European Alternatives

Discover European and open-source alternatives to US tech giants.

A community-curated directory that helps you find software and services built in Europe — with privacy, transparency, and digital sovereignty at their core.

Your data. Your rules. Your continent.

Browse Alternatives · Contributing · Report an Issue

Why This Exists

Big Tech dominates the tools we use every day — email, cloud storage, messaging, search. Most of these services are US-based, subject to US jurisdiction, and built on business models that treat user data as a product.

Europe has strong privacy laws (GDPR), a growing open-source ecosystem, and talented developers building real alternatives. But finding them is hard. They're scattered across blog posts, Reddit threads, and word of mouth.

European Alternatives brings them together in one place. This project exists to:

• Promote digital sovereignty — keep your data under European law and jurisdiction
• Champion privacy-first services — built with GDPR compliance from the ground up
• Support open-source software — transparent, auditable, and community-driven
• Strengthen the European tech ecosystem — give visibility to homegrown innovation

This is not about nationalism. It's about choice, transparency, and building a healthier tech landscape.

Features

• Browse by category — Email, Cloud Storage, Messaging, AI, Payments, and 14 more
• Filter by country, pricing, and open-source status — find exactly what you need
• Trust Score (1-10) + vetting status — transparent scoring with reservations and confidence level
• Search across all alternatives — matches names, descriptions, tags, and replaced services
• Grid and list views — switch between compact overview and detailed display
• Shareable category and search filters — category and search term are stored in the URL for direct linking
• Responsive design — works on desktop, tablet, and mobile
• No tracking, no cookies — the site itself respects the privacy it advocates for

Tech Stack

Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Node.js 20+
• npm

Local Development

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/TheMorpheus407/european-alternatives.git
cd european-alternatives

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Start the dev server
npm run dev

The site will be available at http://localhost:5173.

Other Commands

npm run build     # Type-check and build for production
npm run preview   # Preview the production build locally
npm run lint      # Run ESLint
npm run generate:research  # Regenerate research catalogue from data/research/master-research.md
npm run generate:trust-signals  # Re-crawl vendor websites for trust signals

Project Structure

src/
├── components/          # React components
│   ├── App.tsx          # Router setup
│   ├── Layout.tsx       # Header + Footer wrapper
│   ├── LandingPage.tsx  # Homepage with featured alternatives
│   ├── BrowsePage.tsx   # Search and filter page
│   ├── AlternativeCard.tsx  # Individual alternative display
│   └── Filters.tsx      # Search, filter, and sort controls
├── data/
│   ├── alternatives.ts         # Final merged catalogue + trust overlays
│   ├── manualAlternatives.ts   # Hand-curated seed entries
│   ├── researchAlternatives.ts # Generated from master research markdown
│   ├── trustOverrides.ts       # Vetting status/reservations/score overrides
│   ├── trustWebSignals.ts      # Generated web-derived trust signals for each vendor
│   ├── categories.ts           # Category definitions
│   └── index.ts                # Re-exports
├── types/
│   └── index.ts         # TypeScript interfaces
├── utils/
│   ├── trustScore.ts    # Trust scoring engine
│   └── alternativeText.ts  # Localized text helpers
├── scripts/
│   ├── generate-research-catalog.mjs # Markdown to TS dataset generator
│   └── generate-trust-web-signals.mjs # Vendor website trust signal crawler
├── index.css            # Full design system
└── main.tsx             # Entry point

Trust Method

Each listing includes:

• Trust Score (1-10)
• Trust Tier (Excellent, Good, Fair, Poor)
• Trust Confidence (High, Medium, Low)
• Vetting Status (vetted approved, research profile, or vetted rejected)
• Reservations (specific caveats with severity)

Scoring is deterministic and evidence-weighted:

• Rewards European jurisdiction, open-source transparency, and privacy/self-hosting signals
• Adds web-derived trust signals crawled from each vendor site (src/data/trustWebSignals.ts)
• Applies reservation penalties by severity
• Uses vetted outcomes encoded in src/data/trustOverrides.ts
• Keeps non-vetted entries visible with lower confidence so coverage stays broad while certainty stays explicit

Full formula is implemented in src/utils/trustScore.ts. Primary source links for manual reservations are documented in docs/TRUST-SOURCES.md.

Contributing

Contributions are what make this project grow. Whether you want to add an alternative, fix a bug, improve the design, or suggest a new category — you're welcome here.

See CONTRIBUTING.md for the full guide, including:

• How to add a new European alternative (the most common contribution)
• How to contribute code and design changes
• Coding standards and commit conventions
• Design system guidelines

We use a transparent Decision Matrix to evaluate every proposed alternative. Not every entry makes it in — those that fail our vetting process are documented with full reasoning and sources in DENIED_ALTERNATIVES.md.

The fastest way to contribute: add or improve an entry in src/data/manualAlternatives and run npm run generate:research.

License

This project is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 — see the LICENSE file for details.

In short: you can use, modify, and distribute this software freely, but any modified version that runs as a network service must also make its source code available. This ensures the project and its derivatives remain open.

Credits

Created by Morpheus as part of a mission to strengthen Europe's digital independence.

• Patreon — support the project
• GitHub — more projects
• Website — The Morpheus Tutorials

Built with conviction that Europe deserves great software — and that great software deserves to be found.