Guide to European Alternatives for Enterprises

Across Europe enterprise leaders are reassessing their digital infrastructure to foster digital sovereignty, driven by concerns over data privacy, security and risks of relying on foreign monopolies and the desire to comply with strict European regulations. Such reassessment includes a strategic shift towards adopting European alternatives to reduce reliance on non-EU cloud and software providers and Big Tech.

Unlike GDPR compliance, true sovereignty means full control over your data and infrastructure. That requires:

• EU jurisdiction and data residency
• End-to-end encryption by default
• Open-source and auditable platforms
• Seamless integration with enterprise IT (SSO, AD)
• A sovereign operating model with clear exit paths

By analyzing trends, survey insights, and real-world enterprise deployments, this guide serves decision-makers with a practical framework: how to reduce risk, protect reputation, and regain control by adopting EU-native, enterprise-ready alternatives.

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Risks of Relying on U.S. Cloud and Collaboration Providers

Relying on U.S. cloud and collaboration providers exposes European enterprises to compliance gaps, operational risks, and growing dependency concerns. 

From Microsoft 365 to AWS, these platforms remain deeply embedded across European IT environments, often without full consideration of sovereignty implications.

Risks include: 

1. Compliance and Regulatory Exposure

Laws like the U.S. CLOUD Act and FISA 702 allow American authorities to access data from U.S.-based companies, even when stored in Europe. That means using Outlook, Teams, or AWS could still put you at odds with GDPR, NIS2, or DORA.

2. Reputational Risk from Breaches

One high-profile data leak from a non-EU platform can wipe out years of trust. Political tensions and privacy scandals show how quickly confidence can evaporate when sensitive data is handled overseas.

3. Vendor Lock-in and Loss of Flexibility

Lock-in with non-EU providers like Microsoft 365 makes switching costly. Long contracts, licensing terms, and entrenched workflows keep enterprises tied to U.S. providers, even when sovereign alternatives are available.

However, sovereignty doesn’t have to mean leaving Microsoft entirely. Many enterprises now integrate a secure European communication layer alongside Microsoft 365 to protect sensitive exchanges while continuing to use familiar productivity tools. This hybrid approach reduces risk, increases flexibility, and lays the groundwork for gradual sovereignty adoption rather than disruptive change.

4. Operational Continuity Risks

In October 2025, a major AWS outage caused widespread service disruptions across Europe, temporarily affecting government portals, retail platforms, and communication tools. The incident underscored how centralized dependencies on foreign hyperscalers can create single points of failure that ripple across supply chains.

Even for organizations hosted on major global providers, the lesson is clear: resilience depends on diversification. Enterprises increasingly deploy multi-cloud and sovereignty-ready fallback solutions to ensure critical functions remain operational during outages or jurisdictional disputes.

The takeaway isn’t to abandon global platforms overnight, but to recognize that operational continuity requires European control points, whether through backup infrastructure, sovereign cloud regions, or open-source collaboration tools that can run independently when global systems falter.

Where U.S. Big Tech Increases Enterprise Risk

European enterprises depend heavily on U.S. platforms for communication, storage and infrastructure. These tools have become embedded in daily operations, but they carry risks that cannot be ignored at board level. Across the four core categories, the vulnerabilities are clear.

Secure Collaboration: Microsoft Teams, Slack

Collaboration tools sit at the heart of executive communication and crisis response. Yet platforms like Teams and Slack are subject to U.S. jurisdiction, making confidential exchanges vulnerable. The CLOUD Act allows American authorities to demand access to data, even when hosted in the EU. Weak or optional encryption further undermines trust.

Enterprise impact: Boardroom conversations, M&A negotiations and government discussions risk exposure under foreign law.

Email: Outlook, Gmail

Email and messaging remain core enterprise workflows. Outlook, Gmail dominate, but their compliance with EU sovereignty standards is poor. Under FISA 702, surveillance can take place without notification. Encryption backdoors, if mandated, could compromise entire datasets.

Enterprise impact: Hospitals, law firms and financial institutions could face catastrophic breaches of confidentiality if patient records or legal documents are exposed.

File Storage & Sharing: OneDrive, Dropbox

File storage is often overlooked, yet it underpins knowledge management and intellectual property. OneDrive and Dropbox operate on proprietary formats and long-term contracts, making switching costly. Even when data is stored in the EU, jurisdiction remains American.

Enterprise impact: A multinational manufacturer could face multi-million-euro migration costs, while losing negotiation power with its vendors.

Cloud Infrastructure: AWS, Azure, Google Cloud

Cloud platforms form the backbone of enterprise IT. AWS, Azure and Google Cloud all fall under extraterritorial laws like the CLOUD Act and FISA. Even “European” or “sovereign” cloud offerings remain subject to U.S. jurisdiction. As Hanna Bozakov of Tuta put it: “A sovereign cloud from Microsoft is still Microsoft. It’s still subject to U.S. law.” Even Microsoft officials have acknowledged this limitation; as one executive in France admitted, “We cannot guarantee full immunity from U.S. jurisdiction.”

The Rising Demand for European Alternatives

Digital sovereignty has moved from a policy debate into enterprise decision-making. Search and usage data show that the demand for European alternatives is not marginal. It is measurable, rising, and tied directly to categories where enterprises face the greatest dependency.

Search activity across Europe continues to climb. Terms like “european alternatives” now averages 2,400 per month, up 660% year-on-year. The shorter query “eu alternatives” adds another 2,400 monthly searches. More specific terms confirm that enterprise leaders are not just browsing, they are searching with procurement intent: “European cloud service providers” (1,900 searches), “EU WhatsApp” (590), and “open source software” (2,900). 

The surge in activity in March 2025 coincided with two major triggers. The first was regulatory: the enforcement of NIS2 and DORA introduced new requirements for resilience and sovereignty in critical sectors, pushing CIOs to review vendor dependencies. The second was political: renewed scrutiny of the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework and public debate around FISA 702 heightened awareness that compliance on paper does not equal legal protection in practice.

Governments have also become visible catalysts. Denmark’s public sector announced plans to phase out Microsoft Teams, citing the need for European-governed collaboration tools that meet sovereignty and procurement compliance standards. Similar evaluations are underway in Germany and the Netherlands. These public-sector shifts signal to enterprises that sovereignty is becoming a practical procurement standard, not just a political statement.

Enterprise relevance

This shift is visible inside enterprises, too. Schwarz Gruppe, one of Europe’s largest retail groups, adopted Wire to secure internal and partner communications, emphasizing the need for collaboration tools that operate fully under EU jurisdiction. Their deployment demonstrates that sovereign alternatives can scale, integrate with existing systems, and meet enterprise-grade requirements for security and reliability.

The search terms themselves reveal intent. When enterprise leaders search for “EU Teams alternative,” it shows collaboration platforms like Microsoft Teams and Slack are being re-evaluated through a sovereignty lens. “EU secure email” points to protecting legal and compliance-sensitive exchanges, while “AWS alternative Europe” reflects growing caution around U.S. infrastructure providers. Across all categories, sovereignty has entered the language of enterprise procurement, appearing in RFPs, risk assessments and compliance audits.

Taken together, these patterns are procurement signals. They show that CIOs and procurement leaders are actively scanning for sovereign options across the categories where dependencies on U.S. providers are deepest: collaboration, messaging, storage and cloud. For an enterprise, this is not a theoretical debate. It is the beginning of a buying journey. Those who move first will be better positioned to reduce compliance exposure, negotiate from a position of strength, and signal to their customers and regulators that sovereignty is part of their long-term resilience strategy.

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The Rise of European Alternatives

European Alternatives site: 1100% surge in 2025 traffic

The ecosystem itself is expanding. The portal european-alternatives.eu tracks 384 alternatives across 58 categories. The website saw a 1100% increase in traffic year-to-date with more than 1.3 million visitors in just the first quarter. In total, the library has now attracted almost 3.3 million visitors and 12.5 million pageviews with more than 28,000 keywords ranking in search, a clear signal that interest has moved well beyond niche activist circles.

What are people looking for on these platforms? The most popular categories reflect both consumer and enterprise priorities. Email providers, search engines, and cloud computing platforms consistently lead in traffic, while web analytics services and infrastructure tools show strong growth on the B2B side. This aligns with survey data: 84% of enterprise leaders identify end-to-end encryption as a top requirement, and 63% prioritize open-source transparency.

The top tools winning attention are names that enterprise buyers will recognize: Tuta, Mailbox.org, ProtonMail, Eclipso, Qwant, Posteo, Ecosia, Scaleway. Each reflects a European-governed, privacy-first approach that stands in contrast to the compliance-theater promises of U.S. big tech firms.

Geographically, demand is not confined to Europe. While Germany, the Netherlands, and France generate the highest visitor volumes, the United States ranks seventh, sending more than 100,000 visitors. Canada and India also appear in the top 25 countries. This global reach underlines that sovereignty is not just a European concern; it is part of a wider movement towards independence from U.S. Big Tech.

Who Is Leading the Way

Europe’s sovereignty shift is now visible in the market. A new generation of EU-based, open-source, and sovereignty-ready providers is gaining traction across key technology categories, from collaboration to cloud infrastructure.

Secure Messaging & Collaboration

Wire, Nextcloud, Olvid, and Threema Work lead the charge in secure communication.
Wire’s end-to-end encryption and open-source transparency make it a trusted choice for enterprises like Schwarz Gruppe, while Nextcloud powers on-premise collaboration for European ministries and public institutions.

Email & Calendar

Tuta, Proton, Soverin, and mailbox.org offer encrypted, GDPR-compliant communication under full European jurisdiction. Their growing adoption in ministries and regulated industries shows that email and calendar sovereignty is no longer a niche concern.

File Sharing & Storage

CryptPad, Pydio, Swiss Transfer, and Nuclino give enterprises control over data location and access. Nextcloud and Pydio are particularly strong in the public sector, with the French Ministry of Interior using them to ensure sensitive data stays on national infrastructure.

Cloud Infrastructure

European cloud leaders StackIT, OVHcloud, and Scaleway are expanding rapidly. StackIT, the cloud provider of Schwarz Digits, the IT and digital division of Schwarz Group, now hosts RISE with SAP in a sovereign German cloud. OVHcloud continues to win enterprise workloads where EU jurisdiction and data residency are mandatory.

Take Back Control of Your Digital Infrastructure

Explore how leading European enterprises are reducing reliance on Big Tech.
Our Enterprise Guide breaks down real strategies to regain sovereignty, compliance, and trust.

Download the Guide

Beyond Compliance: How Enterprises Can Adopt European Alternatives

Adopting European alternatives is not about ticking a GDPR box. True sovereignty means control and trust in the tools your enterprise depends on. Yet with U.S. vendors marketing “sovereign” versions of their platforms, how can leaders tell the difference between genuine independence and marketing gloss?

What makes a solution sovereign?

A sovereign-ready platform meets five tests:

• EU jurisdiction and data residency: the provider is European, legally bound by EU law, and data never falls under the CLOUD Act.
• Open-source transparency: code can be audited, giving enterprises assurance there are no backdoors. Nearly three-quarters of European tech leaders rate open source as critical for sovereignty.
• Strong encryption and zero trust: messages encrypted end-to-end from the device, so even compromised infrastructure cannot expose data.
• Integration and interoperability: works with existing identity systems and formats, reducing lock-in and easing migration.
• Enterprise ecosystem: backed by a vendor or community that offers regular updates, support and long-term viability.

Compliance is the baseline. Sovereignty means independence from foreign jurisdiction and black-box systems.

How to Get Started: A Roadmap for Enterprises

Adopting European alternatives is a journey, not a switch. Enterprises succeed when they start small and expand:

1. Begin with high-risk workflows such as board communications, incident response or R&D projects.
2. Pilot sovereign tools in parallel with existing systems to test integration and collect user feedback.
3. Invest in integration and training so adoption is seamless and employees understand the “why.”
4. Update procurement policies to include sovereignty in every RFP, making it a standard evaluation criterion.
5. Secure executive sponsorship to frame sovereignty as part of enterprise values, not just IT housekeeping.

Some enterprises position sovereignty tools first as resilience measures, a backup workspace if mainstream platforms fail compliance. Over time, these pilots grow into everyday use.

The Wire Perspective

For enterprises assessing European alternatives, the question often comes down to credibility. Does a provider meet sovereignty requirements in practice, and can it deliver the scale, reliability and support enterprises expect?

Wire was founded in Europe and remains governed entirely under European law. Headquartered in Germany, Wire is bound by some of the world’s strongest data protection regimes and is not subject to the CLOUD Act or other extraterritorial U.S. legislation. This legal foundation ensures that enterprise data is protected under European jurisdiction only.

Security is Wire’s design principle, not an add-on. Wire pioneered the adoption of the Messaging Layer Security (MLS) protocol and combines it with end-to-end encryption and a zero-trust architecture. Messages are encrypted from end device to end device, ensuring that even if servers in the middle are compromised, private data remains inaccessible. This approach meets the needs of boards, regulators, and high-security teams in both the public and private sector.

Open-source transparency is another pillar. Wire’s core technologies are open sourced, allowing independent verification by the community and trusted auditors. For enterprises, this means claims of security are not taken on trust alone but can be validated.

At the same time, Wire is built for enterprise productivity. It integrates with identity management systems such as SSO, SCIM, and Active Directory, offers APIs for interoperability with Microsoft 365 and other ecosystems, and provides administrative controls that meet the requirements of regulated industries. This makes Wire a practical alternative that can coexist with incumbent tools during transition phases.

Wire is already trusted at the highest levels. The German federal government uses Wire as part of its official communications infrastructure, alongside adoption in ministries, defense agencies and regulated industries. These deployments show that sovereignty and usability can go hand in hand.

For CIOs, CISOs and procurement leaders, the lesson is clear: sovereignty is no longer an abstract principle, it is a procurement requirement. Enterprises that act now gain more than compliance, they gain resilience, bargaining power and reputational strength.

Wire offers a proven, European alternative for secure collaboration. It combines legal certainty, verifiable security, and enterprise-grade usability. For organizations navigating the sovereignty shift, it is a platform designed not just to meet today’s regulations but to future-proof enterprise communications against the uncertainties of tomorrow.

To learn more, download the full State of Digital Sovereignty in Europe survey, or contact Wire for a tailored consultation on how sovereign collaboration can reduce risk, protect reputation, and strengthen enterprise resilience.