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European alternatives to Google, Apple, Dropbox and 120 US apps
- madman_dev 6mo agoHi HN, I built only-eu.eu, a curated bilingual (DE/EN) directory of European alternatives to common US software and services. Motivation: The CLOUD Act creates a structural difference between US and European cloud providers that's separate from GDPR. European companies can't be compelled by US federal courts to hand over data regardless of server location. For companies and individuals who care about this, finding verified European alternatives is surprisingly hard. Most "alternatives" sites are US-focused. Technical implementation: Static Astro site, hosted on Cloudflare Pages. 326 pages, fully bilingual. Search via Fuse.js. Product suggestion form via Cloudflare Worker into n8n webhook. No cookies. Currently covers: cloud storage, email, VPN, password managers, office suites, browsers, search engines, video conferencing, messaging, social media, photo backup, project management, notes and knowledge tools, analytics, hosting, AI tools, smartphones, sport and fashion, cosmetics, audio hardware, e-commerce, freelance platforms, website builders. Monetized via affiliate links (clearly labeled). Most products have no affiliate relationship and are listed purely on merit. Happy to hear what I got wrong or am missing. Also: You can suggest a product on the page, if you got something, feel free to use that button.
- hk__2 6mo ago1. Why not use https://european-alternatives.eu/ https://european-alternatives.eu/? 2. Why use Cloudflare, a US company?
- mhitza 6mo agoFor 1) from a recent HN thread it seems that the developer is unreachable, and new entries cannot be made to that website.
- sdoering 6mo agoSetting cookies without asking permission while claiming GDPR compliance – chef's kiss. To be precise: cookie consent isn't actually regulated by the GDPR itself. It falls under the ePrivacy Directive, which requires explicit consent before storing anything on a visitor's device, unless it's strictly technically necessary. Cloudflare cookies are, at best, highly debatable as "technically necessary." So the GDPR claim is technically correct – but the site is likely non-compliant with EU law anyway. I'd recommend dropping CF.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- madman_dev 6mo agoFirst Show HN, first time launching something publicly. I wasn't prepared for this volume of feedback, and I mean that in a good way. Thank you, genuinely. Ente Photos is gone. Incorporated in Delaware, I got that wrong. On Cloudflare, I want to be precise because a few people raised this with different arguments. There are two separate problems. Cloudflare is a US company subject to the CLOUD Act. And sdoering is right that the __cf_bm cookie fires before any user interaction, which puts the "strictly technically necessary" exemption under the ePrivacy Directive in genuinely debatable territory. Both are real criticisms for a site that claims to care about European alternatives. I'm migrating to Bunny.net in the coming days. Slovenian company, no CLOUD Act exposure, no third-party bot management cookies. I should have started there. Thanks for that suggestion. On AI assistance: yes, I used a LLM to help build this. I made every product decision, every category judgment, and every fact check. Ente Photos being Delaware-incorporated is my mistake, not the tooling. Whether you call that vibe coding is fair. Slop means no effort. I fixed 19 wrong prices today and pulled a product within the hour when someone caught a real error. outsidein: Posteo is listed with no affiliate relationship. If something else is missing, the suggest button works. The suggestion form has 67 submissions since this went up. I'll work through them over the next few days. If you submitted something, thank you. The "Europe does it better" banner is staying. For the memes.
- AndrianV 6mo ago[dead]
- madman_dev 6mo agoOne data point on the affiliate question: 11 of 125 listed products have an affiliate relationship. The other 114 link directly to the product website with no commercial connection.
- hvb2 6mo agoIs this just to plug the site? What's unique about this, there's quite a few others already?
- mimsee 6mo agoAren't most Show HN's plugs to whatever they're presenting?
- hvb2 6mo agoI mean, sure but I think it would be helpful to explain a couple of things. How it was decided which vendor is an alternative, what were the criteria etc How can this be kept up to date? Can I submit missing data, if so how? This isn't unique at all, so what sets this one apart from the others?
- Hard_Space 6mo agoIf you turn on showdead, you'll see OP's explanatory post.
- hvb2 6mo agoInteresting, didn't know that existed... I would've still put it in the submission itself but that makes sense
- defrost 6mo agoHard link to [dead] comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47624742 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47624742 [vouch] for comment, if you have that option, it got caught in the noob green comment auto-flag filter (that is easily triggered). EDIT: now undead.
- personomas 6mo ago[dead]
- smarx007 6mo agoSpotify is already European...
- Galanwe 6mo agoPretty much the answer is Proton (mail, storage, password manager, VPN calendar, etc)
- palata 6mo agoFor mail, the answer is to own your domain. If you move away from (probably) Gmail, you don't want to lock yourself into an @proton.me. Get your domain, and use whatever provider you want (it can be Proton, but there are many others). In Europe I like Migadu.
- Imustaskforhelp 6mo agoI have gotten some news for you... (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47624558 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47624558 : Proton Meet Isn't What They Told You It Was) Even if you might trust other products of Proton, it certainly raises a suspicion/an eyebrow.
- monegator 6mo agowhat was wrong with https://european-alternatives.eu/ https://european-alternatives.eu/ ?
- privacyonsec 6mo agowas about to ask the same question :D
- rellag 6mo agoOP doesnt earn money with that one.
- fsflover 6mo agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47618324 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47618324
- metalman 6mo agonothing wrong, everything right about a widespread push for alternative app stores. I mean come on!, users are fickle , and make choices in a new area based on factors that are unknown, except for one thing, bieng able to choose between almost indistinguishabe alternatives, and then promote and defend that choice with a ferocity that is mind boggling. Otherwise known as marketing 101.
- jwr 6mo agoI found it impossible to add a European project to it.
- monegator 6mo agoBottom of the page: "Any suggestions? Sign up for an account to suggest changes or new products." (granted: what on earth do i need an account for, that can't be done with a form or an email?)
- jwr 6mo agoHave you tried? I have. I just checked: my product has been "Waiting for review" since July 15, 2025. No wonder us Europeans get laughed at when it comes to speed and execution.
- Remi_Etien 6mo ago[flagged]
- Lazar71 6mo ago[dead]
- agrishin 6mo agoDo they really match full functionality and user experience though?
- iLoveOncall 6mo agoMost of those are not at all alternatives but rather "solutions roughly in the same domain space that might have a 10% overlap". Klarna has nothing in common with Paypal, bare metal hosting is not at all an alternative to AWS, PeerTube has nothing in common with Netflix, etc.
- medvidek 6mo agoIs it only me, or does the logo in the header really look like someone forgot a zero in the number of pixels when running some compression tool?
- himata4113 6mo agothis is an artifact of an AI generated site, it always puts the logo there without attempting to trim it "View all →" the messy header the signs are all there
- sneela 6mo agoUhhh, I don't think Ente is Norwegian? Yeah, they have an office in Norway, but I remember them starting from India --- Ente means 'mine' in Malayalam, a language spoken in Kerala, South India. https://only-eu.eu/en/categories/foto-backup/ente-photos/ https://only-eu.eu/en/categories/foto-backup/ente-photos/ Also, their LinkedIn page shows that their HQ is Dover, Delaware, USA: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ente-com/about/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/ente-com/about/ https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/ente-technologies https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/ente-technologies Which is interesting.
- vldszn 6mo agoI’m working on a free and open-source invoice generator: https://easyinvoicepdf.com https://easyinvoicepdf.com - No sign-up, works entirely in-browser - Live PDF preview + instant download - VAT EU support - Shareable invoice links - Multi-language (10+) & multi-currency (100+) - Multiple templates (incl. Stripe-style) - Mobile-friendly - QR code support GitHub: https://github.com/VladSez/easy-invoice-pdf https://github.com/VladSez/easy-invoice-pdf Would love feedback, contributions, or ideas for other templates/features. The project has no backend and is purely browser-based, but I’m based in Europe and developing the project here, so I consider it a European project. PS: e-invoice is wip (Ksef, XRechnung, Factur-X)
- qmmmur 6mo agoThis is very good, because billing the EU is quite strict, and having someone get the format right for me is super useful :) I just made my own invoice generator using a json spec and a HTML -> PDF pipeline that wasn't so simple to get going. I might use this!
- vldszn 6mo agothank you, if you notice any problems, don't hesitate to create an issue on github or contact me :)
- friendzis 6mo ago> This is very good, because billing the EU is quite strict, and having someone get the format right for me is super useful :) Is it? In my (EU) country there is basically a list of things the invoice must show, without any strict template, even if they converge on very similar designs in the end. Basically to allow branding and alleviate physical -> digital transition struggles. In the beginning the most popular "invoicing" software was Excel :D
- holoduke 6mo agoCan't we just use claude desktop / cli to generate an invoice. In my experience if you provide some skills and access to some data it can generate pretty consistent invoices. No other tools needed at all.
- neya 6mo agoHome page boldly claims: EuRopE dOeS iT BeTtEr. There is literally a story trending on HN right now: Proton built Proton Meet to escape the CLOUD Act. They built it on CLOUD Act infrastructure. Their website promises "not even government agencies" can access your calls. The company routing them hands your call records to the government when asked. Proton hid them from their privacy policy. This superiority complex needs to stop. Source: https://www.sambent.com/proton-meet-isnt-what-they-told-you/ https://www.sambent.com/proton-meet-isnt-what-they-told-you/
- fricanest 6mo ago[dead]
- palata 6mo ago> Home page boldly claims: EuRopE dOeS iT BeTtEr. That's a marketing slogan, not anything that is in the culture. > This superiority complex needs to stop. It exists in the US, though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americanism_(ideology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americanism_(ideology)
- jaccola 6mo agoI first learned when reading about Steve Jobs, how the Japanese never use "quality" in their advertising. Yet people still view(ed, at least) Japanese manufactured goods as superior quality. It turns out people don't judge quality based on what you tell them but based on their experience. All this to say: I wouldn't stress about it too much. In the consumer space the best usually does win, and people will simply vote with their feet.
- _imnothere 6mo agoDid you mean: _Alternatives with age verification_?
- azangru 6mo agoThe way things are going, there might not be any alternatives without... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_age_verification_laws_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_age_verification_...
- deaux 6mo agoIt's so funny to see all of these websites generated by American LLMs hosted on American clouds. Footer "Made in Europe" needs a change to "Prompted in Europe", a la Apple's "Designed in California". I'm a big proponent _and practitioner_ of moving away from US-controlled services. I urge people to do so at any opportunity I get and have already moved many things over. Any new project I undertake uses non-US services wherever possible. But this vibecoded slop doesn't help much. If you want to actually be helpful, contribute to any of the 50 websites about the exact same concept that have been posted on HN over the last year.
- yreg 6mo ago> If you want to actually be helpful, contribute to any of the 50 websites about the exact same concept that have been posted on HN over the last year. The goal here is to earn on affiliate links.
- austinwade 6mo agoThis is so funny
- outsidein 6mo agoThe affiliate information shows that it the website shows mostly / only affiliate offers, and omits (intentionally?) much better a lternatives like posteo.de for email. Listed vendors like OVHcloud must follow the US cloud act, so not really independent from US. Just advertising, no real privacy focused.
- reconnecting 6mo agoDomain is registered 23 March 2026. This is not a real product, with zero effort put into it.
- Angostura 6mo agoPerhaps they spent considerable effort putting the data set etc together, and subsequently decided to launch as a standalone domain. I wouldn’t take registration date as the final arbiter of seriousness
- hk__2 6mo agoThe domain registration date doesn’t tell anything about the amount of effort put in it. I usually register the domains of my side-projects only when I’m at 80% done; otherwise I would buy dozens of domains I would never use.
- stingraycharles 6mo agoThe website uses Cloudflare for hosting. If they were just even a little bit serious, they wouldn’t have used a US provider for hosting.
- xixixao 6mo agoIf you were just a little bit serious you wouldn’t be discussing this on a site run by Y-Combinator! (the “angry” comments are so tiring)
- 6mo ago
- yreg 6mo agoNordVPN claims to operate under Panama jurisdiction (but is otherwise still based in Europe). The specific reason why they want to operate under Panama law is that there's no mandatory data retention. So it seems misguided to claim that purely-EU-based alternatives to NordVPN are 'safer' and 'more private' than Nord due to the location alone.
- LeifCarrotson 6mo agoTheir parent company, Nord Security, is based in the Netherlands.
- miyuru 6mo agoonly-eu.eu registered on Porkbun LLC and hosted on Cloudflare, Inc https://whois.eurid.eu/en/search/?domain=only-eu https://whois.eurid.eu/en/search/?domain=only-eu MX points to route1.mx.cloudflare.net as well. they should use their own product before giving others advice.
- azangru 6mo ago> registered on Porkbun LLC and hosted on Cloudflare, Inc And is built with Astro, which was created by an American, existed as an American company, and then was absorbed by Cloudflare.
- petcat 6mo agoIt's all performative anyway. > Europe does it Better. > Europe does it Safer. > Europe does it Greener. > Europe does it Fairer. > Europe does it Private. > Europe does it Stronger. Unfortunately I think it's mostly just a meme at this point.
- Ylpertnodi 6mo ago> Europe doesn't trust the USA.
- snakeboy 6mo agoI don't need any of these statements to be true to want to divest from a US monopoly on essential software. It's about decentralization, always has been.
- R_Spaghetti 6mo agowhy is it hosted by cloudflare (us company) in stead of http://bunny.net http://bunny.net ? https://info.addr.tools/only-eu.eu https://info.addr.tools/only-eu.eu
- i_love_retros 6mo agoTrump is destroying America and I'm running out of popcorn.
- sunaookami 6mo agoNew account + affiliate links + AI generated (likely via an US-based LLM lol) = flag + spam + slop
- morpheuskafka 6mo agoI find it somewhat odd that "European software/servers" has taken off for what is clearly political purposes, but without any clear definition of what "Europe" even means. How can you claim that "Made in Europe has stood for top quality and durability" if "Europe" is defined based on current political allegiance, not geography? In fact, the domain "only-eu.eu" and the title, "European" are contradictory. Belarus and most population of Russia are unquestionable European, but not EU and clearly not something the author of this website would endorse. For that matter, Hungary is both Europe and EU, but very likely not politically favorable by the author either. Does that make it not count as buying EU? On the other hand, I assume you support buying from Iceland and Norway, which are not EU (but are EEA and politically aligned). And of course, the biggest question is whether or not the UK counts as "buying European" -- it is not EU and arguably anti-EU but geographically European and aligned in being anti-Russia.
- cromka 6mo agoRussia is definitely not unquestionably European.
- hulitu 6mo agoGoing to school helps.
- dj_mc_merlin 6mo agoNo, I agree with him. Everyone knows Russia has territory inside Europe. Does that make it European? Post-Ukraine not a lot of people would call it European. It's just a word at the end of the day, the politics are more important to people that geography since both are made up. Why does Europe end at the Ural mountains? Because we said so.
- devsda 6mo agoWhy is Europe a separate continent? Its one big land mass. Show the world map to a child and one would have a difficult time explaining the idea of continents when they finally come to Europe and Asia.
- Serhii-Set 6mo ago[dead]
- Praxwise 6mo ago[dead]
- DaedalusII 6mo agothis looks like it was vibe coded using an american llm also, why not chinese or indian alternatives? they're cheaper and oftentime work better
- theandrewbailey 6mo ago> why not chinese or indian alternatives? Because neither China nor India are European. Feel free to make your own vibe coded site with Chinese and Indian alternatives.
- cromka 6mo ago"Europe does it better". Sorry, but as an European who roots for EU very much, I found that branding laughable, because it's absolutely not true at all. Those Eurooean alternatives are absolutely of significantly worse quality almost across the board, simply because there's less money thrown at them. It's also making it sound pretty, disingenuous, and adding to ongoing gamification of relationship with the US. "Europe does it differently" would be so much better, because of the obvious better privacy, openness and standards compliance, as mandate by our regulations.
- croes 6mo ago> because of the obvious better privacy, openness and standards compliance, as mandate by our regulations. So Europe does it better. Maybe you just have the wrong metric in mind. And given the amount of problems exist with Office, Outlook etc. I‘m not even sure if Europe is worse on the quality site. People are just used to US software faults.
- koonsolo 6mo agoI recently tried to replace Dropbox with Filen. Filen supports full encryption, so like you say better on privacy. Then I mounted it as a drive on my MacBook, and moved some backup files there. The move took a while, and after it, no backups on my MacBook, and no backups on Filen. Just nothing, no log of it, nothing. Going to stay with Dropbox. So in this case, Europe definitely does not do it better. Edit: I also tried to replace Sendgrid. All European alternatives are crazy expensive, so not going to replace that either. Instead of focussing on old tech, and keep running behind US and China, maybe we should jump on the next boat.
- cromka 6mo ago> So Europe does it better Better software pertains to quality of software, as long as software exists, not one's privacy. So while the latter is increasingly important, let's not bend the reality, OK?
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- hk__2 6mo agoSee also https://european-alternatives.eu/ https://european-alternatives.eu/
- hulitu 6mo agoWith Ubuntu, Suse and Zorin as OSs. Linux kernel is developed in US, FSF is in US...
- flexagoon 6mo agoIn what way is Linux kernel "developed in the US"?
- theandrewbailey 6mo agoMost Linux kernel development is done by people affiliated with US companies, often by employees on company time. Linus moved to the US a long time ago, and the Linux Foundation is based in the US.
- dhruv3006 6mo agoI think you should consider Voiden too : https://voiden.md/ https://voiden.md/
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- fricanest 6mo ago[dead]
- hulitu 6mo agoSearching for Android: "Volla Systeme GmbH develops Android smartphones", besides Hmd/Nokia and Gigaset also with Android. Microsoft Windows has no alternatives. Apache, bind, no alternatives. I guess there is still work to do.
- broken-kebab 6mo agoI think we have enough petty chauvinisms, there's no need to breed an EU variety. Europe does it better? Dunno, European gov'ts are full of ideas about backdooring, with one of those failing by just one vote recently. Also the website is impractical, it simply groups brands vs brands without much detail.
- efilife 6mo ago> there's no need to breed an EU variety. So you want most of the internet controlled by US? I'm not exactly keen on giving my info to a foreign country when I can pick something in the EU > European gov'ts are full of ideas about backdooring, America has an ongoing scandal about surveillance cameras
- broken-kebab 6mo agoNon sequitur. I'm sure I can pick something in the EU when it serves me better, completely without making silly statements. Your own rights and consumer interests are absent in your mental model where the internet is a sort of transatlantic battle (which it isn't) where as good peasants we must support our overlords against their high chieftains. The only logical outcome of accepting it is farther segmentation of the internet into Russia/Iran/China-style separate networks, all of them comparably restrictive. in fact, you are deeply interested in presence of competing options, including competition of jurisdictions. Cause wrt rights reality is that Eastern side of the pond can be better in some areas, and worse in others. So you better choose providers judging them by the value (counting limits they are bound by their jurisdictions). Also such frame of mind is destructive for the EU foundations itself cause why shouldn't then a Frenchman be obliged to choose French over German? European identity is a shaky thing. >America has an ongoing scandal about surveillance cameras Sorry I'm not going to disregard a possibility of outlawing of e2e because there's a scandal in the US.
- DocTomoe 6mo agoIt's ironic to call something 'Europe does it better' when all alternatives mentioned are - objectively - worse, sometimes catastrophically worse than the things they are meant to replace. This is especially true for offers that are content-related. Claiming that RTL+ is anywhere NEAR Netflix is insulting. I love GOG, but the library and ease-of-use of Steam is unmatched (to the point that half of my GOG library does no longer run on the hardware I own because apparently they don't keep updates in mind.)
- johnwhitman 6mo ago[flagged]
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- chaosprint 6mo agono result for github?
- polyamid23 6mo agoCodeberg is a decent option.
- nottorp 6mo agoCodeberg is for open source projects only.
- tom-blk 6mo agoLet's see about privacy, we're not out of the woods yet with chat control
- lousken 6mo agoNeeds a proper google keep alternative, with lists, mobile and webapp sharing and stuff.
- thomasingalls 6mo agoNeed a proper mobile os alternative
- rednafi 6mo agoEurope doesn’t do software better - not because it can’t, but because it can’t afford to drop the GDP of a country to build a single app like some of its US counterparts can. It might feel performative to some people, but Europe just doesn’t trust the US, and arguably shouldn’t. So it’s not about demonstrating superiority in software, but rather showing that there are alternatives you can choose if you want to.
- zephyrwhimsy 6mo ago[flagged]
- zephyrwhimsy 6mo ago[flagged]
- jcfrei 6mo agoI'm still looking for a viable alternative to AWS or Azure. A European provider that can be managed through Terraform and can spin up all the services a standard web application needs: K8s, DNS, Mail Service, Blob Storage, etc.
- burnt-resistor 6mo agoNice. There's also https://prism-break.org https://prism-break.org because corporate clouds enable corporate privacy invasion and government surveillance if anyone remembers what Snowden said.
- shevy-java 6mo agoI can not say whether the shown alternatives are qualitatively useful or not, but I am mighty tired of the orange demented mafia currently running the USA. It is now clear to everyone that the clown on top is not the true "leader"; the decision-making process is clearly done by other people, just as there are others who write his fake speeches now. Dementia revealed that problem. No european money should help fuel this insanity from that Epstein cronie any longer. That Epstein network also must be much deeper than what is already known.
- piokoch 6mo agoSo, I've looked on alternatives to iPhone. The "little" problem is that if I use online banking in Europe I will not be able to use most of them as a bank required 2FA. Another funny thing is that they offer as an alternatives China produced phones (most "Nokia" models that does not have anything to do with original Nokia brand), as if supporting Xi regime was somehow better than buying in USA. LibeOffice as a replacement for Office365 only shows that the site authors does not know what is Office365. Vivaldi is great, I am using it, but it is built on Chromium, which is definitely not an European thingy...
- mystraline 6mo agoThis is just trading one shitty government for another's. And it doesnt account for data sharing agreements, or even 5-Eyes. The best way to secure yourself is to find countries that are in opposition to your home country. Example: if you're in the USA, its going to be Russia and China. Now, find cloud providers in China. Oh wait, Alibaba. Theyre cheap and great. And, you use THEIR services. It'll be held to Chinese data standards and law. Keep that in mind. But, they likely won't give data to the USA, nor will they enforce USA law. It does mean the Chinese can see your data. Thankfully, the CCP cannot arrest you over potentially naughty data, unless you show up in China. Same cannot be said if the US gov saw data on USA cloud systems. And curiously, you can pay at any CVS drugstore to AliPay.
- scottburgess33 6mo ago[dead]
- bunbun69 6mo agoWas AI used to develop this website?
- dzogchen 6mo agoClearly zero effort.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- madman_dev 6mo agoWrote up the technical details: https://dev.to/mdtzlm/i-built-a-directory-of-eu-software-alternatives-then-hn-pointed-out-i-was-running-it-on-cloudflare-1cem https://dev.to/mdtzlm/i-built-a-directory-of-eu-software-alt... Covers the Bunny.net migration, what broke during launch, and what's next.