Sovereign replacement for Microsoft Office with intuitive interface and strong compatibility backed by European open source community.
March 27, Berlin. At a press event in Berlin organized by IONOS and Nextcloud, a coalition of European enterprises and community organizations today have launched Euro-Office, a solution for editing documents, spreadsheets and presentations, developed as a true sovereign community collaboration of over a dozen different organizations. a tech preview is available immediately. The effort, backed by major European tech firms including IONOS, Nextcloud, Eurostack, XWiki, OpenProject, Soverin (part of The Sharing Group), Abilian and BTactic is planning a first stable release by summer.
Across Europe, public administrations, enterprises and educational institutions are reassessing their dependence on non-European productivity platforms. While office software remains mission-critical infrastructure, there is currently no solution that combines full Microsoft format compatibility, a familiar user experience and genuine digital sovereignty under European stewardship.
"With the geo-political developments we have seen in the last year, there is a clear need for a reliable, fully Microsoft-compatible and easy to use sovereign office solution in Europe," states Achim Weiss, CEO of IONOS. "Our joint initiative delivers a suite with an extremely familiar interface and capable of working with documents, presentations and spreadsheets."
Existing alternatives often require trade-offs in compatibility and usability, are encumbered by legal risks around licensing and trademarks or are developed without transparent and open governance, lacking any independent, sustainable contributor community. For organisations handling sensitive information and public data, this creates structural risk.
Euro-Office addresses this gap directly. It is designed to provide seamless handling of widely used document, spreadsheet and presentation formats, while offering an interface that minimizes retraining and migration friction. The entire code base is released under fully open source licensing, free from trademark constraints, and developed in a transparent process open to public scrutiny and contribution. The result is an office suite built not only for functionality, but for strategic resilience.
“Europe has had the technical building blocks for years. What was missing until now was an initiative to bring them together into a meaningful, comprehensive solution,” says Frank Karlitschek, CEO of Nextcloud. “With Euro-Office, we’re not starting from scratch; instead, we’re taking responsibility for a vital piece of digital infrastructure. This finally gives organizations tools they can trust: transparent, durable, and managed in Europe.”
Euro-Office is a coordinated European initiative bringing together commercial open source companies, independent developers and civil society actors under a shared governance framework.
The initiative is currently driven by IONOS, Nextcloud, Eurostack, XWiki, OpenProject, Soverin, Abilian and BTactic across Europe. Together, these participants represent a broad cross-section of Europe’s open technology ecosystem and have committed to contribute significant resources to the project.
The coalition aims to establish a sustainable ecosystem around Euro-Office, and calls on other companies, public sector bodies, community contributors and all other civil society organizations advocating for open standards, digital rights and sovereign digital infrastructure to join the collaboration and help shape the suite’s evolution.
A public tech preview of Euro-Office is available immediately on github: https://github.com/Euro-Office. The preview enables organizations and individuals to evaluate core functionality, test compatibility and contribute feedback ahead of the first stable release planned for summer.
IONOS is the leading digitalization partner and trusted cloud enabler for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). The company serves around 6.6 million customers and has a presence in 17 markets across Europe and North America, with its services being accessible worldwide. Its web presence and productivity portfolio caters to all digitalisation needs, providing domains, web hosting and website builders with AI capabilities, as well as eCommerce and online marketing tools. The company also offers cloud solutions for businesses looking to move their operations to the cloud as they expand and develop.
Nextcloud is the world’s most popular privacy-focused collaboration platform. It is used by tens of thousands of private and public organizations and tens of millions of private individuals to stay in control of their sensitive data and ensure privacy compliance.
With Nextcloud, users can edit and share documents, chat and hold video conferences, and manage emails, contacts and calendars via easy web and mobile apps. The open-source software has a modular design and can be extended with hundreds of apps. It runs on premises in a private cloud or with a trusted provider.
Founded in 2016, Nextcloud is fully employee-owned and has grown organically ever since. Learn more at www.nextcloud.com.
EuroStack is an European Industrial Policy initiative bringing together tech, governance and funding for Europe-focused investment to build and adopt a suite of digital infrastructures: from connectivity to cloud computing, AI and digital platforms.
bTactic is a Catalan technology company, which has specialized in offering cloud collaboration and communication solutions, standing out above all for its use of free software.
With its philosophy of proximity and open source, bTactic stands out for: Technological sovereignty: They help companies not to depend exclusively on American multinationals. Close support: Being a local company, they offer a more direct and personalized treatment. Privacy: They place great emphasis on compliance with the GDPR and keeping data under the control of the client.
Soverin, part of steward-owned The Sharing Group, is a European privacy-first email platform with over a decade of experience building secure, sovereign email infrastructure. Soverin offers a range of managed services including email, relay, and filtering. ISO certified, NIS2 and GDPR compliant, Soverin's solutions run on self-owned hardware in The Netherlands. More at www.soverin.com
OpenProject is an open source project management software that supports classic, agile, and hybrid workflows, enabling teams to collaborate seamlessly across the entire project lifecycle: from planning and execution to reporting and documentation. It offers a comprehensive set of features including project planning and scheduling, task tracking, agile boards, time and cost management, and meeting coordination. Available both in the cloud and on-premises, OpenProject is designed for organizations of all sizes, with a strong focus on data security, privacy, and sovereignty.
Founded in 2004, XWiki SAS is a European open-source software vendor built on the principles of digital sovereignty, transparency, and user empowerment. It provides enterprise-grade, flexible solutions for knowledge management and collaboration. It is a leading open-source alternative to proprietary wiki platforms.
Its flagship project, XWiki, is trusted by hundreds of clients worldwide, including Amnesty International Germany, SFR Altice, Naval Group, University of Helsinki, Proximus, and Lenovo. The platform is highly extensible, supporting intranets, wikis, documentation, and knowledge bases. Its extensibility enables organizations to structure and organize knowledge while adapting to their needs. XWiki helps companies to maintain full control over their data and build sovereign digital infrastructure.
Abilian is a French open-source software vendor dedicated to driving the digital transformation of SMEs and public administrations by providing collaboration, enterprise information management, and cloud computing solutions. Built on the principles of European digital sovereignty, ethics, and sustainability, they provide strategic alternatives to proprietary solutions, helping organizations avoid vendor lock-in and retain full control over their data and infrastructure. More at www.abilian.com.