Your IT decisions should be yours.
European institutions, businesses, and individuals rely heavily on a handful of US tech companies for core infrastructure — email, cloud storage, office suites, identity management. These services are often chosen for good reasons: maturity, features, and ecosystem breadth.
But this concentration carries risks: the CLOUD Act allows US authorities to compel US providers to produce data, regardless of server location. Vendor lock-in can make switching costly. License changes can alter the terms of use with limited notice. GDPR compliance adds another dimension to technology choices.
digital-independence.org provides fact-based, technically grounded information to help you understand the landscape and make informed decisions.
What we cover
Office & Groupware
EGroupware vs. Nextcloud vs. openDesk — who needs what? Differentiated by use case.
ExploreCloud Infrastructure
Sovereign Cloud Stack, Hetzner, OVH vs. AWS/Azure/GCP. European alternatives with honest trade-off analysis.
ExploreDigital Sovereignty
EU Parliament votes, openDesk, ESTIA alliance — where Europe actually stands on digital independence.
ExploreIdentity & Auth
eIDAS and sovereign identity vs. "Sign in with Google." Who controls your digital identity?
ExploreOperating Systems
Linux in the public sector — lessons from Munich, Schleswig-Holstein, and others. What worked, what failed.
ExploreAI & Machine Learning
Open-weight models (Mistral, LLaMA) vs. OpenAI/Google. Can Europe build its own AI stack?
ExploreWhat makes us different
- No affiliate links — we don’t earn from recommendations
- No SEO-optimized “Top 10” lists — we evaluate by use case
- Technical depth — written for people who actually have to implement things
- Honest assessments — we name what works and what doesn’t
- European perspective — because the context matters
Editorially independent
Many of the topics we cover are politically charged — digital sovereignty, EU regulations, public sector IT procurement. We observe and analyze these developments as neutral outsiders, not as advocates for any political position.
Sponsors and partners have no influence on our research, our assessments, or the ranking of any product or service. Editorial decisions are made solely on the basis of technical facts and verifiable evidence.
Corrections and accuracy
Despite careful research, errors can occur. If you believe a statement or assessment on this site is incorrect or outdated, please let us know at . We take every report seriously and will verify and correct confirmed errors promptly.