Our European choices

As you can read on our website, we hold digital autonomy and European technology in high regard. We also often say: practice what you preach. And we do! That’s why we carefully consider the tools we use for our own operations—whether it’s email, video meetings, or project management. We examine everything closely, not only because it’s important to us at De Glazen Uil, but also so we can share our experiences with you.

This blog post is the first in a series: I’ll be posting regularly about our European digital adventures. Keep an eye out if you want to follow along! Can’t wait to hear why we chose a particular option? Let me know—I might just focus my next blog on that 😉

The Reality: How Many Tools Do You Actually Use?

Don’t underestimate how many different software tools an organization uses! Here’s a list of what we use at De Glazen Uil—and we’re a very small team! In alphabetical order:

Image editing	Calendar	AI chatbot	Backups
Bank account	Business documents	File sharing	Operating system
Accounting	Version control	Contact management	CRM
Domain registration	Email	Internal chat	Presentations
Project management	Spreadsheets	Word processing	Video meetings
Website hosting	Website analytics

I’ve probably forgotten something, but you get the idea.

Our Approach: Criteria for Tool Selection

To make good choices for all these different needs, it’s helpful to define your requirements and preferences upfront. Ours are as follows:

Requirements

• No critical data with U.S. providers—not even indirectly.
• Effective for our workflow—no major sacrifices in usability.
• Scalable—it must grow with our organization and our clients’ needs.

Preferences

• Open-source: We prefer software as transparent as we are.
• Affordable: We like to keep costs low for a healthy De Glazen Uil and to recommend tools with confidence.
• Self-hosted: This means we can run the software on our own server or computer, rather than relying on “the cloud.” Self-hosting reduces risk and gives us more control. Since we have the expertise in-house, this is a great option for us—and we’re happy to support our clients in this as well.
• European: If it’s not self-hosted, we prefer providers within the EU, so we know they’re legally bound by the same laws, standards, and values as we are.

You might think these are strict conditions—and that it’s impossible to build a solid foundation based on these lists. But you’d be wrong! We not only underestimate how much (American) software we all use, but also how many fantastic open-source and/or European alternatives are available. Curious? In upcoming blogs, I’ll dive deeper into the choices we’ve made. But I can already recommend checking out european-alternatives.eu, a fantastic website full of European alternatives.

Conclusion: It’s possible! Will you join us?

There are more European and open-source alternatives than you might think. In future blogs, I’ll discuss them in detail and explain why we chose one option over another. For now, the key takeaway is: there’s plenty of choice! Hopefully, this inspires you to re-evaluate your organization’s choices and explore how you can become less dependent on Big Tech.