Note-taking apps, docs tools and wikis hold personal notes, team documents and company knowledge in one searchable place. European teams look for vendors based in Europe so that internal knowledge is stored under European law. The strongest European options are Slite (France) for remote teams that want a simple company wiki, Anytype (Switzerland) for privacy-minded people who want Notion-style pages offline and XWiki (France) for organisations replacing Confluence with open source.
Best first. Headcount and founding year come from LeadWave's database; prices, hosting and G2 ratings from each company's own pages and G2, checked in November 2026.
| Alternative | Headquarters | Founded | Employees | G2 rating | Free plan | Paid plans from | Your data | Open source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 Slite | Paris, France | 2017 | 38 | 4.6 (266 reviews) | No | $10/user/month | In Europe | No |
2 Anytype | Switzerland | 2018 | 185 | — | Yes | $4/account/month | Self-hosted | No |
3 XWiki | Paris, France | 2004 | 44 | 4.4 (13 reviews) | Yes | Free | Self-hosted | Yes |
4 Nuclino | Grünwald, Germany | 2015 | 3 | 4.7 (24 reviews) | Yes | Free | — | No |
5 Craft | Budapest, Hungary | 2019 | 40 | 4.6 (22 reviews) | Yes | $5/user/month | — | No |
6 Capacities | Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany | 2022 | 6 | — | Yes | $9.99/account/month | — | No |
7 Joplin | Saint-Brieuc, France | — | 19 | — | Yes | €2.99/account/month | Self-hosted | Yes |
8 Standard Notes | Geneva, Switzerland | — | — | 4.0 (13 reviews) | Yes | $90/account/year | — | Yes |
9 CryptPad | Paris, France | — | — | — | Yes | €5/account/month | Self-hosted | Yes |
10 Elium | Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium | 2008 | 27 | 4.0 (12 reviews) | No | €15/user/month | Self-hosted | No |
11 Zenkit | Karlsruhe, Germany | 2016 | 11–50 | 4.7 (97 reviews) | No | €8/user/month | In Europe | No |
12 Saga | London, United Kingdom | 2021 | 21 | — | Yes | $6/user/month | — | No |
13 BookStack | United Kingdom | 2015 | — | — | Yes | £450/account/year | Self-hosted | Yes |
14 Bear | Italy | 2015 | 1 | — | Yes | Free | — | No |
15 Agenda | Aalsmeer, Netherlands | — | — | — | Yes | Free | — | No |
16 Supernotes | London, United Kingdom | 2018 | 4 | — | Yes | Free | — | No |
Each page ranks the European options for that tool's users and says how each one compares.
Team knowledge base with AI search
Docs and knowledge base for company teams, with AI answers drawn from the team's pages and connected tools. Runs on Google Cloud with production data in Belgium. Remote-first; contracts are with a Delaware entity.
Local-first, encrypted workspace for notes and data
Notes, pages and databases stored on your devices first and synced with end-to-end encryption. Sync nodes can be self-hosted. Made by Any, a Swiss association; the code is source-available.
Open-source enterprise wiki
Open-source wiki for company knowledge, with structured pages, fine-grained rights and extensions. Run it on your own servers or as XWiki Cloud; XWiki SAS sells support and hosting.
Lightweight wiki and docs for small teams
Team wiki with linked pages, boards and canvases, made by a small company near Munich. A free plan covers up to 50 items.
Notes and documents with a polished page layout
Writing app for notes and shareable documents on Apple devices, Windows, Android and the web, with team spaces. Built by a Budapest team; the UK company Craft Docs Ltd is the legal parent.
Personal knowledge base built on object types
Note app that sorts notes into object types such as people, books and meetings, linked together. Aimed at individuals; the Basic plan is free.
Open-source notes with optional end-to-end encryption
Open-source Markdown note app for desktop and mobile with optional end-to-end encryption. Syncs through paid Joplin Cloud or your own Nextcloud, WebDAV or Joplin Server.
End-to-end encrypted notes, now part of Proton
Open-source note app with end-to-end encryption and a free plan with unlimited notes. Proton, based in Geneva, took it over in 2024 and runs it as a separate product.
End-to-end encrypted documents in the browser
Open-source office tools (rich text, sheets, kanban, forms) with end-to-end encryption, used in the browser. Free on public instances; paid storage on cryptpad.fr or a dedicated instance.
Company knowledge base with AI answers
Knowledge base for organisations that keeps procedures and expertise current and answers questions with AI. Runs as SaaS, in a private cloud or on-premises.
Project boards plus Hypernotes wiki, hosted in Germany
Suite of work tools from Axonic GmbH, including project databases and Hypernotes for wikis and notes. Content is stored only in Germany.
Workspace for notes, docs and tasks with AI
Workspace that combines pages, tasks and an AI assistant, with links to Google Drive and other apps. Free for up to three members per workspace.
Free self-hosted wiki organised as books
Open-source wiki that groups pages into books and chapters, run on your own server. Created by Dan Brown; paid support comes from UK company HTTP Functions Ltd.
Markdown notes for iPhone, iPad and Mac
Markdown note app for Apple devices from Shiny Frog, a company founded in Parma. Free to use; the Pro plan adds sync through the user's iCloud and note encryption.
Date-based notes for Mac, iPhone and iPad
Note app for Apple devices that ties notes to dates and calendar events, made by Momenta B.V. Free with no time limit; Premium unlocks extra features. Syncs through iCloud or Dropbox.
Card-based notes you can nest and link
Note app built on short cards that can be linked, nested and shared with others. The core features are free; a paid plan removes limits.
LeadWave's database has 52 companies headquartered in Europe that our Knowledge Management list matches, most of them in France (11), the United Kingdom (10), Germany (9), Belgium (3) and Finland (3). Here are the 15 largest; all 52, with their CEOs' contacts, are in the Europe SaaS companies list.
| Company | Country | Employees | Funding | CEO |
|---|---|---|---|---|
1 Sanasanalabs.com | Sweden | 565 | — | Joel Hellermark |
2 Staffbasestaffbase.com | Germany | 201–500 | — | Martin Böhringer |
3 LumAppslumapps.com | France | 264 | $102M | Sébastien Ricard |
4 eXo Platformexoplatform.com | France | 143 | $7.2M | Veronika Mestrallet |
5 Happeohappeo.com | Finland | 109 | $20M | Perttu Ojansuu |
6 Oakoak.com | United Kingdom | 80 | $13M | Will Murray |
7 Zapnitozapnito.com | United Kingdom | 56 | $6.1M | Charles Thiede |
| 8XWikixwiki.com | France | 44 | — | Ludovic Dubost |
| 9Sliteslite.com | France | 38 | $26.4M | Christophe Pasquier |
10 Stonlystonly.com | France | 38 | $3.5M | Alexis Fogel |
11 Qatalogqatalog.com | United Kingdom | 34 | $18.5M | Tariq Rauf |
12 contexxt.aicontexxt.ai | Germany | 11–50 | — | Torsten Katthofer |
13 LARIlari.digital | Switzerland | 11–50 | — | Martin Wolf |
14 moinAImoin.ai | Germany | 11–50 | — | Patrick Zimmermann |
15 Sociabblesociabble.com | France | 11–50 | — | Jean-Louis Benard |
Showing the 15 largest of 52. Headcount is the latest known figure.
A company counts as European if it's headquartered in Europe: the EU, the EEA, Switzerland, the UK, or elsewhere in geographic Europe, never Russia or Belarus. Headquarters means where it's run from, not a registered office. Companies founded in Europe but headquartered elsewhere today are listed separately, and a non-European owner is always named.
Each company was checked against its own legal notice, pricing page and data-processing terms, and its G2 page. The order weighs how fully each one replaces the US leaders, its track record and its ratings. No company paid to be listed or ranked.
Slite (France) for remote teams that want a simple company wiki, Anytype (Switzerland) for privacy-minded people who want Notion-style pages offline and XWiki (France) for organisations replacing Confluence with open source. Each is headquartered in Europe; the table compares their hosting, prices and G2 ratings.
Anytype, XWiki, Nuclino, Craft, Capacities, Joplin, Standard Notes, CryptPad, Saga, BookStack, Bear, Agenda and Supernotes have a free plan with no time limit.
Slite and Zenkit store customer data in Europe by default. Being European doesn't make a tool GDPR compliant on its own: check its data processing agreement too.
Yes: XWiki, Joplin, Standard Notes, CryptPad and BookStack, which you can also host on your own servers.
LeadWave's database lists 52 European Knowledge Management software companies, most of them in France (11) and United Kingdom (10). All of them, with their CEOs' contacts, are in our list of 4,000+ European SaaS companies.
Yes. XWiki and BookStack are open-source wikis you can host yourself, CryptPad offers encrypted documents in the browser, and Joplin and Standard Notes are open-source note apps. Anytype publishes its code under a source-available licence, which is not open source.
Standard Notes, Anytype and CryptPad encrypt by default, and Joplin offers it as an option. Bear can encrypt single notes and syncs through the user's own iCloud.
