Hi there,

During the last couple of weeks I have created a spreadsheet to (hopefully) help people decide which mail/cloud/messaging/etc. would best suit their needs and wishes. I thought I’d share it here, so maybe more people can use it AND people can give feedback so I can improve upon it!

I wanted to, on the one hand, make it as detailed and exhaustive as possible, but on the other hand easy to use, since many people (including myself) get overwhelmed by all the possiblilities and aspects to take into account. So somewhere between ‘spend days and days scrolling websites and forums to pick the best option for you’ and ‘just use Proton!’. I’ve always used Google and Microsoft myself, wanted to switch many times, and finally started to really abandon them in the last couple of months (and am really happy about that!). I hope many more people will make the switch to other services that are less damaging to our privacy/data/environment/choice.

The spreadsheet, though I’m not happy abou that, is made in Excel and can be downloaded from my OneDrive: Grading MS, Google etc. alternatives_290825.xlsx . I tried to convert it to .ods, but somehow that messes up some of the formulas…sorry about that. Most data in the spreadsheet are protected to prevent making accidental mistakes, but the password is just blank, so you can also adjust/add/do whatever with the document.

Regarding the spreadsheet: It speaks for itself, I hope. I graded the various services, based on some research (and, I’m sorry to admint, ChatGPT). For each area (e.g. email, cloud, navigation) you can indicate how important certain aspects (e.g. privacy, ease of use, sustanability) are for you (0-5), and besides that, you can toggle some features (e.g. only show European based, only show open source). Based on that it shows you ‘personalized’ ratings of the various providers (e.g. Gmail, Proton drive, Bitwarden, Magic Earth), to help you pick one. Also, you can indicate what you already use (on the first sheet), which can influence the rating (since it’s easier/more logical to start using Proton Drive if you already use Proton Mail, etc.). I tried to judge Google, Microsoft en Facebook as fair as possible, since they are not all bad (‘evil’ is another story I guess). As a result, if you mostly value reliability, ease of use, the amount of users it has and the monetary cost, they do quite well. If you consider other aspects, not so much.

That’s it! Just a little project I thought of since I started searching for alternatives to Big Tech and got drowned in the amount of options and opinions that are out there. I’m not an expert, cannot code, and barely know my way around spreadsheets.

Anyhow, if this gets some traction, I’m more than happy to keep updating and improving upon this file! And make it more accessible.

Cheers, Thomas (from the Netherlands, which could explain some langauge mistakes or weird phrasings)