Discussion
monegator: what was wrong with https://european-alternatives.eu/ ?
hvb2: Is this just to plug the site? What's unique about this, there's quite a few others already?
mimsee: Aren't most Show HN's plugs to whatever they're presenting?
hvb2: I 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 etcHow 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: If you turn on showdead, you'll see OP's explanatory post.
Galanwe: Pretty much the answer is Proton (mail, storage, password manager, VPN calendar, etc)
smarx007: Spotify is already European...
vldszn: I’m working on a free and open-source invoice generator: 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 supportGitHub: https://github.com/VladSez/easy-invoice-pdfWould 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)
sneela: Uhhh, 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/Also, their LinkedIn page shows that their HQ is Dover, Delaware, USA: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ente-com/about/https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/ente-technologiesWhich is interesting.
medvidek: Is 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: this is an artifact of an AI generated site, it always puts the logo there without attempting to trim it"View all →" the messy headerthe signs are all there
yreg: So is NordVPN
iLoveOncall: Most 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.
agrishin: Do they really match full functionality and user experience though?
rellag: OP doesnt earn money with that one.
defrost: Hard link to [dead] comment: 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).
privacyonsec: was about to ask the same question :D
hvb2: Interesting, didn't know that existed...I would've still put it in the submission itself but that makes sense
yreg: NordVPN 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.
outsidein: The affiliate information shows that it the website shows most lay / only affiliate offers, and omits (intentionally?) much better a lternatives like posted.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.
austinwade: This is so funny
neya: Home 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/
jaccola: I 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.
palata: > 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)
deaux: It'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.
Imustaskforhelp: I have gotten some news for you... (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.
_imnothere: Did you mean: _Alternatives with age verification_?
metalman: nothing 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.
palata: For 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.
palata: > Ente means 'mine' in Malayalam, a language spoken in Kerala, South India.It also means "duck" in German :-)
sneela: Which is why, I believe, their logo is a duck :D
fsflover: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47618324
i_love_retros: Trump is destroying America and I'm running out of popcorn.
eloisant: Which is why it's not listed in the US services you can find an alternative for
qmmmur: This 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: thank you, if you notice any problems, don't hesitate to create an issue on github or contact me :)
yreg: > 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.
R_Spaghetti: why is it hosted by cloudflare (us company) in stead of http://bunny.net ?https://info.addr.tools/only-eu.eu
miyuru: only-eu.eu registered on Porkbun LLC and hosted on Cloudflare, Inchttps://whois.eurid.eu/en/search/?domain=only-euMX points to route1.mx.cloudflare.net as well.they should use their own product before giving others advice.
reconnecting: Domain is registered 23 March 2026. This is not a real product.
int3: the difference is that one of them is actually justified!
morpheuskafka: I 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.
sunaookami: New account + affiliate links + AI generated (likely via an US-based LLM lol) = flag + spam + slop
palata: > In the consumer space the best usually does winIt was like this with capitalism. But we live in an era of Technofeudalism, where it's not the case anymore.
cromka: Russia is definitely not unquestionably European.
LeifCarrotson: Their parent company, Nord Security, is based in the Netherlands.
cromka: "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.
palata: I believe there are two levels.1. The US becoming relatively hostile even to countries that considered themselves allies means that being totally dependent on US monopolies (the TooBigTech crew) is a problem. So the first level is "it's important to reduce the dependency to US services". Doesn't matter if it's in the EU, Canada or Mexico.2. When you start caring about digital sovereignty, or course it's better if you can depend on national services. But that's often not possible. The next best thing is to rely on allies, and diversify the risk.So it's a gradient. What has taken off is "we need to care about digital sovereignty" and "the US has already used their monopolies against us, we need to do something about it". I think.
loehnsberg: I guess you can make that same argument about USA and America. Canada is clearly America but a Canadian would not refer to himself as American whereas a US national would. Europeans hardly refer to themselves as such but when European countries are lumped together, it has become common to ignore geography and refer to those affiliated with EU membership or bilateral EU affiliation (Norway, Switzerland, Iceland) as European.
felixgallo: That’s a lot of words to pretend that you don’t know what the European Union is
DaedalusII: he clearly meant that all the servers and computers were manufactured in his non-EU village in BulgariaI for one want Pravetz cloud
gigatexal: I think it’s fairly obvious it’s talking about the EU not geographically Europe.
DaedalusII: this looks like it was vibe coded using an american llmalso, why not chinese or indian alternatives? they're cheaper and oftentime work better
BLKNSLVR: "not US" is carrying an increasing amount of water. Rationally or otherwise.
devsda: Even for own domain, what are the risks of choosing a .com domain and US based registrar if your country can potentially be hit by sanctions or your registrar tends to develop a sudden surge of misplaced morality.
palata: Yep, I go for a domain owned by my country, good point!
kzrdude: Europe is a geographical region, the only question is where does it border neighboring regions (Asia). There is no ambiguity about whether Switzerland or Norway and so on are in Europe. They are.
nelox: Eurovision includes Australia
hulitu: Searching 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.
dhruv3006: I think you should consider Voiden too : https://voiden.md/
fosron: And parent of that, Tesonet Global, is based in Lithuania
hk__2: The 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.
croes: > 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.
madman_dev: Hi 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: 1. Why not use https://european-alternatives.eu/? 2. Why use Cloudflare, a US company?
azangru: The way things are going, there might not be any alternatives without...https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_age_verification_...
holoduke: Can'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.
Angostura: Perhaps 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
flexagoon: Invoices have strict requirements and having the model accidentally hallucinate and make an incorrect invoice could put you in legal trouble. Besides, why would you pay for tokens instead of using a free tool?
hk__2: See also https://european-alternatives.eu/
hulitu: With Ubuntu, Suse and Zorin as OSs. Linux kernel is developed in US, FSF is in US...
dj_mc_merlin: All Europeans know what is meant by Europe. We just don't agree on it. But it does mean "not US or someone hostile to us" and that's enough of a definition without splitting hairs about Belarus.
stingraycharles: The 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: If 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)
broken-kebab: I 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.
combocosmo: Can you make some of my repeating settings savable? If I have to send invoices to 5 clients I'd prefer to not have to fill in the same stuff over and over again!
vldszn: You can save seller and buyer info and re-use later. I will think about adding the same thing to invoice (line) item.
thfuran: Why would you knowingly generate invoices that are sometimes wrong? That’s probably illegal and certainly going to be a pain in the ass. Why make a critical business function dependent of the availability of an external service when you could easily do it locally?
hulitu: Going to school helps.
dj_mc_merlin: No, 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.
Boltgolt: For a specific group of people in the world anything but "USA nr1" is hard to image, I understand. Can the nuanced take be: Europe does it better sometimes? Not the best slogan but you're not in marketing
flexagoon: In what way is Linux kernel "developed in the US"?
