Nodion vs Render
Render has grown rapidly as a modern cloud hosting platform with a clean developer experience. Both Nodion and Render aim to make application deployment simple, but they differ in infrastructure location, billing approach and the breadth of integrated services.
| Feature | Nodion | Render |
|---|---|---|
| Headquarters | Stuttgart, Germany (EU) | San Francisco, USA |
| Data Residency | EU, US and APAC regions | US and EU (Frankfurt, Singapore) |
| GDPR by Default | Yes | DPA available |
| Managed Applications | Yes | Yes |
| Managed PostgreSQL | Yes | Yes |
| Managed MySQL | Yes | No |
| Managed Valkey / Redis | Yes | Yes |
| Object Storage | Yes (S3-compatible) | No (use external S3) |
| Global CDN | Yes (25 locations) | CDN for static sites only |
| Transactional Emails | Yes (SMTP) | No |
| Managed DNS | Yes (free, GeoDNS) | No |
| Billing Model | Per-second | Monthly (some per-second) |
| Free Tier | First 5 EUR/month free | Free tier (limited, spins down) |
| Docker + Buildpacks | Yes | Yes |
| 1-Click Deploy Marketplace | 25+ apps | Blueprints (IaC templates) |
EU Hosting and Data Sovereignty
Nodion is a German company with its headquarters and core operations in the EU. For European businesses, this means dealing with an EU entity, EU-governed contracts and data stored in EU data centers by default. Render is a US company that offers a Frankfurt region, but the company itself is subject to US jurisdiction. For teams where the legal entity behind the platform matters as much as the data center location, this distinction is important.
All-in-One Platform vs Assembly Required
Render focuses on web services, static sites and PostgreSQL databases. For object storage, you need to connect an external S3 provider. For transactional emails, you need a third-party service like SendGrid or Postmark. For DNS, you manage it elsewhere. Nodion provides all of these as integrated, first-party services: applications, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Valkey, S3-compatible object storage, a global CDN, transactional emails and managed DNS with GeoDNS. All on a single platform with unified billing.
Pricing and Billing
Render bills most services on a monthly basis. If you spin up a service for three days, you pay for the full month. Render's paid instances start at $7 per month, and a managed PostgreSQL database starts at $7 per month. On Nodion, everything is billed down to the second. The smallest application instance costs approximately 1 EUR per month and a database starts at 1.50 EUR per month. The first 5 EUR of monthly usage is free for every user with no payment method required. A setup that costs $14+ per month on Render can run entirely for free on Nodion.
MySQL Support
Render only offers managed PostgreSQL. If your application requires MySQL, which is common for WordPress, Laravel and many legacy applications, you would need to manage your own MySQL instance or use a third-party database provider. Nodion offers fully managed MySQL alongside PostgreSQL, both with automated backups and NVMe storage.
When Render Might Be the Better Choice
Render offers infrastructure-as-code via Blueprints, which can appeal to teams who want to version their infrastructure setup. However, Render lacks MySQL support, object storage, transactional emails and managed DNS, meaning you will need to bring in additional vendors to build a complete stack. For most teams, especially those based in Europe, Nodion's integrated platform with EU hosting, broader service coverage and per-second billing provides a more straightforward and cost-effective path to production.
Start for free! The first 5 EUR of monthly usage is free for everyone.