Listing Criteria
Europe Alternatives lists both commercial European companies and open-source projects. Each type has its own listing criteria described below.
Commercial Companies
1. European Headquarters
The company must be headquartered in a European country. This is not limited to EU member states — companies from any European country qualify, including those in the EEA, EFTA, and other European nations.
2. Majority European Ownership
The majority of the company's shareholders must be European. If a European company has a parent company or majority shareholder that is not European, it does not qualify for listing. This ensures that listed companies are genuinely European-controlled.
3. SaaS or Cloud Service
The company must offer a software-as-a-service (SaaS) or cloud-based product or service. This includes hosted software, cloud infrastructure, platform services, and other web-delivered solutions.
European Countries & Trade Agreements
For reference, the following are the main European economic blocs and agreements. Companies headquartered in any of these countries are eligible.
European Union (EU) — 27 Member States
Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden
European Economic Area (EEA) — 30 Countries
All 27 EU member states plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway. The EEA extends the EU's internal market to these three EFTA countries, providing free movement of goods, services, capital, and persons.
European Free Trade Association (EFTA) — 4 Countries
Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland. While Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway participate in the EEA, Switzerland maintains its relationship with the EU through bilateral agreements.
Other European Countries
United Kingdom, Ukraine, Moldova, Albania, Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Kosovo, Georgia, Armenia, Turkey (European part), Monaco, Andorra, San Marino, and Vatican City. Companies from these countries are also eligible for listing.
Open-Source Projects
Open-source projects are listed in a separate table. Unlike commercial companies, they do not require European headquarters or ownership. To be listed, a project must meet the following criteria.
1. Recognized Open-Source License
The project must be released under an OSI-recognized open-source license (for example MIT, Apache 2.0, GPL-3.0, AGPL-3.0, MPL-2.0). Projects using “source available,” “non-commercial,” “Commons Clause,” or similar restrictive licenses do not qualify.
2. Self-Hostable with Official Documentation
The project must be realistically self-hostable, with official installation documentation and at least one standard deployment path, such as:
- Docker and Docker Compose
- Helm charts or Kubernetes manifests
- Operating system packages (deb, rpm, etc.)
“Build from source only” without a clear deployment guide is not sufficient.
3. Actively Maintained
The project must show ongoing maintenance: a release or meaningful commit activity within the last 12 months. An exception may be made for projects explicitly in “maintenance mode” if their operations and security documentation is strong.
4. Operationally Usable (Day-2 Readiness)
Documentation must cover at least the following areas to ensure the project is viable for production use beyond initial installation:
- Upgrades and migrations — how to update safely between versions
- Backup and restore or export/import — how to protect and move data
5. Security Contact / Disclosure Path
The project must provide a clear way to report security vulnerabilities responsibly. Acceptable methods include:
- A SECURITY.md file in the repository
- A dedicated security email address
- A documented disclosure process or bug bounty programme
6. No “SaaS Trap”
The self-hosted version must be meaningfully usable without requiring a proprietary vendor cloud backend for core functionality. Features may differ between self-hosted and vendor-hosted offerings, but the core product must work independently.