Alternatives to MS365 on a global level

Posted by Rischi_@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 45 comments

Hi fellow admins,

the organisation I work for is mostly EU based, but we will now merge with a US based one, which has colleagues all over the work (USA, Canada, China, India, Australia, EU,..).

Both organisations are using MS365 at the moment, but we(& Management) want to move away from big US tech companies.
Key use case is file sharing and collaboration on documents in daily work life - additional features are just a bonus.

Our preferred solution would have been Nextcloud before the decision to merge.

Is anyone using Nextcloud at a global level across multiple continents?
I often only see reports from organisation that operate on a national or EU based level.

Or do you have another solution in place that works well for you?

The user base would roughly be 250 active users per + 50-100 guest accounts with occasional use.

Looking forward to your thoughts, thanks!

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Tall-Geologist-1452@reddit

this is one of those “sounds good in theory, hurts in practice” situations. M365 didn’t become the global default by accident. It’s years of engineering and billions spent on making things like low latency access, real time co authoring, identity, and compliance just… work, no matter where your users are. Google Workspace is basically the only other thing in the same tier. Everything else, Nextcloud included, is fine tech, but it’s not built to compete at that level out of the box. It’s more “you can make it work” than “it just works.” Could you run Nextcloud globally? Sure. But then you are solving things like multi region architecture, latency between continents, keeping collaboration usable for people in APAC vs EU vs US, and the operational overhead when something breaks at 3am. At that point you are basically trying to recreate what Microsoft or Google already spent a decade building. Not trying to be negative, just realistic. The EU has some solid solutions, especially around privacy and sovereignty, but in terms of global scale collaboration platforms, it has been playing catch up for a while. decisions like this shouldn’t be driven by ideology alone. Moving away from big US tech might sound appealing, but it does not automatically translate into a sound business decision if it adds significant cost, risk, and complexity.........If you have strong regulatory reasons, fair enough. Otherwise for around 250 users, it is a lot of extra complexity to take on just to move away from M365.

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mullsies@reddit

The "it just works" argument is doing a lot of heavy lifting for a platform that ships two completely different Outlook clients simultaneously, neither of which works reliably. That's not a minor rough edge. That's the flagship product of the world's most valuable software company, fractured across two codebases, confusing users and admins daily. If that's the gold standard for "billions spent on making things just work," the bar has fallen through the floorl.

The latency and multi-region arguments are real but they're also largely solved problems in 2025. Nextcloud can be deployed on hyperscalers with CDN fronting, regional nodes, and object storage backends. It's not 2015 anymore. You're not running it on a NAS under someone's desk. The operational complexity exists, but it's also not the abyss you're describing, and critically, it's complexity you control and understand, not complexity buried inside Microsoft's black box that you just have to accept and work around.

The "3am when something breaks" framing is also backwards in practice. When Microsoft has an outage, and they do, regularly, you sit there and wait. You have no control. You file a support ticket and refresh the service health dashboard. With self-hosted infrastructure, at least the person on call can actually do something about it.

The compliance argument cuts both ways too. The EU's entire concern with M365 is that it doesn't meet compliance requirements for data sovereignty. Several EU member state governments, school systems, and public sector bodies have moved off it specifically because Microsoft's compliance posture doesn't hold up under GDPR scrutiny when data residency is examined properly. "M365 handles compliance" is only true in jurisdictions that don't look too hard.

The 250-user scale point is also just not that big a number. That's not "global enterprise." That's a mid-size org that a competent MSP can run on open source tooling without recreating anything Microsoft spent a decade building. You're not Google. You don't need Google's infrastructure.

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Tall-Geologist-1452@reddit

I see where your confusion comes from as it looks like you did not read the post which started this conversation or pay attention to and I quote "the organisation I work for is mostly EU based, but we will now merge with a US based one, which has colleagues all over the world (USA, Canada, China, India, Australia, EU...Both organisations are using M365,)."

So this is not just regional but spanning continents. The OP specifically asked for a solution that works well, not one that you have to gerrymander together. This is basic ITIL: does moving to an MSP and a janky solution bring value to the business?. M365 is still the superior product at a lower price point with a higher ROI.... It goes back to the old adage that just because you can do something does not mean you should

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mullsies@reddit

It was more your second sentence. I nearly fell off my chair:

It’s years of engineering and billions spent on making things like low latency access, real time co authoring, identity, and compliance just… work, no matter where your users are.

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Tall-Geologist-1452@reddit

We run about 1,000 FTEs across five separate manufacturing facilities in four states, spanning from the West Coast to the East Coast, with remote workers and partners globally. I know it works because I see it working. Is it perfect? No, because nothing ever will be.

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mullsies@reddit

You might have stockhom syndrome - things are a long way from perfect. Deploy a MS Surface Laptop with Intune and compare the process to deploying a retail macbook that cost 40% less.

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Tall-Geologist-1452@reddit

For one, you are talking about a completely different offering from online collaboration. Second, why would any enterprise deploy an unmanaged Mac? Windows + Intune is easy to set up with Autopilot; you can ship the device to a user anywhere in the world, they log in, and within an hour, they are working. Apple Business Manager + Intune for Mac works the same way. If it takes longer than that, either their internet sucks or you did not set up Intune correctly. I am typing this on a Mac that is Intune managed. You are willfully uninformed on the topic we are discussing.

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mullsies@reddit

Windows

First deal with users who choose UK keyboard on Surface Laptops with a US keyboard that can't type their email address
Wait 40 minutes or all day for initial install if you don't have gigabit internet.
Have 1 in 10 laptops fail no no reason at all
Wait between 5 minutes and a day for sharepoint shares to sync
Have onedrive just not run for 1 in in 50 users.
Address hundreds of insane defaults - from an Edge homepage that leads to malware and adware to removing crap like Xbox from "enterprise" windows.
Deploy apps in the Company Portal where they inexplicably take forever to install
Have non-stop software issues - from external displays mysteriously going black to laptops draining battery to zero for no damn reason
Deal with unfathomable stupidity like the versions of teams, teams and teams and outlook and outlook and one note and one note.
Oh and wait 5 minutes or 5 days for a remote wipe no matter what you do.

vs the Apple consumer experience - login into your icloud account and start with sane defaults. And at least you buy Apple - I've had surfaces on backorder for months.

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Tall-Geologist-1452@reddit

Do you know how to stay on topic? Your Intune problems are all on you, We have 900 windows units out in the wild working fine.. did you miss the part in the post where i said i was on a Mac.. I am sorry you live in a place where technology is 5 years behind the US..

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hologrammetry@reddit

Honestly, yeah, that's not far off from reality. Microsoft has poured a shit ton of money into their collaboration suite and it shows. Is it perfect? No, we still have two Outlooks. But the real-time coauthoring in Word works, and not just online but right in the desktop app. No one else is doing that. SSO with Entra ID? Also just works. I've spent my entire career shit-talking Microsoft, but their products do work.

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Rischi_@reddit (OP)

Thanks for the honest feedback.
Unfortunately this is what I feared to hear, but it helps to have it written down in front of you ;)

For us it's not only ideology, but it plays a major part to be honest.

We are not regulated luckily, but the content that is being worked on has different support based on rather democratic or autocratic countries and/or stakeholders. Especially if the intention is to induce change in certain industries and countries.

An alternative approach that I am looking at would be a business continuity solution, which could step in just in case access is lost. Like EVAC from mailbox dot org

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FireFitKiwi@reddit

Solutions are out there like Datto for this purpose. Be really mindful in your process, because the cost of doing business is still better than the cost of not doing business.

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bjc1960@reddit

Shocking how many GenX/ Boomers can't survive without Acrobat or Outlook. I am in that age frame, but my home computer is the Linux dist that shall not be named.

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lectos1977@reddit

It is hard to open a pdf.in vim.

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bjc1960@reddit

and they won't use a browser if in a Linux environment with a GUI

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lectos1977@reddit

who needs anything other than Lynx? Quit wasting RAM!

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thenewguyonreddit@reddit

we want to move away from big US tech

What happens when IT directors have too much time and money.

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adamhighdef@reddit

Have you seen the state of the USA right now?

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MyThinkerThoughts@reddit

You mean the number 1 GDP in the world and leader in AI?

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adamhighdef@reddit

Meh. I have ample public services available to me. Some computer widgets aren't going to change anyone who isn't indoctrinateds mind.

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1cec0ld@reddit

There are 50 of them

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Peter_Lustig007@reddit

As far as I can tell, this is a big topic in the EU at the moment. Not just for companies, but for countries as well.
France is starting to move their entire administration to Linux. They are currently developing their own video conferencing solution that is already in use for 40k of their employees. Think it is called Visio.
There is already Euro-Office just starting out, aiming at exactly what OP is asking as far as I know.

This is not a bored IT director, this is an entire continent not being able to rely on US tech anymore.

I love that this currently is mostly done with Open Source, that can be a huge benefit for everyone and will offer a lot of transparency where data is going.

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CeC-P@reddit

Libre office is making some sort of collaboration thing. I assume you can just download and set up your own server for it. I doubt it's done yet though.

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Flerbizky@reddit

The Libre Office Online project has been pulled out of storage recently - no idea when it will drop: https://youtu.be/TPbkvL1ELe4

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BWMerlin@reddit

Start with choosing an identity provider and go from there.

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BlotchyBaboon@reddit

Switch all your desktops to Linux and FreeIPA. Quit before the implementation is complete.

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hologrammetry@reddit

Nextcloud is the file sharing solution, sure. What are you replacing your directory backend with? Figure that out before you try to look at the tools you want to use.

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Rischi_@reddit (OP)

Most of our files are stored on-premise on a NAS - only data that needs collaboration is moved to MS365. We intended to keep it like this before we knew about the merger. This won't work of course any more.
The RTT from central Europe to let's say Singapore is 150+ ms and more.

So the current intention is to move all data into the cloud or keep the current process and have mirrored on-premise storage in key regions.

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hologrammetry@reddit

None of that matters if you can't log in.

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Rischi_@reddit (OP)

This should be fine, we have experience with Keycloak.

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trebuchetdoomsday@reddit

you don't need users to log into their devices via a directory service like LDAP federated to Keycloak?

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im-just-evan@reddit

Bro is using a NAS for an enterprise level storage solution. I don’t think they’re overly concerned with users properly authenticating or cybersecurity best practices.

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Peter_Lustig007@reddit

European states and public institutions are currently working on that and bringing open source projects on the way to tackle the issue.
They forked OnlyOffice and have started developing 'Euro-Office'. The project has started recently, I do not know how usable it is at this point, but check it out on github.

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lectos1977@reddit

There are things like Euro-Office popping up that meet part of the niche.

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Unlikely_Total9374@reddit

Back to pen and paper it is, fellow admin

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WiskeyUniformTango@reddit

You're using either M365 or Gsuite.

Anything else and I'll just sit back with popcorn and hope you provide updates with how bad everything ended up.

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Rischi_@reddit (OP)

Well I certainly will do.
But thanks for the feedback. A reality check is sometimes needed

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FireFitKiwi@reddit

You might want to look at the reasoning here rather than just eww it's American. Logic trumps feels 100% of the time.

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jjaAK3eG@reddit

OpenLDAP Samba Postfix ... boom

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OkAssistance7072@reddit

For that level, your only real options are M365 or Gsuite. Theres a reason they're used every day all over the world in every industry. They have their headaches and issues, but thats NOTHING compared to going with a lesser provider. Depending on your industry with standards and legal requirements, you're shooting yourself in the foot trying to branch out.

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