Replacing your US tools with European — and Swiss — alternatives
Email, files, hosting, analytics, AI: where to start, which alternatives really exist, and what is better left where it is.
More and more small-business owners ask me: "Should we move away from Google, Microsoft or US tools?" The reasons vary — protecting their customers' data, depending on a single provider, price rises decided elsewhere. The honest answer is neither "everything, right now" nor "it is pointless". It is a step-by-step process.
Why the question comes up
- The law: a US provider remains subject to US law, including for data stored in Europe — that is what the 2018 CLOUD Act is about. In Switzerland, the revFADP requires you to know where personal data goes and to be able to justify it.
- Dependence: when all your tools come from the same ecosystem, a change of price or terms hits you everywhere at once.
- Trust: your own clients — practices, healthcare, fiduciaries — ask the question more and more. Having a clear answer becomes a selling point.
Start with an inventory, not a migration
Before changing anything, list your tools on one page: what each one is for, what data it holds (customers, finance, health, or nothing sensitive), and what happens if it stops tomorrow. This inventory is often enough to decide: migrate first what is sensitive and easy to replace, leave for later what is complex and not very sensitive.
Alternatives that really exist
A few solid European and Swiss equivalents, by category. This is neither an exhaustive list nor a ranking, and I have no commercial ties with these companies:
- Email, calendar, files: Infomaniak (kSuite, Geneva) and Proton (Mail, Drive, Calendar, Geneva).
- Video calls: Infomaniak's kMeet, or Jitsi, open source, which you can host yourself in Europe.
- Instant messaging: Threema, designed in Switzerland, with a business offer.
- Hosting and cloud: Infomaniak, and Exoscale, based in Lausanne; Hetzner in Germany; OVHcloud and Scaleway in France.
- Website analytics: Plausible, European and without advertising cookies, or Matomo hosted on your own server.
- Newsletter: Brevo, in France.
- Passwords: Proton Pass.
- AI and translation: Mistral AI in France, DeepL in Germany — or open models hosted in Europe.
What is better left where it is (for now)
Some tools have no equally complete equivalent, or replacing them would cost more than the risk it avoids: very specific business software, an office suite the whole team relies on every day, a design tool without a rival. A European provider is not automatically compliant either: what matters is the contract — where the data lives, who can access it, how to get it back.
An order that works
- Website analytics: quick, painless, and often a chance to slim down the cookie banner.
- Forms and newsletter: they hold your prospects' data.
- Storage of sensitive files.
- Email and calendar: the biggest job, to plan with the team.
- AI: pick a provider whose data policy you know before trusting it with client documents.
What about me?
In all honesty: this site is hosted by Vercel, a US company, with a database in Frankfurt. It is a trade-off I accept for a showcase site that handles no sensitive data. For my clients' projects, hosting is discussed from day one, and I propose Swiss or European options when the data calls for it.
If you want to take stock of your tools and know where to start, write to me: it is exactly the kind of half-day workshop I run.