Singapore regions, so residency depends on the region you pick, and there is no free tier, only up to €15 in sign-up credit. It is not open source, and compared with Hetzner, Scaleway or OVHcloud there are no raw virtual machines or managed Kubernetes.
What Nodion does well
- Git, Dockerfile, buildpack or image deploys with preview environments per pull request
- Managed Postgres, MySQL, Valkey and ClickHouse next to the app
- S3-compatible storage, CDN, DNS and transactional email in the same project
- Per-second billing with a fully published price list
- German GmbH with a Frankfurt region and a control plane hosted in Germany
Where Nodion falls short
- No recurring free tier, only up to €15 in sign-up credit
- Closed-source platform, not self-hostable
- Also offers US and Singapore regions, so EU residency is a per-service choice
- No raw VMs or managed Kubernetes, and a younger ecosystem than Hetzner or OVHcloud
Standout feature. It bundles app runtime, databases, storage, CDN and email on one per-second bill, which the infrastructure-first providers on this page leave you to assemble yourself.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Git, Dockerfile, buildpack or image deploys with preview environments per pull request
- Managed Postgres, MySQL, Valkey and ClickHouse next to the app
- S3-compatible storage, CDN, DNS and transactional email in the same project
- Per-second billing with a fully published price list
- German GmbH with a Frankfurt region and a control plane hosted in Germany
Cons
- No recurring free tier, only up to €15 in sign-up credit
- Closed-source platform, not self-hostable
- Also offers US and Singapore regions, so EU residency is a per-service choice
- No raw VMs or managed Kubernetes, and a younger ecosystem than Hetzner or OVHcloud
Alternatives to Nodion
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Nodion?
Nodion is a platform-as-a-service from Stuttgart that aims at the Heroku, Render and Railway crowd rather than at raw infrastructure buyers. You connect a Git repository (GitHub, GitLab, Gitea or Forgejo), bring a Dockerfile, let buildpacks detect the stack, or push a finished image, and the platform handles builds, TLS, logs, metrics, preview environments per pull request and per-process scaling. Web, worker and release processes live in one app, each with its own size and replica count.
Where is Nodion based?
Nodion operates from Stuttgart, Germany, which places it under EU (Germany). Compliance: Nodion itself lists none; the Frankfurt datacenter is stated as ISO 27001, ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 50001, PCI DSS and SOC 2, and the provider Leaseweb as ISO 27001, SOC 1 and PCI DSS.
What does Nodion cost?
Usage-based, billed per second, prices in EUR excl. VAT. Apps: Discovery (shared CPU) from DS-G2-256MB at about €1.00/month, 512 MB about €2.00, 1 GB about €4.00, 2 GB about €8.00; General Purpose (dedicated vCPU) from GP-G2-4GB1C at about €16.00/month up to GP-G2-32GB16C at about €160.00/month.
Managed databases from about €1.50/month (Discovery, 256 MB, 4 GB NVMe) and about €24.00/month (General Purpose, 4 GB, 1 vCPU, 64 GB). Object storage about €0.010 (Basic), €0.02 (Standard) or €0.04 (Premium) per GB/month; outbound traffic from object storage and CDN €0.005/GB.
Block storage about €0.15 (network) or €0.25 (local) per GB/month. Transactional email €0.00025 per delivered email. Every instance includes 1 TB free outbound traffic per month, then €0.04/GB. No recurring free allowance; new accounts can earn up to €15 in credit at sign-up.
Payment by SEPA Direct Debit or card; invoice billing (Net 14) above €2,500/month. Support: Basic included; Standard €29/month + 3% of usage; Premium €499/month + 3%; Enterprise €9,999/month + 3%.. No free tier; new accounts can earn up to €15 in credit at sign-up.
Who is Nodion best for?
Developers wanting a Heroku-style German PaaS. It bundles app runtime, databases, storage, CDN and email on one per-second bill, which the infrastructure-first providers on this page leave you to assemble yourself.
What are the drawbacks of Nodion?
No recurring free tier, only up to €15 in sign-up credit. Closed-source platform, not self-hostable. Also offers US and Singapore regions, so EU residency is a per-service choice. No raw VMs or managed Kubernetes, and a younger ecosystem than Hetzner or OVHcloud.
Is Nodion a good alternative to Heroku?
Nodion is built as a European alternative to Heroku: German PaaS for apps, managed databases, S3 storage, CDN and email in one project, billed per second. It will not be a like-for-like feature match in every respect, so check the review above for where the two genuinely differ before switching.
How does Nodion compare to other Cloud Computing tools?
Nodion is one of several European Cloud Computing tools we cover. It is most often compared with Heroku, Render, Railway.