The European tech stack in 2026

Can you build without US dependencies? Mostly, yes

2025 made the question practical. Microsoft confirmed it cannot guarantee EU data stays out of reach of US authorities, the ICC prosecutor lost access to his Microsoft email after US sanctions, and Airbus put its core systems out to tender for a sovereign European cloud (the details are in 2025: the sovereign cloud reality check).

Not perfectly and not for every edge case, but for most B2B software companies there is a workable European option at every critical layer. I run EmailConnect on such a stack; below is each layer, what I use, and the alternatives.

The stack, layer by layer

Cloud hosting and compute

This is the most mature layer: choosing European hosting costs little in 2026. What I use: Hetzner, a German company with German data centres. For raw compute its dedicated servers and cloud instances are good value next to AWS or Google Cloud.

Object storage

S3-compatible storage is a commodity now, so there is little reason to use AWS S3 for European workloads. Moving off S3 is often a configuration change. What I use: Scaleway Object Storage in Paris, for attachments when customers use our managed storage. Because the API is standard, customers on Business and above can also connect their own S3-compatible bucket, so attachments land in storage they own (attachment processing).

DNS and domains

DNS is often overlooked: your DNS provider sees your traffic patterns and could be compelled to redirect it. What I use: Scaleway DNS, managed with an API and part of the same account; for an email service, keeping MX, SPF and DKIM records next to the hosting simplifies operations.

Transactional email

European alternatives to SendGrid and Mailgun work well for password resets and notifications. What I use: Scaleway Transactional Email, from Paris, for the mail EmailConnect sends its customers. A service that processes inbound email in the EU should send from the EU too.

Payments

Payments are where European providers are strongest. Stripe has an EU entity but is headquartered in the US. What I use: Mollie, a Dutch company with a clean, well-documented API and broad coverage of European payment methods (iDEAL, Bancontact, SEPA).

Analytics

Google Analytics is the obvious concern here, and the privacy-focused alternatives are mature. What I use: Plausible, an Estonian company: EU-hosted, cookieless, and a simpler dashboard.

Monitoring and observability

Operational data holds request details and stack traces that can include customer context, so I keep it on my own servers. What I use: Beszel for server metrics and Bugsink (Sentry-compatible) for error tracking, both self-hosted.

Uptime monitoring is the exception. A monitor on your own servers goes down with them, and it only sees public endpoints, so an external European service fits better. I moved from a self-hosted Uptime Kuma to Oh Dear, a Belgian company, in October 2026; it feeds status.emailconnect.eu and our availability page.

Support and automation

Internal tooling can stay European too. What I use: support email arrives through EmailConnect itself and goes to a self-hosted n8n instance for the workflow. The in-app help assistant uses Mistral through Scaleway's Generative APIs in France; it sees the questions you type, never your emails (sub-processors).

Where I compromised: code hosting and optional sign-in

Not everything I use is European. Two US services remain, both outside the path your email takes.

• GitHub for source code. GitHub is owned by Microsoft. The repositories hold no customer data; source code is intellectual property, a different risk from customer data. European options exist (Codeberg, self-hosted GitLab or Gitea) and I may move eventually.
• Optional sign-in with Google or GitHub. Customers who choose it authenticate with a US company. Signing in with email involves neither (sub-processors).

Where each kind of data lives

The line I draw: customer data stays on European providers under European jurisdiction. Internal and development tooling is a separate decision, where convenience can weigh more.

Hyperscalers still lead on reach and specialised services

The "no feature parity" argument no longer holds for most workloads. Scaleway alone offers compute instances, serverless containers, managed Kubernetes (Kapsule), managed PostgreSQL and Redis, object storage, DNS, transactional email, secrets management, load balancers and a container registry.

Where AWS and the other hyperscalers still lead:

• Geographic reach: regions worldwide, where European providers run a handful, in Europe.
• A global CDN and API management built into the same platform.
• Specialised services such as machine learning, IoT and media processing.

For an EU business serving EU customers these gaps rarely matter, and a European CDN such as BunnyCDN or KeyCDN can be added separately.

Cost: plain compute is often cheaper

In my experience Hetzner is often noticeably cheaper than AWS or Google Cloud for equivalent compute and storage, and Scaleway is roughly price-competitive. "AWS is cheaper at scale" usually assumes you use its managed services. You may pay more in Europe for managed Kubernetes, serverless at very high volume, and the specialised services above. For ordinary web applications and APIs, European hosting is often the cheaper option.

Start with customer data, then migrate in steps

How EmailConnect fits

EmailConnect is meant to be the inbound email layer of a European stack. Each item links to the page behind it.

• Processed in the EU. Application, database and mail server at Hetzner in Germany; optional attachment storage and backups at Scaleway in France and the Netherlands. No US company is in the processing chain, apart from optional sign-in with Google or GitHub. Sub-processors →
• No access to your mailbox. You send or forward mail to addresses we run; we never hold a password or token for your mailbox. Privacy promise →
• Email content exists only as long as you choose: one hour on Free and Maker, 24 hours by default on Business and Platform. Data retention →
• Your own storage. Connect your own S3-compatible bucket on Business and above; on Platform, Data Residency Mode is an option that keeps message bodies and attachments out of our database entirely. Data Residency Mode →
• A DPA on every plan, including Free, with sub-processor changes announced 30 days ahead. Data Processing Agreement →

Sources and further reading

• European Alternatives — directory of EU software options
• The European Cloud Situation at the end of 2025 — Bert Hubert
• The hidden GDPR trap — why server location isn't enough

Related

Building a European stack and have questions? I'm happy to share what I've learned. Get in touch.