Pryvan vs do-it-yourself self-hosting
Running open models yourself gives total control, and a second full-time project nobody asked for. Pryvan gives you the sovereignty without the standing engineering commitment.
Self-host if you have a platform team that wants to own the GPU stack. Use Pryvan if you want the same data sovereignty as a product, live in minutes, not months.
Pryvan
The sovereignty of running your own models, delivered as a managed product: deployment in minutes, GPUs and scaling handled, security patched, and a compliance pack written for you.
DIY self-hosting
Maximum control if you have the talent and budget, but you own GPU procurement, inference serving, autoscaling, security patching, uptime and the entire compliance burden, indefinitely.
| Capability | Pryvan | DIY self-hosting |
|---|---|---|
| Data processed only in the EU | ||
| Total infrastructure control | Managed or private | Absolute |
| Time to first deployment | Minutes | Weeks to months |
| Requires in-house MLOps team | ||
| GPU procurement and scaling handled | ||
| Tailored EU AI Act legal pack | ||
| Security patching and uptime managed | ||
| Cost model | By the minute, €1/hr | Capex-heavy + staffing |
- You already run GPU infrastructure and have an MLOps team that wants to own the full stack.
- You have highly bespoke serving needs, custom kernels, exotic hardware, unusual scaling, that a platform would constrain.
- Absolute control over every layer is a hard requirement, and you can fund the headcount it demands.
The sovereignty is identical; the difference is everything you no longer have to operate yourself.
- 1No GPU procurement, capacity planning or driver hell, the compute is handled.
- 2No on-call for inference uptime or security patching of the serving stack.
- 3No turning a wall of regulation into documents by hand, the compliance pack is generated.
Is Pryvan less sovereign than self-hosting?+
No. Data stays in the EU under EU law either way. Pryvan even offers a private deployment on your own infrastructure if you want the control without building the operations.
What does self-hosting really cost?+
Beyond GPUs, the hidden cost is people: MLOps, security and compliance time, on an ongoing basis. For most SMEs that headcount is the real reason to choose a product.
Self-hosting gives you sovereignty and a second full-time project. Pryvan gives you only the first.
If you have a strong platform team that wants to own the stack, self-hosting is valid. For everyone else, Pryvan delivers the same data sovereignty without the headcount, the capex or the compliance research.
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