Everything you use has a European alternative.

Anker & Belkin 🇨🇳🇺🇸 non-EU

Cables and chargers from Shenzhen and California.

• Hama Monheim, Bavaria. Family-owned since 1923. 🇩🇪
• Xtorm Dutch, focused on recycled-plastic power banks. 🇳🇱
• Fresh 'n Rebel Rotterdam design, colourful and cheap. 🇳🇱
• goobay Wentronic, Braunschweig. The cable people. 🇩🇪

ExpressVPN / PIA 🇻🇬🇺🇸 non-EU

Offshore VPNs owned by a single advertising-adjacent group.

• Mullvad VPN Gothenburg's account-number-only VPN; you can literally pay in cash. 🇸🇪
• OVPN Swedish provider running diskless servers it owns outright. 🇸🇪
• AirVPN Italian activist-run VPN with deep configuration control. 🇮🇹
• Surfshark Amsterdam-headquartered VPN with unlimited devices. 🇳🇱

Tupperware & Ziploc 🇺🇸 non-EU

American food storage.

• Brabantia Dutch since 1919, 10-year guarantees. 🇳🇱
• Mepal Lochem, Netherlands. Lunchboxes that survive schoolbags. 🇳🇱
• EMSA German, part of Groupe SEB. 🇩🇪
• Rosti Danish, the Margrethe bowl is a design classic. 🇩🇰

Wrigley's Extra & Orbit 🇺🇸 non-EU

Chicago owns the checkout counter.

• Mentos Perfetti Van Melle, Breda — Dutch-Italian and family-owned. 🇳🇱
• Vivident Italian gum, same group as Mentos. 🇮🇹
• Fisherman's Friend Fleetwood, Lancashire, since 1865. Still family-owned. 🇬🇧
• Ricola Swiss herbal drops from thirteen Alpine herbs. 🇨🇭

Seagate, Western Digital & Toshiba 🇺🇸🇯🇵 non-EU

Three companies left in the world make spinning disks. None is European.

No European alternative

Ben's Original & Minute Rice 🇺🇸 non-EU

American parboiled rice, in a continent full of risotto.

• Riso Gallo Lombardy since 1856, six generations of the same family. 🇮🇹
• Riso Scotti Pavia, in the middle of Italy's rice country. 🇮🇹
• Oryza German rice brand, part of Euryza in Hamburg. 🇩🇪
• Reis-fit The other German rice standard. 🇩🇪

Starbucks 🇺🇸 non-EU

Seattle's idea of what a European café is.

• Lavazza Turin, family-owned since 1895, still Italy's coffee. 🇮🇹
• illy Trieste. One blend, obsessively made. 🇮🇹
• Tchibo Hamburg. Coffee, plus an inexplicable weekly range of other goods. 🇩🇪
• Julius Meinl Viennese since 1862, and the coffee house tradition to go with it. 🇦🇹

Tommy Hilfiger & Calvin Klein 🇺🇸 non-EU

Two brands, one New York parent company.

• BOSS Metzingen, Germany. 🇩🇪
• Tiger of Sweden Stockholm tailoring. 🇸🇪
• Sandro Paris. 🇫🇷
• Lacoste French heritage, now under Swiss-based MF Brands. 🇨🇭

Unity 🇺🇸 non-EU

The engine that tried to charge per install.

• Godot Amsterdam-based foundation; MIT licensed, no royalties, ever. 🇳🇱
• Defold Swedish foundation's engine, free with no revenue share. 🇸🇪

Hertz, Avis & Enterprise 🇺🇸 non-EU

Three American desks at every European airport.

• Sixt Pullach, family-run since 1912, and the orange counter is usually the cheapest. 🇩🇪
• Europcar Paris, owned since 2022 by a Volkswagen-led consortium. 🇫🇷
• Goldcar Alicante. Budget end of the Europcar group, big in the Mediterranean. 🇪🇸
• Ubeeqo Round-trip car sharing rather than rental, also Europcar-owned. 🇫🇷

QuickBooks 🇺🇸 non-EU

Intuit's books, with US tax logic bolted on.

• Sage Newcastle-founded accounting, the European incumbent for SMEs. 🇬🇧
• Odoo Accounting Open-source accounting with localisations for most EU countries. 🇧🇪
• Pennylane French accounting platform built with accountants, not against them. 🇫🇷
• Fortnox Sweden's dominant cloud accounting platform. 🇸🇪

Trello 🇺🇸 non-EU

Cards on boards, owned by Atlassian.

• MeisterTask Munich kanban with the nicest board UX in Europe. 🇩🇪
• Zenkit Same data, viewable as board, list, table, calendar or mind map. 🇩🇪
• awork Hamburg project management for agencies and teams. 🇩🇪
• Taiga Spanish open-source agile project management, self-hostable. 🇪🇸

Duolingo 🇺🇸 non-EU

Gamified language learning, increasingly AI-generated.

• Babbel Berlin-built courses written by actual linguists for European learners. 🇩🇪
• Lingoda Berlin live classes with real teachers, small groups. 🇩🇪
• Mondly Romanian-built app with 40+ languages and VR lessons. 🇷🇴
• Speakly Estonian method built around the statistically most useful words first. 🇪🇪

Skippy & Jif 🇺🇸 non-EU

American peanut butter, in a continent that mostly spreads other things.

• Calvé The Dutch standard, made by Unilever in the Netherlands. 🇬🇧
• Whole Earth UK, no palm oil, nothing but peanuts and salt. 🇬🇧
• Rapunzel Bavarian organic pioneer since 1974. 🇩🇪
• De Pindakaaswinkel Amsterdam. Peanut butter as a specialist trade. 🇳🇱

Chinese rare earth refining 🇨🇳 non-EU

In every motor, turbine, hard drive and headphone. Refined in one country.

No European alternative

Workday, BambooHR & Gusto 🇺🇸 non-EU

Your employer's copy of your entire working life.

• Personio Munich. The European mid-market default. 🇩🇪
• Factorial Barcelona, and strong on payroll. 🇪🇸
• Lucca Paris. Modular, French payroll built in. 🇫🇷
• Sage HR Newcastle, from the accounting house. 🇬🇧

Steam 🇺🇸 non-EU

PC gaming's storefront, and its DRM.

• GOG CD Projekt's Warsaw store: DRM-free, the games are actually yours. 🇵🇱
• Gamesplanet UK/German reseller with legitimate keys — which mostly still need Steam. 🇬🇧
• Instant Gaming French retailer, often much cheaper — but the keys still activate in Steam. 🇫🇷
• Green Man Gaming London official reseller. Cheaper, though most keys still activate in Steam. 🇬🇧

ChatGPT, Gemini & Copilot 🇺🇸 non-EU

The assistant that made everyone an AI company.

• Le Chat (Mistral AI) Paris-built frontier models; open-weight options and EU hosting. 🇫🇷
• Aleph Alpha Heidelberg. Refocused in 2024 on sovereign and public-sector AI rather than competing with frontier chat models. 🇩🇪
• LightOn French enterprise generative AI, deployable on premises. 🇫🇷
• Nebius AI Studio Amsterdam-listed GPU cloud, formed from Yandex's non-Russian assets when the group was split and its Russian business divested in 2024. 🇳🇱

Goodyear & Bridgestone 🇺🇸🇯🇵 non-EU

American and Japanese rubber on European roads.

• Michelin Clermont-Ferrand since 1889, and it invented the radial tyre. 🇫🇷
• Continental Hanover since 1871. 🇩🇪
• Nokian Tyres Nokia, Finland — it invented the winter tyre in 1934. 🇫🇮
• Semperit Austrian since 1824, now a Continental brand. 🇦🇹

Converse, Vans & New Balance 🇺🇸 non-EU

The casual sneaker canon, all American-owned.

• VEJA Paris. Wild rubber, organic cotton, no advertising budget at all. 🇫🇷
• Superga Turin, 1911. The 2750 is the original. 🇮🇹
• Novesta Partizánske, Slovakia. Vulcanised by hand since 1939. 🇸🇰
• Camper Mallorca, family-run for four generations. 🇪🇸

Tampax & Always 🇺🇸 non-EU

Two Procter & Gamble brands, one aisle.

• einhorn Berlin, organic cotton, and unusually funny packaging. 🇩🇪
• The Female Company Stuttgart, organic cotton, plastic-free — part of einhorn. 🇩🇪
• Natracare Bristol since 1989 — the original organic option. 🇬🇧
• Organyc Bologna, 100% certified organic cotton. 🇮🇹

Scotts Miracle-Gro 🇺🇸 non-EU

American lawn chemistry.

• COMPO Münster. The European garden centre standard. 🇩🇪
• Neudorff Emmerthal. Organic plant care since 1854. 🇩🇪
• Oscorna Ulm, purely organic fertilisers. 🇩🇪
• Cuxin DCM German-Belgian organic mineral fertilisers. 🇩🇪

Fanta & Sprite 🇺🇸 non-EU

Orange and lemon-lime, both Atlanta-owned.

• Almdudler Austria's national soft drink: alpine herbs, since 1957, still family-owned. 🇦🇹
• Sinalco Germany's oldest soft drink brand, 1902. 🇩🇪
• Bluna German orange soda with a cult following. 🇩🇪
• Fritz-limo Lemonades from the fritz-kola people, less sugar throughout. 🇩🇪

Amazon Web Services 🇺🇸 non-EU

The default cloud, and the default lock-in.

• Hetzner German servers at prices that make US clouds look like a rounding error. 🇩🇪
• OVHcloud Europe's largest hoster, with full sovereign-cloud offerings. 🇫🇷
• Scaleway French cloud with managed Kubernetes, object storage and GPUs. 🇫🇷
• IONOS Cloud German enterprise cloud with ISO-certified EU data centres. 🇩🇪