I've used https://european-alternatives.eu in the past but I've found it impossible to submit anything there (I've got one submission "Waiting for Review" since July 2025), and I haven't really seen updates in categories/apps for at least 6 months, which is, at a minimum, strange.I've also reached out to the owner a couple of times (via chat and via email) over the last year and never got a reply.Has anyone else had a similar experience? If so, is there any other kind of listing you look for EU alternatives to US software/hardware?Thanks!EDIT: My motivations are my own, this isn't supposed to be a political or social commentary of any kind. I happen to prefer to spend money in "local companies" whenever possible, and I'm in the EU.
FL score
out of 100
Verdict
high confidence
Competition
10
competitors found, emerging market, funded players
Trend
No signal yet
A curated and highly responsive directory for European tech alternatives, solving the problem of outdated and unmanaged existing platforms.
The pain
The gap
Build angle
Strengths
Questions about this idea?
FlyBot reads the scoring and gives you a second opinion on “European Tech Alternatives?”.
Risks
Next steps
Fly Labs Method
Is the pain real, is there a gap, is it the right time, can one person build it.
There's a clear, expressed pain for a well-maintained, responsive directory of European tech alternatives. While the market is somewhat crowded with free options, the specific execution flaws of current popular ones offer a potential entry point for a solo builder who prioritizes responsiveness and up-to-dateness. Monetization models beyond free listing for users will need careful consideration.
Value Equation
Dream outcome and how likely it feels, against the time and effort it costs.
Viable market with growing demand, but differentiation and monetization for a directory are challenging, requiring strong execution and a clear value proposition for paying customers (likely companies).
One-Person Business
Curiosity pull, identity fit, and a path from free value to paid for a solo creator.
Good problem clarity and simplicity, with a reachable niche audience. Creator fit is dependent on personal passion. Monetization is the primary challenge due to the 'free directory' expectation.
Viral Frameworks
Hook strength, shareability, and how cheaply it can be tested.
Specific target audience and clear value prop, but distribution in a crowded space and monetization via freemium/premium listings are key challenges and assumptions to validate.
Builder Lens
Evidence the problem exists, timing, defensibility, and a model that fits on a napkin.
Strong demand for a better-executed directory due to current options being lacking. A narrow focus on a high-value niche and solving the 'responsiveness' pain point offers the best entry, but monetization for a directory remains a key validation point.
Why this verdict
Five lenses, one composite. How scoring works
The angle
This weekend
Who is already there, emerging market
An interactive map and directory listing European tech companies across various categories, emphasizing strategic autonomy, economic security, values alignment, collective resilience, and European innovation.
Pricing: Not specified (likely free for listings and browsing)
A directory aiming to help users replace Big Tech with European solutions by discovering sovereign alternatives to popular US cloud services and software.
Pricing: Not specified (directory access appears free)
A platform developed by EU-funded projects AI4Europe and DeployAI, offering trustworthy AI tools and solutions for researchers and industry in Europe.
Pricing: Not specified (likely free for researchers and industry engagement)
This initiative collects, connects, and categorizes Europe's AI startups with the objective to foster and accelerate AI in Europe.
Pricing: Not specified (directory access appears free)
A crowdsourced platform for discovering software alternatives, with a vast collection spanning web, desktop, and mobile apps, including many privacy-focused options.
Pricing: Free
A website that helps users find European alternatives for digital services and products.
Pricing: Not specified (appears free)
A website listing European alternatives for various products and services.
Pricing: Not specified (appears free)
A platform that likely promotes purchasing from businesses with a purpose, potentially including European alternatives.
Pricing: Not specified (appears free)
A community-driven launch platform built for indie developers and small startups, aiming to provide a European alternative to Product Hunt.
Pricing: Free to submit, with a premium 'Skip the Waiting Line' option for specific launch dates.
A directory focused on software/tech companies built in Europe.
Pricing: Not specified (appears free)
What they charge
Recent news
Vertex AI Search, June 24 2025
Cybernews, February 18 2026
EuroBoxx, January 30 2026
OMNIUS, March 18 2026
Proton, February 17 2026
Market signals
The market for European tech alternatives is growing rapidly, driven by a desire for digital sovereignty, data privacy, and a reduction in reliance on US Big Tech. Recent reports indicate a significant surge in interest and adoption, with the European alternative data market alone projected to reach $111.99 billion by 2033, growing at a CAGR of 53.06%. There's a strong emphasis on developing local solutions across various sectors, including AI, cloud infrastructure, and productivity tools, with substantial investment and government initiatives supporting this shift. Funding rounds in this space are robust, especially for AI startups.
What frustrates people
Last summer we faced a conundrum at my company, Tiger Data, a Postgres cloud vendor whose main business is in timeseries data. We were trying to grow our business towards emerging AI-centric workloads and wanted to provide a state-of-the-art hybrid search stack in Postgres. We'd already built pgvectorscale in house with the goal of scaling semantic search beyond pgvector's main memory limitations. We just needed a scalable ranked keyword search solution too.The problem: core Postgres doesn't provide this; the leading Postgres BM25 extension, ParadeDB, is guarded behind AGPL; developing our own extension appeared daunting. We'd need a small team of sharp engineers and 6-12 months, I figured. And we'd probably still fall short of the performance of a mature system like Parade/Tantivy.Or would we? I'd be experimenting long enough with AI-boosted development at that point to realize that with the latest tools (Claude Code + Opus) and an experienced hand (I've been working in database systems internals for 25 years now), the old time estimates pretty much go out the window.I told our CTO I thought I could solo the project in one quarter. This raised some eyebrows.It did take a little more time than that (two quarters), and we got some real help from the community (amazing!) after open-sourcing the pre-release. But I'm thrilled/exhausted today to share that pg_textsearch v1.0 is freely available via open source (Postgres license), on Tiger Data cloud, and hopefully soon, a hyperscalar near you:https://github.com/timescale/pg_textsearchIn the blog post accompanying the release, I overview the architecture and present benchmark results using MS-MARCO. To my surprise, we were not only able to meet Parade/Tantivy's query performance, but exceed it substantially, measuring a 4.7x advantage on query throughput at scale:https://www.tigerdata.com/blog/pg-textsearch-bm25-fu
AI
Hi HN!I recently switched from a Fedora/GNOME laptop to a MacBook Air. My old setup served me well as a portable workstation, but I’ve started traveling more while working remotely and needed something with similar performance but better battery life. The main thing I missed was a simple taskbar that shows the windows in the current workspace instead of a Dock that mixes everything together.I built boringBar so I would not have to use the Dock. It shows only the windows in the current Space, lets you switch Spaces by scrolling on the bar, and adds a desktop switcher so you can jump directly to any Space. You can also hide the system Dock, pin apps, preview windows with thumbnails, and launch apps from a searchable menu (I keep Spotlight disabled because for some reason it uses a lot of system resources on my machine).I’ve been dogfooding it for a few months now, and it finally felt polished enough to share.It’s for people who like macOS but want window management to feel a bit more like GNOME, Windows, or a traditional taskbar. It’s also for people like me who wanted an easier transition to macOS, especially now that Windows feels increasingly user-hostile.I’d love feedback on the UX, bugs, and whether this solves the same Dock/Spaces pain for anyone else.P.S. It might also appeal to people who feel nostalgic for the GNOME 2 desktop of yore. I started my Linux journey with it, and boringBar brings back some of that feeling for me.
AI
### Describe the project you are working on Godot C# bindings ### Describe the problem or limitation you are having in your project For the past weeks, I've been discussing with several Unity users intending to move to Godot C# regarding dealing with the C# garbage collector. The most common complaint I hear from users is that, in Unity, allocations can trigger unexpected GC spikes into the game. In Godot, we target to make all of the high performance APIs (those that intended to be called every frame) not allocate any memory, so theoretically the GC should not be a problem. Additionally, Godot starting from 4.0, uses the Microsoft CoreCLR version of .net, which also supposedly has a better garbage collector than Unity. But in all, after several discussions with Unity users, neither is enough reassurance for them, and they would really feel safer if Godot exposed a zero allocation API. ### Describe the feature / enhancement and how it helps to overcome the problem or limitation The idea of this proposal is that Godot exposes zero allocation versions of many functions in the C# API, that users can use if they desire. Technically, this could be done from the binding generator itself, without breaking compatibility, and without doing any modification to Godot itself. ### Describe how your proposal will work, with code, pseudo-code, mock-ups, and/or diagrams **WARNING** I am not familiar with C#, so take this as pseudocode. Imagine you have two functions exposed as to C#: ```C# void MyClass.SetArray( Vector2[] array); Vector2[] MyClass.GetArray(); ``` This works and is pretty and intuitive. However, it has two problems: * GC is allocated on return * Memory is copied to Godot native formats every time there is a call. The idea is to add NoAlloc versions, which can be generated directly by the binder automatically when required: ```C# void MyClass.SetArrayNoAlloc( Godot.Collections.PackedVector2Array array); void MyCl
AI