Verified European alternatives, audited on sovereignty - not slogans.
AltScout is a source-cited directory of EU-headquartered alternatives to global US and Chinese brands. For every incumbent, we surface a real European challenger and audit both on where they're based, who owns them, where your data lives and how they behave under EU law - so you can see exactly what changes when you switch.
Why we exist
Most "best alternatives" lists rank on price and features. That misses the question more Europeans are asking: who ultimately controls this company, and what happens to my data? A tool can be cheaper and slicker and still route your data through a jurisdiction that can compel access to it.
Cloud storage, banking, fashion, food, streaming - nearly every sector has a European company doing the same job under GDPR, the DSA and EU competition law. AltScout exists to make those companies findable, and to show the sovereignty trade-off in plain terms rather than leaving it buried in a privacy policy.
How we verify - the Sovereignty Audit
Every brand we publish is checked against public corporate and regulatory records, then scored on a fixed set of sovereignty and ethics dimensions. Each comparison puts an incumbent next to its European challenger across the same 13 checks:
- Headquarters
- Ownership
- Tax domicile
- Ultimate parent
- Data hosting
- CLOUD Act exposure
- AI trains on user data
- GDPR record & total fines
- DSA designation
- Carbon neutral
- B-Corp certified
- Supply-chain transparency
- Repair & recycling
The data is assembled by a transparent pipeline: companies are ingested from Wikidata and matched to their legal entity in the GLEIF LEI registry, enriched into the sovereignty fields, then passed through a quality gate before publishing. Every brand page links back to its source records - its Wikidata QID and GLEIF LEI - so any claim we make can be traced to where it came from.
Our sources
AltScout is built on open, auditable data. We cite the origin and license of every source rather than asking you to take our word for it:
- Wikidata
- GLEIF LEI Registry
- Open Food Facts
- Community Verified
Who's behind AltScout
AltScout is built and edited by Marek Mihalčin, a senior software developer and tech lead specialising in frontend architecture (Vue.js and Nuxt), TypeScript and automated testing. AltScout itself runs on that stack - it's built by someone who builds production software for a living, not a content farm generating lists.
The site is operated by Mavaria, s. r. o. (IČO 57 191 883), based in Žilina, Slovakia, with a team across Central Europe. That matters for what we do: we're a European company, subject to the same GDPR and EU regulation we hold others to. We audit data sovereignty because we live under it - not as an abstraction.
Corrections & trust
We'd rather be corrected than confidently wrong. Ownership changes, companies get acquired, fines land, HQs move. Every claim on AltScout carries its source so you can check it, and each brand page has a path to flag an error or suggest an update. Community-verified corrections are part of how the database stays honest over time.
Frequently asked questions
- What is a sovereignty audit?
- A fixed set of 13 checks we run on each brand - covering where it is headquartered and taxed, who ultimately owns it, where it hosts data, its exposure to laws like the US CLOUD Act, its GDPR and DSA record, and ethics signals like B-Corp status and supply-chain transparency. It measures who controls a company and your data, not just its price or features.
- How is a brand verified?
- Each company is ingested from Wikidata, matched to its legal entity in the GLEIF LEI registry, enriched into the sovereignty fields, then passed through a quality gate before publishing. Every brand page links back to its Wikidata QID and GLEIF LEI so any claim can be traced to its source.
- What does the EU score mean?
- A short label summarising how European a brand is - from EU-headquartered and EU-owned through to made in the EU. It is a quick signal; the full picture is always the underlying audit rows, which we show in every comparison.
- Who runs AltScout?
- AltScout is built and edited by Marek Mihalčin, a senior Vue/Nuxt software developer, and operated by Mavaria, s. r. o., a company based in Žilina, Slovakia - itself an EU business subject to the GDPR and EU regulation it reports on.
- How current is the data?
- Brands are re-enriched as source records update, and community corrections feed back into the database. Ownership, fines and regulatory status change over time, so every claim is dated to its source and open to correction.
Contact
Questions, corrections or a European alternative we're missing? Reach us at hello@mavaria.sk or connect with the founder on LinkedIn.