European alternatives

An expert has seen a huge change in just a few months: Concerns about Finnish data have exploded, thanks to Musk and Trump. Trust in the US is eroding: Companies are looking for European alternatives to Amazon, Microsoft and Google

President Donald Trump’s administration in the United States has shown in a short time that it is not very careful about protecting even the sensitive data of its own citizens and even their own military secrets.

More than 80% of Europe’s digital technologies and infrastructures are imported, and 70% of the foundational AI models used globally originate in the United States. Meanwhile, European companies account for just 7% of global research spending on software and the internet. These figures alone highlight Europe’s heavy reliance on other economic powers in the digital sector.

We have long assumed in Finland and Europe that the physical location of the data is essential. Now there has been a lot of discussion about which country’s legislation the entity that stores the data is subject to. Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Apple are large American cloud service providers. EU laws of course oblige them somewhat but US laws even more. The new Doge agency has sought broad access to, for example, Americans’ social security data. At the same time, experts know that critical health data of Finns is also stored on American servers.

European companies are looking for replacements for cloud services from Amazon, Google and Microsoft, among others, as trust in the US administration has eroded. The search for European alternatives for popular services from USA has started. Millions are visiting the European Alternatives siteMillions are visiting the European Alternatives site for most popular top 5 categories:
- Email providers
- Search Engines
- Cloud Computing Platforms
- Navigation Apps
- Web Analytics Services

Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure, which dominate the cloud services market, may lose their market share as European companies increasingly turn their attention to cloud services within the eurozone.

https://european-alternatives.eu/ is a site is created to help to find European alternatives for digital service and products, like cloud services and SaaS products. The european-alternatives.edu site has no ratings, but the different categories and what is in them are discussed widely

There are six Euro alternative search engines listed:
Qwant (French, uses Bing search index + their own; separate search engine for kids)
Ecosia (Germany, uses Bing or Google, depending on your preferences, has advertising but donates 80% of surplus revenue to conservation projects)
Startpage (Netherlands, uses Google & Bing results, but with focus on privacy)
Good (non-profit search engine from Germany, uses Brave search index)
Swisscows (Swiss search engine uses Bing index + self-made one)
metaGer (German metasearch combining search results from other providers)

Boycott USA: List of products to boycott, and alternative products is another site that lists European alternatives for digital products. It will help you find European alternatives for digital service and products, like email providers, search engines, cloud services and web browsers.

Europe is running the risk of falling even further behind global digital market leaders like the United States and China. The EuroStack initiative aims to counter this trend by developing Europe’s own comprehensive digital infrastructure. This industrial policy framework integrates technology, financing, economic development, political governance, sustainability and public interest considerations.

EU OS is a Community-led Proof-of-Concept for a free Operating System for the EU public sector. It is a a Fedora-based Linux operating system with a KDE Plasma desktop environment.The added value of EU OS is a common Linux OS as a base for all EU OS users with options to layer on top modifications (national layer, regional or sector-specific layer, organsation-specific layer).

Sources:

https://www.storagereview.com/news/proxmox-ve-8-3-enhanced-features-for-enterprise-virtualization

https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1ifr95c/european_alternatives_for_popular_services_from/

https://news.itsfoss.com/eu-os/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14538621/EU-ww3-ukraine-russia-europe-war-survival-kit-global-conflict.html

https://www.is.fi/digitoday/tietoturva/art-2000011108658.html

https://european-alternatives.eu/

https://www.is.fi/digitoday/tietoturva/art-2000011108658.html

https://euro-stackletter.eu/

https://www.tivi.fi/uutiset/luottamus-usahan-rakoilee-yhtiot-etsivat-amazonille-microsoftille-ja-googlelle-eurooppalaisia-vaihtoehtoja/ddcc0e43-1fac-4274-bb0b-0da80a07b4ae

Sinäkin joudut nyt valinnan eteen – syynä Trumpin ja Muskin toiminta

https://www.is.fi/digitoday/tietoturva/art-2000011106183.html

https://talk.tidbits.com/t/european-alternatives-for-digital-products-services/30609/2

https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/106324/european-alternatives-for-digital-products

https://european-alternatives.eu/

https://github.com/happysegfault/boycottusa

European alternatives for popular services

https://european-alternatives.eu/alternatives-to

https://euro-stackletter.eu/

https://www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/en/our-projects/reframetech-algorithmen-fuers-gemeinwohl/project-news/eurostack-a-european-alternative-for-digital-sovereignty

https://eu-os.gitlab.io

61 Comments

  1. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Open source gains urgency as Europe reassesses reliance on US tech.

    Finnish MEP Aura Salla:
    The EU runs on Microsoft.
    The US could turn us off inside one hour.

    The German state of Schleswig-Holstein, which switched away from Microsoft Exchange Server and Outlook to Open-Xchange and Mozilla Thunderbird. The head of Schleswig’s Chancellery and Minister for Digital Transformation, Dirk Schrödter, gave a keynote saying: “We are free; now everyone must follow.”

    Summary of the status quo:
    We’re in the habit of exporting public money out of Europe, and importing dependencies.
    Don’t look at the big mountain in the distance. Look at concrete steps you can take to start.

    Schleswig is still running Windows, but has replaced Microsoft Office with LibreOffice on “nearly 100 percent” of machines. It’s using Thunderbird for email, calendars, and contacts, talking to Open-Xchange on the back end, alongside the Matrix-based Element for chat and Nextcloud for collaboration.

    Other speakers on the same panel made the point that FOSS doesn’t mean free of charge, but spending money with European companies means benefits to European economies – keeping more of the EU’s vast public spending inside the EU. As Leontina Sandu put it: “We spend 0.4 percent of EU money on software licenses. It’s a lot – public sector spending is half of the EU’s GDP.” Blogger Markus Sandelin estimates that the EU spends over €200 million a year just on Microsoft 365 licenses.

    The Eclipse Foundation’s Mike Milinkovich echoed Salla’s earlier point that Microsoft effectively had a kill switch over Office 365, but pointed out that the company has more such controls: it also owns GitHub.

    Companies working on open source in Europe, of course, stand to profit significantly from this.

    https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/04/eu_foss_fears/

    Reply
  2. Tomi Engdahl says:

    https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/04/eu_foss_fears/

    Reply
  3. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Voiko amerikkalaisiin teknologiajätteihin enää luottaa? Näin vastaa Mikko Hyppönen
    Amerikkalaisyhtiöiden on päästettävä USA:n viranomaiset käsiksi myös EU:ssa olevaan asiakasdataan, jos oikeus niin määrää.
    https://www.is.fi/digitoday/tietoturva/art-2000011789483.html

    Reply
  4. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Most Finnish digital public services hosted by U.S. cloud providers
    https://diesl.eu/most-finnish-digital-public-services-hosted-by-u-s-cloud-providers/

    Reply
  5. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Open Innovation and
    Open Source Strategy
    of Land Schleswig-Holstein
    https://www.schleswig-holstein.de/DE/landesregierung/themen/digitalisierung/linux-plus1/Service/Downloads/_dateien/open-source-strategy_EN.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=3

    Reply
  6. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Ranska luopuu Microsoft Teamsin ja Zoomin käytöstä
    Riippumattomuus|Kaikki valtion virastot siirtyvät käyttämään ranskalaista Visio-alustaa ensi vuoteen mennessä. Taustalla on huolet sähköisen viestinnän turvallisuudesta.
    https://www.hs.fi/talous/art-2000011779473.html

    Reply
  7. Tomi Engdahl says:

    USU: Oikeusministeriö harkitsee uudelleen vaalitietojärjestelmän siirtoa yhdysvaltalaiseen pilvipalveluun
    Varajärjestelmässä kaikki data pysyisi suomalaisissa konesaleissa, eikä sitä siirrettäisi pilvipalveluun.
    https://yle.fi/a/74-20207085

    Reply
  8. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Loukussa
    Suomi on valinnut tien, jossa ei ole talouden eikä turvallisuuden kannalta järkeä. Yhteiskuntamme toimi yhdysvaltalaisen teknologian varassa.
    https://www.hs.fi/visio/art-2000011766288.html

    On varhainen aamu suomalaisessa virastossa. Työntekijä avaa tietokoneen. Ruudulle aukeaa Microsoftin logo. Neljä kuutiota, oranssi, vihreä, sininen ja keltainen.

    Värikkäillä kuutioilla on hinta. Lasku yhden työntekijän ohjelmistosta on suunnilleen 30 euroa kuukaudessa.

    Reply
  9. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Euroopan asetuotanto on ohittamassa USA:n
    Antti Kirkkala
    Julkaistu 29.01.2026 | 13:22
    Päivitetty 29.01.2026 | 14:04
    Aseteollisuus, Nato
    Saksalainen Rheinmetall pystyy pian tuottamaan enemmän tykistöammuksia kuin koko Yhdysvaltain puolustusteollisuus.
    https://www.verkkouutiset.fi/a/euroopan-asetuotanto-on-ohittamassa-usan/#2707427f

    Reply
  10. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Onko Trumpilla tappokytkin? Britanniassa heräsi huoli Palantirin ohjelmistosta
    Anna Helakallio26.1.202611:30|päivitetty26.1.202620:32Tekoäly
    Palantir kiistää järjestelmiinsä liittyvät turvallisuushuolet.
    https://www.tivi.fi/uutiset/a/d8a19545-77d0-44d2-87c8-7131a03d6aa2

    Yhdistyneen kuningaskunnan ja yhdysvaltalaisen tekoäly-yhtiö Palantirin välinen sopimus on herättänyt huolta kansallisesta turvallisuudesta. Maan hallitus ja Palantir solmivat vuoden alussa 240 miljoonan punnan sopimuksen maan armeijan data-analyysitarpeiden kattamisesta. Sopimuksen kriitikot ovat kuitenkin varoittaneet, että Yhdysvallat voisi pakottaa Palantirin sulkemaan armeijan käyttämät järjestelmät konfliktitilanteessa.

    Reply
  11. Tomi Engdahl says:

    European Cloud Providers’ Local Market Share Now Holds Steady at 15%
    https://www.srgresearch.com/articles/european-cloud-providers-local-market-share-now-holds-steady-at-15

    Reply

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