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Europe's company websites are mostly served by US vendors

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Re: Europe's company websites are mostly served by US vendors

#41

Post by LucaSiviero »

embedding-shape wrote: post #31
LucaSiviero wrote: post #26

As an Italian solo-founder, I have to admit that the US vendor dependency is really strong, but when you look at what you need to build a serious product, what can you actually use from European vendors that is even close to US products? Take Stripe as an example: is there a real alternative that covers what they do? Not to talk about Cloud and Edge Computing vendors: GCP, AWS, Cloudflare... does anyone even get clos…

> is there a real alternative that covers what they do? Have you tried searching the internet for things like "European Stripe alternatives" and things like that? Or you tend to rely on word of mouth and similar? I won't claim there are 100% replacements available for everything, but for all the basic functionality of Stripe, Cloudflare, AWS and so on there are tons of options out there, seemingly growing every month…

I get your point, and even in Italy we have Banca Sella (first one that comes to mind) which is a great way to collect payments with a local processor. But it's not Stripe...

Stripe is not just an integration for Link or Card payments, and payment fees are actually not that bad. Developer experience matters most to me. Plus, I agree there are alternatives to a basic Stripe implementation, but what about Stripe Connect?

Re: Europe's company websites are mostly served by US vendors

#42

Post by embedding-shape »

Scroll_Swe wrote: post #37
embedding-shape wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is there a real alternative that covers what they do? Have you tried searching the internet for things like "European Stripe alternatives" and things like that? Or you tend to rely on word of mouth and similar? I won't claim there are 100% replacements available for everything, but for all the basic functionality of Stripe, Cloudflare, AWS and so on there are tons of options out there, seemingly growing every month…

It's not that they cannot be found. But are they as good and is one willing to take the risk of putting your business one a smaller company vs one of the big ones?

You're not choosing between "Hans with a server in his closest in Germany" and Stripe here, you're choosing between two almost equally established companies that just happen to have different geographic locations and different names. Companies like Adyen are even older than Stripe by some years, and there are tons of examples like this.

Re: Europe's company websites are mostly served by US vendors

#43

Post by hsuduebc2 »

LucaSiviero wrote: post #26

As an Italian solo-founder, I have to admit that the US vendor dependency is really strong, but when you look at what you need to build a serious product, what can you actually use from European vendors that is even close to US products? Take Stripe as an example: is there a real alternative that covers what they do? Not to talk about Cloud and Edge Computing vendors: GCP, AWS, Cloudflare... does anyone even get clos…

Out of curiosity. There aren't any payment card processors other than Stripe? I thought I saw bunch of them.

Re: Europe's company websites are mostly served by US vendors

#44

Post by anonzzzies »

Scroll_Swe wrote: post #37
embedding-shape wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is there a real alternative that covers what they do? Have you tried searching the internet for things like "European Stripe alternatives" and things like that? Or you tend to rely on word of mouth and similar? I won't claim there are 100% replacements available for everything, but for all the basic functionality of Stripe, Cloudflare, AWS and so on there are tons of options out there, seemingly growing every month…

It's not that they cannot be found. But are they as good and is one willing to take the risk of putting your business one a smaller company vs one of the big ones?

That's why I meet with them. I have the mobile number of the ceo of Mollie and can call him in the weekend; compared to the US, we are DEFINITELY not big. But haven't had issues since using them since 2006.

Re: Europe's company websites are mostly served by US vendors

#45

Post by wolvoleo »

LucaSiviero wrote: post #26

As an Italian solo-founder, I have to admit that the US vendor dependency is really strong, but when you look at what you need to build a serious product, what can you actually use from European vendors that is even close to US products? Take Stripe as an example: is there a real alternative that covers what they do? Not to talk about Cloud and Edge Computing vendors: GCP, AWS, Cloudflare... does anyone even get clos…

Asking for a complete replacement is how people get locked in. The way governments end up with m365 by putting out an RFP with the exact feature list of m365. Of course then you limit yourself to only one option.

I think this will start moving a lot now that people are really aware of American dependency and also ethically are opposed to it.

Re: Europe's company websites are mostly served by US vendors

#46

Post by embedding-shape »

LucaSiviero wrote: post #41
embedding-shape wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is there a real alternative that covers what they do? Have you tried searching the internet for things like "European Stripe alternatives" and things like that? Or you tend to rely on word of mouth and similar? I won't claim there are 100% replacements available for everything, but for all the basic functionality of Stripe, Cloudflare, AWS and so on there are tons of options out there, seemingly growing every month…

I get your point, and even in Italy we have Banca Sella (first one that comes to mind) which is a great way to collect payments with a local processor. But it's not Stripe... Stripe is not just an integration for Link or Card payments, and payment fees are actually not that bad. Developer experience matters most to me. Plus, I agree there are alternatives to a basic Stripe implementation, but what about Stripe Connec…

Right, because you're looking for a Stripe alternative, none of them will be.

Did you actually try searching what I told you you could use as a search term? Have you looked into Mollie, Adyen, Klarna, Mangopay, Quickpay, etc? The list is quite large, there are options available but again, it requires you to proactively review and compare them, not just throw your hands in the air proclaiming "It's not Stripe".

Re: Europe's company websites are mostly served by US vendors

#47

Post by whilenot-dev »

Pragmata wrote: post #15
rukshn wrote: post #2

I find the Europe's relationship with tech to be wired, there is one section that is hardcore-opensource fanatics, they want to host everything by themselves, and want to go through the trouble of keeping things updated, and would not want to use a close source tools even though they are developed by European counterparts. On the other side there are people who are techy but happy to use US products, and when you pit…

Why would i want an inferior option just because it's made in the EU? I'm not an EU nationalist, i don't care if "EU Tech Companies" are a thing. If anything "EU Tech Sovereignty" is a net negative for me.

Well, where do you live?

I live in an EU country and care deeply for the right to erasure and our consumer rights. The EU legislature does some good things on that front. I "care" for EU tech companies as much as I can care for any company currently. I think technological sovereignty is and will be important moving forward, for our economic resilience, infrastructure stability, among other things.

BTW "EU nationalist" just sounds like an oxymoron to me.

Re: Europe's company websites are mostly served by US vendors

#48

Post by anonzzzies »

hsuduebc2 wrote: post #43
LucaSiviero wrote: post #26

As an Italian solo-founder, I have to admit that the US vendor dependency is really strong, but when you look at what you need to build a serious product, what can you actually use from European vendors that is even close to US products? Take Stripe as an example: is there a real alternative that covers what they do? Not to talk about Cloud and Edge Computing vendors: GCP, AWS, Cloudflare... does anyone even get clos…

Out of curiosity. There aren't any payment card processors other than Stripe? I thought I saw bunch of them.

There are a LOT of processors/acquirers, just most don't want to work with small companies and somehow developers are so really not developers that stripe won because 'better api' even though you get overcharged for everything.

Re: Europe's company websites are mostly served by US vendors

#49

Post by amiga386 »

karambahh wrote: post #33
LucaSiviero wrote: post #26

As an Italian solo-founder, I have to admit that the US vendor dependency is really strong, but when you look at what you need to build a serious product, what can you actually use from European vendors that is even close to US products? Take Stripe as an example: is there a real alternative that covers what they do? Not to talk about Cloud and Edge Computing vendors: GCP, AWS, Cloudflare... does anyone even get clos…

Funilly enough, payment might be the area where it's the easiest to find a credible european alternative. Adyen is an enormous PSP Mollie is aiming at smaller companies. Scaleway, OVH, Hetzner, Infomaniak and others do have pre-packaged, managed services, but you might not find "eveything and anything" that you find at, say, AWS. The other side of the same coin is that you're as vendor-locked if you buid something wi…

The UK Government just replaced Stripe with Ayden for most payments, so good suggestion.

https://gds.blog.gov.uk/2026/06/02/building-for-the-future-m...

Re: Europe's company websites are mostly served by US vendors

#50

Post by throwawayffffas »

LucaSiviero wrote: post #26

As an Italian solo-founder, I have to admit that the US vendor dependency is really strong, but when you look at what you need to build a serious product, what can you actually use from European vendors that is even close to US products? Take Stripe as an example: is there a real alternative that covers what they do? Not to talk about Cloud and Edge Computing vendors: GCP, AWS, Cloudflare... does anyone even get clos…

OVH is much more developed on the managed side, they even have managed k8s as a service.

And you know their infra generally works, you know when it's not on fire.

And when it is, well you are not going to be the only one down.

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