Cost / License
- Free
- Open Source
Application type
Platforms
- Linux

This guide is designed for anyone looking to take greater control of their digital life by choosing open-source solutions developed and maintained within Europe. It highlights projects that promote transparency, reduce reliance on non-European tech ecosystems, and align with Europe’s strong commitment to privacy and data protection. The goal is to support digital autonomy in Europe while uplifting the local developers and communities who build trustworthy, user-centric software.

Free, open source Linux OS by KDE, focusing on safety, maintainability, and modern features, integrating KDE Plasma and apps for diverse home or enterprise use.


Desktop-focused Linux system offering custom menus, multimedia codecs, browser plugins, native DVD playback, and integrated software manager with user-friendly tools.




Manjaro is a user-friendly Linux distribution based on the independently developed Arch operating system. Within the Linux community, Arch itself is renowned for being an exceptionally fast, powerful, and lightweight distribution that provides access to the very latest cutting...




NixOS is a GNU/Linux distribution that aims to improve the state of the art in system configuration management. In existing distributions, actions such as upgrades are dangerous: upgrading a package can cause other packages to break, upgrading an entire system is much less...






Linux-based operating system with a customizable interface for Windows users, dual-boot support, WINE compatibility, pre-installed software, and easy setup.




Ark is a program for viewing, extracting, creating and modifying archives. Ark can handle various archive formats such as tar, gzip, bzip2, zip, rar, 7zip, xz, rpm, cab and deb (support for certain archive formats depend on the appropriate command-line programs being installed).


Czkawka is a simple, fast, written in Rust and easy to use app to remove unnecessary files from your computer.




EUSurvey is supported by the European Commission to promote interoperability solutions for European public administrations. A hosted version is available free of charge to all EU citizens. Open-source, published under the EUPL licence.
Excalidraw is an open-source whiteboard tool that lets you easily sketch diagrams that have a hand-drawn feel to them. Available directly online as a web app and also through CodeSandbox to easily see how the code works, and the app is available for self-hosting.




Cross-platform multimedia framework performing decoding, encoding, transcoding, muxing, demuxing, streaming, filtering, and playback for nearly all media formats.








An open-source multithreaded video transcoder, HandBrake compresses and converts digital media, supporting MP4, MKV formats, and offers hardware-accelerated conversion.



Bibliography reference manager. The native file format used by JabRef is BibTeX, the standard LaTeX bibliography format.

Open source kanban platform with workspace members, board visibility controls, Trello import, card labelling, activity logs, and collaboration tools.

LimeSurvey (formerly PHPSurveyor) is an Open Source PHP web application to develop, publish and collect responses to online & offline surveys. Anonymous and Not-Anonymous survey, open and closed group of participant surveys, optional public registration for surveys.




Deck is a kanban style organization tool aimed at personal planning and project organization for teams integrated with Nextcloud.


Once enabled, a new Tasks menu will appear in your Nextcloud apps menu. From there you can add and delete tasks, edit their title, description, start and due dates, reminder times, mark them as important, and add comments on them. Tasks can be shared between users.

Open source software offering project timelines, issue tracking, and document management with robust security and flexible management options.




Small python-gtk application, which helps the user to merge or split pdf documents and rotate, crop and rearrange their pages using an interactive and intuitive graphical interface.




PeaZip is free file archiver utility, based on Open Source technologies of 7-Zip, p7zip, FreeArc, PAQ, and PEA projects, for Linux, macOS and Windows.




ProjectLibre is a Java-based project management solution that gives Microsoft Project a run for its money. Offering a UI similar enough to ease the transition from Microsoft's market leader, ProjectLibre packs in calendars, resource tracking, task management, and...


Redmine is a flexible project management web application. Written using Ruby on Rails framework, it is cross-platform and cross-database.



Think of Vikunja like the notebook you have with all your things to keep track of. But better.




Yakforms is a free-as-in-free-speech software that allows you to easily create forms for your community. Whether you need a full-blown or a quick poll, Yakforms will fit your needs.




Open-source kanban board offering real-time collaboration, customizable labels, filtered views, cards, comments, member assignments, and self-hosting options.


Free open-source multi-track audio editor and recorder with 32-bit float processing. Supports many formats and plugins for Windows, macOS, Linux.




Advanced digital photo management software with features to organize, tag, compare, and process photo collections, supporting multiple formats including RAW.




Open-source screenshot tool with cross-platform support, customizable interface, built-in editing, CLI access, and direct Imgur uploads.




Fast image viewer with support for multiple formats, quick crop, rotate, lossless JPEG editing, drag-and-drop, thumbnail navigation, and slideshow mode.



Intuitive multi-track video editor with robust hardware-accelerated support; offers chroma key, color grading, and extensive audio/video format compatibility.




A free, open-source painting program for professional artists offering customizable UI, 9 brush engines, layer support, and color management.




Comprehensive software providing screen recording and live streaming on Mac, Windows, and Linux with powerful encoding support and unlimited scenes.




PicView is a fast, free and fully customizable picture viewer for macOS and Windows 10/11. It supports virtually all image file types, including (animated) WEBP, (animated) GIF, SVG, AVIF, HEIC, PSD and many others.




Cross-platform, free media player supports multimedia files, DVDs, streaming, offers hardware acceleration, 4K, lossless audio, and more.




Geany is a powerful, stable and lightweight programmer's text editor that provides tons of useful features without bogging down your workflow.




IntelliJ IDEA is the JetBrains IDE for pro development in Java and Kotlin. Built for your comfort, it unlocks productivity, ensures quality code, supports cutting-edge tech, and protects your privacy.




The Kate project develops two main products: KatePart, the advanced editor component which is used in numerous KDE applications requiring a text editing component, and Kate, a MDI text editor application.



LyX is a document processor that encourages an approach to writing based on the structure of your documents (WYSIWYM) and not simply their appearance (WYSIWYG). LyX combines the power and flexibility of TeX/LaTeX with the ease of use of a GUI.




Free open-source code editor and Notepad replacement supporting multiple languages, featuring high speed, low resource usage, privacy focus, and plugin extensibility.




Texmaker is a free LaTeX editor, that integrates many tools needed to develop documents with LaTeX, in just one application.



TeXstudio is an integrated environment for writing LaTeX documents. Our goal is to make writing LaTeX as easy and comfortable as possible. Therefore TeXstudio has numerous features like syntax-highlighting, integrated viewer, reference checking and various assistants.




Advanced text editor with multiple modes, syntax highlighting, word completion, plugin support, built-in help, command-line tools, cross-platform and open source.



*Loops and Pixelfed are Canadian, but they are the best FOSS alternatives to Instagram and Tiktok.
Comments
Thanks for this list! A few more for consideration (which I am using myself):
Thanks for your feedback and suggestions!
I'll look into adding them as soon as I can.
I've added all of your suggestions, with the exception of FileZilla and Ancestris.
I've seen reports of users installing the official FileZilla client and encountering malware or unwanted software, so I wouldn't feel comfortable recommending it to others.
As for Ancestris, I couldn't find a public link to its source code, so I can't verify that it meets the open-source criteria for this list. If you know where the source code is hosted, feel free to share the link. Until then, I won't be adding it to the list.
Koofr is also a great european cloud storage provider, very privacy oriented, and Bunny.net, they are both from Slovenia.
Thank you for the suggestions! Koofr has now been added to the list.
The list is based on two criteria:
There are no exceptions to the first criteria. For the second one, exceptions may apply in certain cases. For example if the software is developed internationally (such as LibreWolf or VSCodium) or if no European alternatives exist (e.g. Pixelfed or Loops as alternatives to Instagram and TikTok).
For this reason, Bunny.net will not be added to the list, as the software is not open-source.
Never knew Krita was European, do you know of any specifically German open source projects?
Yes, Krita is actually part of the KDE ecosystem, which is a German-based FOSS community. KDE is best known for the KDE Plasma desktop (Linux), but they also develop a huge collection of applications across many categories.
Some prominent KDE apps include Kdenlive (video editing), Okular (document viewer), Gwenview (image viewer), Dolphin (file manager) and many more. All FOSS and actively developed in Europe.
Germany in general has a very strong open-source scene.
Wow, I thought that I was the only person loving European open-source projects! Maybe we need to a collaborate? Just to help you, Infomaniak isn't that privacy focused: when you sign up, you (sometimes) have to make a selfie and give a lot of personal information... In general this list looks amazing and your username is awesome. Let's go Europe!
Thanks! Always great to meet another person who cares about European FOSS projects
I’m definitely curious about collaboration. Did you have anything in mind? It could be anything from sharing resources, testing projects, contributing to open-source or even writing about European alternatives together.
And you’re absolutely right about Infomaniak: they’re not the most privacy-focused option out there. For me it’s a pragmatic choice right now - European jurisdiction, transparent, sustainable and very competitive pricing. I see them as a “good enough” step away from US hyperscalers, not a perfect privacy solution.