European Alternatives

I submitted my project EasyInvoicePDF (a free & open-source invoice generator) a couple of months ago to European Alternatives but never heard back unfortunately.

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 =)

App: https://easyinvoicepdf.com/?template=stripe

GitHub: https://github.com/VladSez/easy-invoice-pdf

Same submission from a few years ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29627097

What's insightful to me is how fast the list of alternatives are growing.

The list is much better now than 2021 and we still have a long way to go.

Also Constantin Graf needs to add a new Category: "LLM Clients" or "AI Tooling"

Isn't it sad that we now have Russian, Chinese, American, European, etc alternatives? I mean I get it, Sept 11 paved the way for FISA orders and NSA overreach, Russia and China reverted back into dictatorship, but Europe is also at the edge. Shouldn't we rather fight that nationalistic power grab that just makes us all poorer and less free? And instead propagate global alternatives that are not subjected by some power-hungry state-/capital-sponsored overlord?

Wanted to submit my CMS, Val, but there's no CMS category yet?

I tried to create a category here if it is useful for others as well: https://european-alternatives.eu/admin/category-votes/3daefd...

Oh, and here's the product page: https://val.build

GitHub is here: https://github.com/valbuild/val

Categories missing:

- Operating systems, for various kinds of workloads

- Programming language toolchains

- Hardware vendors

Is there a European alternative for this website?

This list is very impressive, but it is the wrong approach. We simply need an EU alternative to Google, Microsoft, Apple, Twitter, Facebook, Amazon etc.

The closer to a drop-in replacement the better. Tying all of these functional bits and pieces together to form a consistent whole is just not going to happen. You need to approach this on a per-company level.

So, who will step up to the plate and re-implement as much of Google as necessary to catch 80% of the functionality and their EU customers?

This is nice but if Europe doesn't fix their tech salaries situation (half US' in most cases, if not lower), I don't think it's sustainable.

Thought I'd have another look at mail providers, but from what I can see, none support the features I use with fastmail (custom domain, security key, unlimited on-the-fly aliases for sending).

It is good to have a dedicated location to find these. The problem is that you want a sufficiently large company when buying the services so that it does not fall apart or get acquired and runs to the ground, and we have a few. Also, putting a country flag to the service is cringe, it might even be odd to some because it implies a specific language/culture. We just all want to consume a proper business staffed with pros and the one which does not resell AWS services.

Alternatives to Amazon.com? I'm totally serious when asking about this. I think delivery apps (like the one comically named "Deliveroo") are all potential alternatives to Amazon, but I think they charge a premium.

Is this only for companies within the EU or EFTA? I can't spot a single UK company listed, even though there are plenty that would fit.

The open web is your European alternative, not the Silicon Valley-approach but then in Europe. That just invites the same abuse of data, the same enshittification and the same rent-seeking behavior.

If you want an EU-made (and repairable!) e-bike battery, check what we're building at https://infinite-battery.com :)

we should have also claude-alternatives like projects that are entirely built by vibe-coders.

Wow, nice! Great resource, thanks a lot!

Last time this came up I decided to try Scaleway which is at the top of their "cloud computing" list.

"European alternative" that doesn't know that European addresses have non-ASCII characters: https://x.com/dmitriid/status/1835649083345649780

Ugh, back to nationalism.

I think there is some sort of Darwinistic reason for this. Maybe its inevitable.

Not to say that the US didn't help spur this, but its just sad to see.

When I was younger, I was such an idealist. Anarchy, open borders, free market open trade, pacifism.

Even as Trump started getting aggressive, I kept trying to tell myself: "Well, these other countries surly know that most of the population doesn't support this. Surely they know we are fans of liberalism, democracy, and human rights. One bad election, everyone knows it was influenced by Russia, no big deal. They know a sane person will be elected in a few years."

But I saw the comments of how quickly it seemed the general population of other nations flipped like a dime.

It has shooken me. (And I don't blame that its shooken them)

It has made me the exact person I was against. Now I think we really do need to look toward the national interest. If 1 bad politician can alienate us from 100+ years of debatably good behavior, why shouldn't we be selfish?

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I know what you are thinking while reading this list, but hear me out - healthcare and schools are pretty cheap there.

Using a French server has been a pain. Their level of customer service is much worse than that in the US sadly