We’re proud to announce today that we now have an EU-hosted PythonAnywhere system :-) You can access it at eu.pythonanywhere.com. It’s completely separated from our normal system, but has all of the same features – plus billing in euros.
Why we built it¶
Since the GDPR came into effect last year, a lot of people have asked us about whether our servers are compliant. The answer is a resounding “yes!” – historically all of our servers have been in the US, but they’re in a datacenter run by Amazon Web Services, which is covered by the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework – an agreement that allows certain US-based hosting solutions to be treated as “as good as” EU-based systems for the purposes of the GDPR.
But we appreciate that some people are still concerned. Agreements like Privacy Shield can potentially come to an end, and while things are looking good right now, there were some issues last year.
So now, if you want to be sure that your own account’s data, and any data you’re using PythonAnywhere to manage, is stored in the EU, we have a solution. The servers for eu.pythonanywhere.com are based in AWS’s eu-central-1 datacenter in Frankfurt, and there’s no connection between the two systems apart from a common list of usernames (which is also in Frankfurt).
Why you might want to use it¶
If you’re based in the EU, there’s almost no downside to using the new system. You will have the comfort of knowing your data is in the EU, it’s closer to you in network terms (in our tests, the network latency is about 8ms from Amsterdam, versus 90ms to our US servers), and for paid accounts, billing is in euros so you don’t need to worry about foreign exchange fees on your card payments. If we need to perform system maintenance on the servers, we’ll do it late at night European time, rather than during the early morning timeslot that we use for the existing system. The only reason you might want to stick with the US system is that it’s a little cheaper; our underlying hosting costs are a bit higher for the EU service, which is reflected in the prices – a Hacker account that costs $5/month on the US servers is €5/month on our new system (plus VAT if applicable).
If you’re not in the EU, then we’d recommend you stick with www.pythonanywhere.com unless you’re handling a lot of data relating to EU citizens and are concerned about the GDPR. But that said, you’re entirely welcome to use the new system if you prefer :-)
How to get started¶
You can sign up on the EU servers right now. If you already have an account on our existing system, you’ll have to use a new username; we’re blocking duplicate usernames at the moment because soon we’ll be offering the ability to migrate existing accounts over from the US system to the EU. If you’re interested in having an existing account moved over, email us at eusupport@pythonanywhere.com and let us know your account username. Update: we now have a system in place to migrate accounts, just drop us a line!
Any questions?¶
If you have any questions about the new EU systems, please do let us know – you can post a comment below, or send us an email.