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dantegrassi | 11 days ago
First of all, thank you Puppion for posting here! Was happy to see EU Tech Map being talked about on one the most interesting corners of the web.
A few things upfront:
1) What the site is (and isn’t)
The goal is to make it easier to discover European tech companies (EU/EEA/EFTA/UK for now) and, where relevant, find alternatives to commonly used tools. It’s not attempting to claim “we have a European Google/Amazon/Nvidia” today. It’s a directory that helps people answer: “If I want a European vendor in category X, who exists and where are they based?”
2) Accuracy concerns are fair
A couple of you pointed out incorrect entries (LibreOffice classification, CockroachDB origin, etc.). Those are real issues and I’m fixing them. The site is only as useful as the trust people can place in the data.
What I’m doing in the near-term:
- Adding source/provenance per field (HQ, license model, pricing model, category, etc.) so it’s obvious what’s confirmed vs inferred.
- Tightening the validation rules (e.g. OSS status should never be wrong for well-known projects).
- Making it easier to submit corrections and see what changed.
- If you spot bad entries, the most helpful thing you can do is drop the company page + what’s wrong + a source (official docs/site/Wikipedia is fine). I’ll prioritize the ones mentioned here first.
3) The map clustering / addresses
Yep — geocoding is currently too naive in some cases (a few cities end up pinned centrally). That’s being addressed by improving address parsing and allowing companies to set a more accurate location when they claim their page.
4) Performance
The slow load and delayed map pins are on me. I’m already working on:
- better caching
- loading pins progressively
- reducing initial payload
- a simpler “list-first” mode for people who don’t care about the map
5) “Why not use existing sites?”
There are great lists out there. Some focus on product alternatives, some on buy-European movements, some on OSS. This one is trying to combine “ecosystem discovery” (who exists, where, what they do) with “alternatives” browsing. If it ends up redundant, it’ll deserve to lose.
6) Sovereignty / nationalism
I’m not trying to sell nationalism or “Europe first because vibes.” People have different reasons for caring: procurement rules, data residency, risk management, legal exposure, preference for local support, or simply curiosity about the EU tech scene. The directory is just an information layer. Use it if it helps, ignore it if it doesn’t.
Finally, appreciate both the feedback and to some degree criticism — if this becomes genuinely useful, it’ll be because people here kept the quality bar high.
I built this as a hobby project myself and launched it "for fun" just 3 days ago, and it has really exploded online, more than I would ever anticipate. So, please bear with me as I'm working day and night to improve the site.
Super grateful for everyone input! / Dante
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