Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

European Alternatives

european-alternatives.eu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 526 posts

Re: European Alternatives

#61

Post by troupo »

s_dev wrote: post #46
troupo wrote: post #37

Last time this came up I decided to try Scaleway which is at the top of their "cloud computing" list. "European alternative" that doesn't know that European addresses have non-ASCII characters: https://x.com/dmitriid/status/1835649083345649780

I'm sure there are much bigger and more worthwhile criticisms to be had than this. It's something they should fix and if they did would you suddenly switch to Scaleway? I think you would consider other factors first. A good critique for example is OVH lost a lot of customer data due to a fire. Where was the redundancy? That would make me think twice before switching to OVH.

> It's something they should fix and if they did would you suddenly switch to Scaleway?

You know why I have this screenshot? Because I literally tried to switch to "great European alternative" that is "as slick as DO".

After a third or a fourth screen, most of which felt completely isolated and disconnected from any previous ones, I gave up on the screen that couldn't handle a standard European address.

This was literally the point that I gave up.

So I went ahead... and signed up with Hetzner.

Edit

So I decided to try again. Literally the first page of account sign in tried to trick you into accepting tracking

Since I apparently had an account, I could login... So redirected to a subdomain with the same cookie popup. On a site that is solely for billing address collection

which then redirects you to a third domain with the a similar but different popup.

Which ends up on an empty page indistinguishable in "usability" from Hetzner (or worse)

That's the end of my experience of my "European DO that is Scaleway".

They did fix the addresss boxes, kudos to them

Re: European Alternatives

#62

Post by s_dev »

vldszn wrote: post #59

I submitted my project EasyInvoicePDF (a free & open-source invoice generator) a couple of months ago to European Alternatives but never heard back unfortunately. The project has no backend and is purely browser-based, but I’m based in Europe and developing the project here, so I consider it a European project =) App: https://easyinvoicepdf.com/?template=stripe GitHub: https://github.com/VladSez/easy-invoice-pdf

It's a cool project but it is 'niche'.

I think the purpose of the site is more about the alternatives to 'large players', platforms and infrastructure companies. Still Constantin Graf should have clarified out of politeness but possibly he's busy or doesn't have time to respond to every email.

However I'd point out there is a market for European 'Product Hunt' that would include more of these smaller projects.

Re: European Alternatives

#63

Post by u8080 »

yodsanklai wrote: post #56
gtirloni wrote: post #49

This is nice but if Europe doesn't fix their tech salaries situation (half US' in most cases, if not lower), I don't think it's sustainable.

I suspect China or Russia don't have higher salaries, they still manage to build their own alternatives. And Airbus builds better planes than Boeing with European salaries. I'm sure that with a bit of protectionism, we would build our tech as well as anybody else.

Tech jobs in IT in Moscow are paid(net) relatively similar to what you could get in EU.

Re: European Alternatives

#64

Post by kieranmaine »

johneth wrote: post #60

Is this only for companies within the EU or EFTA? I can't spot a single UK company listed, even though there are plenty that would fit.

On https://european-alternatives.eu/about the listing criteria state:

> The company is based in an EU, EEA, EFTA, or DCFTA member country or in the UK.

but

> For hosting providers: It is not allowed that a hosting provider is simply a sub-hosting provider of a company that is not based in an EU or EFTA member country.

Re: European Alternatives

#66

Post by alberto-m »

s_dev wrote: post #46
troupo wrote: post #37

Last time this came up I decided to try Scaleway which is at the top of their "cloud computing" list. "European alternative" that doesn't know that European addresses have non-ASCII characters: https://x.com/dmitriid/status/1835649083345649780

I'm sure there are much bigger and more worthwhile criticisms to be had than this. It's something they should fix and if they did would you suddenly switch to Scaleway? I think you would consider other factors first. A good critique for example is OVH lost a lot of customer data due to a fire. Where was the redundancy? That would make me think twice before switching to OVH.

A lack of Unicode support in 2026 is like someone coming with dirty clothes to a job interview: it might not affect too much how the work is done, but immediately raises doubts about the underlying level of professionalism.

Re: European Alternatives

#67

Post by Tade0 »

gtirloni wrote: post #49

This is nice but if Europe doesn't fix their tech salaries situation (half US' in most cases, if not lower), I don't think it's sustainable.

I wouldn't want US salaries with US costs of living.

Also working for companies located in Ireland[0] or Switzerland you can have your US salary, it's just that the pool of jobs is limited.

[0] Provided it's a company in the first of Ireland's two economies.

Re: European Alternatives

#69

Post by troupo »

alberto-m wrote: post #66
s_dev wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure there are much bigger and more worthwhile criticisms to be had than this. It's something they should fix and if they did would you suddenly switch to Scaleway? I think you would consider other factors first. A good critique for example is OVH lost a lot of customer data due to a fire. Where was the redundancy? That would make me think twice before switching to OVH.

A lack of Unicode support in 2026 is like someone coming with dirty clothes to a job interview: it might not affect too much how the work is done, but immediately raises doubts about the underlying level of professionalism.

That was 2024 (still inexcusable), they managed to fix it at one point https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46734771

Re: European Alternatives

#70

Post by nazgob »

u8080 wrote: post #63
yodsanklai wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect China or Russia don't have higher salaries, they still manage to build their own alternatives. And Airbus builds better planes than Boeing with European salaries. I'm sure that with a bit of protectionism, we would build our tech as well as anybody else.

Tech jobs in IT in Moscow are paid(net) relatively similar to what you could get in EU.

So not US salaries.
Post reply on HN