European social media alternatives exist. Why don’t they have more users?

There are already European alternatives to American social media platforms Instagram, Snapchat, X, and LinkedIn. But why aren’t they taking off?

​The announcement that Europeans are developing W, their own alternative to Elon Musk’s X, has drawn great interest across the continent, where calls for greater digital independence from the US have been especially loud since Donald Trump took office.

Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, all owned by the US company Meta, dominated the European market in 2025. Since then, China’s TikTok, which had 200 million users in Europe last year, has been acquired by American investors.

​Social media platforms built by European companies already exist, but some have failed to take off – at least for now – or stay afloat.

Monnett instead of Instagram

Monnett, a Luxembourg-based image and video sharing app, is often considered a European version of Instagram. Launched in 2025, it’s marketed as a non-addictive platform free of artificial intelligence, bots, and surveillance.

The platform’s interface closely resembles Instagram’s, allowing users to share videos and images and send encrypted messages to other users.

The app is currently free, but offers a paid subscription tier that starts at €2.99 ($3.53). This business model is expected to ensure that the app remains ad-free.

The good about Monnett: The platform gives users control over their feed, allowing them to choose how often they see posts from friends, followed accounts, and recommendations.

Users can also curate their feeds by choosing which categories of content they want to see. For instance, a user can opt out of News and Sports and focus only on Learn and Life.

The not-so-good about Monnett: The platform is still in its infancy, with just over 50,000 users, meaning those who consider ditching Instagram may not be able to connect with friends or follow favorite content creators.

Xing instead of LinkedIn

Xing, a professional social networking platform, is dubbed a European version of LinkedIn. It was launched back in 2003 and has around 22.5 million users in German-speaking countries as of November 2025.

The platform allows users to create profiles that list their professional experience, skills, and languages. Unlike LinkedIn’s feed, Xing’s “Insights” section suggests articles and news feeds rather than posts from individual members.

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The good about Xing: It is strictly professional and focuses heavily on job listings and applications rather than a Facebook-style feed, which prioritizes engagement and user posts. Such a design may be preferred by users tired of AI-generated thought leadership on LinkedIn.

The not-so-good about Xing: The platform focuses on jobs and users in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, so it doesn’t offer many options for non-German speakers or those seeking employment in other countries.

Mastodon instead of X

After Musk acquired Twitter, users left the platform en masse, and Mastodon became one of the most popular alternatives. Founded in 2016 in Germany, it is an open-source decentralized microblogging platform.

Users create their accounts on a server – known as an instance – of their choice. These servers are operated by different people or organizations, have their own moderation rules, and can be general-purpose or dedicated to a specific community.

The good about Mastodon: Unlike X or Facebook, Mastodon supports interoperability, enabling users to move their profile to a different server – or even a different decentralized platform – without losing any followers.

Mastodon gives users more control over the feed, allowing them to enable or disable the Discovery feature and adjust the visibility of their profile and posts. The platform is ad-free.

The not-so-good about Mastodon: The platform may be more difficult to navigate for new users compared to centralized social media networks.

The platform has approximately 11.7 million registered users, well below X’s 650 million. A study on academics who left Twitter for Mastodon found that many didn’t stay active on the platform due to the lack of established history and communications.

BeReal instead of Snapchat

French social networking app BeReal took the world by storm in 2022, when it won Apple's App Store Awards.

The app prompts users once a day at random times to capture and share an unfiltered photo within a two-minute window using both front and back cameras. BeReal is marketed as promoting authenticity because two minutes is supposed to be too short to stage images.

However, BeReal's success quickly faded, and the app had 40 million monthly active users in 2025, compared to Snapchat's ~477 million daily active users.

The good about BeReal: The app’s design is based on privacy, as it focuses on sharing images between friends, but allows users to see posts from friends or their friends. This could reduce the risk of being exposed to harmful content, but doesn’t eliminate it.

The feed limitations and the two-minute posting window could also potentially prevent mindless scrolling.

The not-so-good about BeReal: The app’s biggest promise of authenticity failed, as data suggests users started staging images by delaying posts after the two-minute window became optional.

Moreover, users report fear of missing out if their activity isn’t as exciting as their friends’ or pressure to post when they don’t feel like it. The decreasing number of users incentivizes others to leave the app.

What could the perfect European platform look like?

Mathilde Sanders, a postdoctoral researcher at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, says that mass migration to a new platform is very challenging because it requires breaking the network effect.

However, she says it isn’t impossible and could be sparked by growing digital consumer awareness. It is also a political choice.

The Trump administration, which is increasingly hostile towards Europe, backs the American tech companies’ complaints about what they say is “discrimination” and unfair targeting, as they face intense scrutiny from European regulators.

Grok-generated nonconsensual explicit images flooding X and Trump’s recent threats to invade Greenland sparked a new wave of efforts to shift away from the US tech in Europe.

Sanders says Europeans are already moving towards creating digital public infrastructure, including social networks, and government funding may be required to make it work.

However, it cannot be ruled out that government funding could lead to efforts to limit free speech on these social networks. Therefore, the platforms should be owned by civil organizations or by citizens directly to ensure greater democracy.

Sanders says a different business model based on payments coming directly from platform users, such as subscriptions and donations, may also help mitigate the risks of government meddling.

As of now, she says users don’t have an appetite for paying for social media because they can access free, user-friendly, and high-tech software.

A household may have Netflix, but may not have money for many different types of subscriptions. You have to be realistic about that and not make it for elite groups only.

Dr. Mathilde Sanders

For instance, a 2020 study suggests that only one in five respondents would be willing to pay for social media if it guaranteed the privacy of their data and addressed other concerns about these platforms.

While ChatGPT subscriptions serve as an example that some users are willing to pay, it is important to ensure that a paid social media platform doesn’t exclude groups with fewer means.

Sanders tells Cybernews, “A household may have Netflix, but may not have money for many different types of subscriptions. You have to be realistic about that and not make it for elite groups only.”

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