Our Mission

In an era where digital privacy is increasingly important, we believe everyone deserves access to tools and services that respect their data. European Purpose was founded with a clear goal: to make it easy for anyone to find European alternatives to the dominant US tech platforms.

We curate, review, and compare European digital services across multiple categories, from email providers to cloud storage, from analytics tools to VPN services. Each service we feature is thoroughly evaluated for its privacy practices, security features, and compliance with European data protection standards.

Why European Alternatives?

The European Union has established some of the world's strongest data protection regulations through GDPR. When you use services based in Europe, your data benefits from these protections, including:

  • The right to access, correct, and delete your personal data
  • Strict requirements for data processing consent
  • Mandatory data breach notifications
  • Significant penalties for privacy violations
  • Protection from mass surveillance programs

By choosing European services, you are not only protecting your own privacy but also supporting a thriving ecosystem of innovative European tech companies.

How We Evaluate Services

Every service featured on European Purpose undergoes a comprehensive evaluation process. We assess:

  • Privacy Practices: How the company handles, stores, and protects user data
  • Security Features: Encryption standards, authentication options, and security certifications
  • GDPR Compliance: Full adherence to European data protection regulations
  • Data Location: Where servers are located and where data is processed
  • Transparency: Open-source code, independent audits, and clear privacy policies
  • Features and Usability: How the service compares functionally to US alternatives
  • Pricing: Value for money and availability of free tiers

Our Independence

Vendors can pay for placement on our category pages, and we earn nothing when you click through to a vendor. Paid placement can affect the order in which tools appear; it never affects whether a tool is listed or what our review says. We only feature services that meet our criteria for privacy, security, and quality, and a vendor can ask us to correct a factual error — not to remove a criticism. Our editorial process sets out the full policy.

Who writes this

4 people write, edit and fact-check everything on European Purpose, each taking a different role on every page. Read more about how we review, or see the full editorial team.

Sebastiaan Smits

Sebastiaan Smits

Founder & Editor · Netherlands

Selects the tools, writes the reviews, and checks where each company is actually established.

Marta Kowalczyk

Marta Kowalczyk

Senior Analyst, Infrastructure & Developer Tools · Warsaw, Poland

Covers hosting, developer tooling and the practical side of moving workloads to European providers.

Ingrid Halvorsen

Ingrid Halvorsen

Managing Editor · Oslo, Norway

Runs the review process and decides when a page is ready to publish or needs another pass.

Daniel Brandt

Daniel Brandt

Privacy & Compliance Researcher · Berlin, Germany

Checks the compliance claims: where the company is established, where the data sits, and what the DPA actually says.

Get Involved

Have a suggestion for a European service we should review? Found an error in one of our listings? We welcome your feedback. Please reach out through our contact page, and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

Together, we can build a more privacy-respecting digital future, one tool at a time.