> 📥 The full guide is available as a PDF (5 pages, Danish). Download it at the top of the page — the task overview, specific tools, caveats and sources in one place.
"Are there actually any European alternatives to ChatGPT?"
I have answered that question for months. The answer is now yes, and I built it into a free guide that went online last month. The question immediately changed. It is now: "Fine, but how do I switch without losing productivity?"
That is what this guide is about. I covered why you might switch in the previous guide. Here is how to do it in practice, task by task, without the wheels coming off.
1. Switch the right thing first
The most expensive mistake I see is people removing their most powerful tool first. They test a European alternative on the one genuinely difficult task, discover that it cannot quite do the same thing, and conclude that "European AI is not ready".
Reverse the order. Start where the difference is smallest: everyday text tasks — emails, minutes, drafts, translation and document summaries. In practice, the gap is small there. Move those tasks first, build the habit, and leave the heaviest reasoning and agent tasks with the US frontier models for a little longer.
| Task | European choice | Caveat |
|---|---|---|
| Text | Vibe (formerly Le Chat, Mistral, France) | US frontier models still lead on the heaviest reasoning and agent tasks |
| Images | FLUX (Black Forest Labs, Freiburg), via Vibe or self-hosted | The category is thin in Europe; FLUX is largely the answer on its own |
| Code | Codestral / Mistral Code, Devstral, JetBrains AI | Codestral weights use Mistral's non-commercial licence; commercial use is available via API |
| Self-hosted | Open weights in your own or a European cloud | You take over operations: security, updates, evaluation and uptime |
Switching task by task. Status as of September 2026.
2. Text: Make Vibe your everyday workhorse
Vibe (formerly Le Chat, from France's Mistral) is the most mature European alternative to ChatGPT and Copilot. Mistral renamed Le Chat to Vibe during the summer and turned it into more than a chatbot: a work and coding assistant.
In practice, move the tasks that occupy most of a normal working day: meeting minutes, a first email draft, a translation or an analysis of a long PDF. For those jobs, the difference from Copilot is small enough that nobody will notice.
> Principle. US frontier models still lead on the heaviest reasoning chains and most demanding agent tasks. Say that clearly in both directions. The switch becomes credible and informed rather than ideological.
3. Images: FLUX — and be honest that the category is thin
FLUX from Black Forest Labs in Freiburg is Europe's image heavyweight. You can use it in two ways. The easy option is Vibe, which generates images with FLUX under the hood. The sovereign option is to download the schnell or klein edition, which is open under Apache 2.0, and run it yourself.
The caveat matters: Europe's image category is thin. Knowing that in advance lets you make a fair comparison. If you expect an entire European Midjourney ecosystem, you will be disappointed.
4. Code: You already have three good paths
1. Codestral and Mistral Code cover completion and chat directly in VS Code and JetBrains. The model weights use Mistral's non-commercial licence, while commercial use is available via API.
2. Devstral is open under Apache 2.0 and can run on a powerful laptop if you want an agentic coding model entirely to yourself. I run it on my own machine.
3. JetBrains AI (Czechia) is the obvious switch if your team already lives in JetBrains IDEs, because habits do not have to change.
5. If you run the model yourself, understand what you are buying
The strongest sovereignty move is to run open model weights in your own environment or a European cloud. Your data then sits unambiguously under European jurisdiction.
But be precise about what you have bought. You have taken over an operation; you have not bought a product. Security, updates, evaluation and uptime are now your responsibility. That is an operational decision and must be staffed accordingly. For organisations with strict compliance requirements, the checklist is long: you act as both service provider and consumer.
If you want to test this in Danish, the material exists: DanskGPT from Copenhagen's syv.ai with open weights, alongside open research models such as Munin from Danish Foundation Models and SnakModel from ITU.
6. How to use the guide to choose
The point of building the EU AI Picker was to turn the decision into three questions instead of ten browser tabs:
1. What do you need to do — text, images or code?
2. How important is it that data stays in the EU — nice to have, important, or must it be self-hostable?
3. EU only, or are adequacy countries such as Switzerland and the UK acceptable?
Open the EU AI Picker and find the right tool for your task →7. What to do this week
You do not need a twenty-page migration plan. Start with what does not hurt.
1. Choose one text task you perform every day and run it through Vibe for a week.
2. Notice where the difference really is — and where you merely feared it would be.
3. Write down the tasks a European tool could take over tomorrow without anybody noticing.
That list is shorter than most people expect, and that is where your switch begins.
Sources
Status and licences were checked against these sources as of September 2026:
- help.mistral.ai/en/articles/682992-le-chat-is-now-vibe (Le Chat renamed Vibe, June 2026)
- mistral.ai (Vibe, Codestral, Mistral Code, Devstral; images via FLUX)
- bfl.ai/licensing (FLUX schnell/klein under Apache 2.0, Black Forest Labs, Freiburg)
- jetbrains.com/ai (JetBrains AI, Czechia)
- syv.ai and huggingface.co/syvai (DanskGPT, open weights)
- foundationmodels.dk (Munin) and huggingface.co/NLPnorth (SnakModel, ITU)
- aitrainer.dk/eu-picker (EU AI Picker)
This is general practical guidance, not legal or compliance advice. Do not use it as the sole basis for a decision. Always involve your own compliance or legal team and DPO, and confirm dates and status against primary sources. Status as of September 2026.