Top 10 European Open Source Projects 2026

Amsterdam-based Blender Foundation maintains the world's leading open source 3D creation suite, downloaded 20 million times in 2025 alone. Used in Hollywood productions, indie game studios, and architecture firms globally, Blender's 2025 Development Fund surpassed €12M annually from studios and individual supporters.

Stuttgart-based Nextcloud is the most-deployed self-hosted collaboration platform globally, powering file sync, video calls, and groupware for 400,000+ organisations. In 2025 the German government mandated Nextcloud for all federal agencies as part of its digital sovereignty strategy, adding 500,000 public-sector seats.

Berlin-based KDE e.V. governs the Plasma desktop and 200+ applications used by millions on Linux. Its Akademy conference in 2025 drew 800 contributors from 60 countries, and the KDE Eco initiative — measuring software energy consumption — was adopted by the EU's OSPO Alliance as a standard metric.

Brussels-headquartered Eclipse Foundation hosts 400+ open source projects including Jakarta EE, Eclipse IDE, and the Theia cloud IDE. With €16M annual budget and 350 member organisations, Eclipse's 2025 Adoptium project became the primary OpenJDK distribution for EU government systems.

Though incorporated in the US, GNOME's core maintainers are predominantly European, with Red Hat EMEA and Canonical's London office as top contributors. GNOME 47 in 2025 debuted HDR display support and a redesigned Files app, driving a 40% YoY increase in Linux desktop installations in Europe.

Nuremberg-based SUSE open sources its enterprise Linux platform via the openSUSE community, used in 25,000+ enterprise deployments. In 2025 SUSE's Rancher became the default Kubernetes management platform for EU public clouds under the GAIA-X initiative, managing 500,000+ container workloads.

Berlin-based TDF maintains LibreOffice — the world's most-used open source office suite with 200 million users. Its 2025 LibreOffice 25.2 release added native AI writing assistance via local LLMs, and the suite was mandated as the standard office tool for all EU Parliament staff.

Originally developed at Strasbourg University, Jitsi Meet is now the world's leading open source video conferencing platform, handling 20 million daily minutes of calls. Operated by US company 8x8, European government adoption surged in 2025 as public bodies sought GDPR-compliant Zoom alternatives.

Berlin-based Mastodon gGmbH maintains the leading open source federated social network, with 12 million registered users across 10,000+ independent servers. After Twitter/X's 2022 disruption triggered a mass migration, Mastodon's 2025 EU Public Interest Status allowed it to receive direct European Commission grants.

Amsterdam-based Blender Foundation maintains the world's leading open source 3D creation suite, downloaded 20 million times in 2025 alone. Used in Hollywood productions, indie game studios, and architecture firms globally, Blender's 2025 Development Fund surpassed €12M annually from studios and individual supporters.

Stuttgart-based Nextcloud is the most-deployed self-hosted collaboration platform globally, powering file sync, video calls, and groupware for 400,000+ organisations. In 2025 the German government mandated Nextcloud for all federal agencies as part of its digital sovereignty strategy, adding 500,000 public-sector seats.

Berlin-based KDE e.V. governs the Plasma desktop and 200+ applications used by millions on Linux. Its Akademy conference in 2025 drew 800 contributors from 60 countries, and the KDE Eco initiative — measuring software energy consumption — was adopted by the EU's OSPO Alliance as a standard metric.

Brussels-headquartered Eclipse Foundation hosts 400+ open source projects including Jakarta EE, Eclipse IDE, and the Theia cloud IDE. With €16M annual budget and 350 member organisations, Eclipse's 2025 Adoptium project became the primary OpenJDK distribution for EU government systems.

Though incorporated in the US, GNOME's core maintainers are predominantly European, with Red Hat EMEA and Canonical's London office as top contributors. GNOME 47 in 2025 debuted HDR display support and a redesigned Files app, driving a 40% YoY increase in Linux desktop installations in Europe.

Nuremberg-based SUSE open sources its enterprise Linux platform via the openSUSE community, used in 25,000+ enterprise deployments. In 2025 SUSE's Rancher became the default Kubernetes management platform for EU public clouds under the GAIA-X initiative, managing 500,000+ container workloads.

Berlin-based TDF maintains LibreOffice — the world's most-used open source office suite with 200 million users. Its 2025 LibreOffice 25.2 release added native AI writing assistance via local LLMs, and the suite was mandated as the standard office tool for all EU Parliament staff.

Originally developed at Strasbourg University, Jitsi Meet is now the world's leading open source video conferencing platform, handling 20 million daily minutes of calls. Operated by US company 8x8, European government adoption surged in 2025 as public bodies sought GDPR-compliant Zoom alternatives.

Berlin-based Mastodon gGmbH maintains the leading open source federated social network, with 12 million registered users across 10,000+ independent servers. After Twitter/X's 2022 disruption triggered a mass migration, Mastodon's 2025 EU Public Interest Status allowed it to receive direct European Commission grants.