What the press wrote about PixelUnion, and why we are grateful
In April 2025, PixelUnion was a launch post on Reddit and a service that, until a few weeks earlier, only friends and family used. Bram’s mother and grandparents were among the first users. His grandmother was happy to see all her old photos back on her phone.
Eighteen months later, journalists in the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland have written about PixelUnion, tested it, and in some cases criticized it. We did not pay for any of that coverage. This post is a thank you, and an overview of who wrote what.
From Alkmaar to the national news
The first interview came from the Noordhollands Dagblad. Jana Flekken spoke with Bram and Jochem in early May 2025, days after the launch. Bright followed that same week, and described PixelUnion as an answer to the growing demand for European alternatives to American platforms.
In June 2025, Andre Kramer tested PixelUnion for c’t, Germany’s leading computer magazine. The test on heise online presented it as an EU-hosted alternative to iCloud and Google Photos, and noted that we contribute to the Immich project. We wrote about it at the time in PixelUnion on heise. The same month, Martin Brinkmann covered us on Chipp.in.
That summer, the Consumentenbond, the Dutch consumers’ association, put PixelUnion on its shortlist of alternatives to big tech services in the Digitaalgids. For people who only want to store photos and videos, it recommends PixelUnion. The online version of that guide, last updated in April 2026, still does.
In January 2026, the debate about Europe’s dependence on American tech reached prime time. EenVandaag published a piece on Dutch companies that reduce that dependence, and quoted Bram on people who want their data out of the US. The key figure in that piece: our number of users had tripled in the previous month. A day later, Nieuwsuur aired a report on Dutch app makers offering alternatives to American products, with PixelUnion in it.
In April 2026, De Telegraaf ran a portrait of Bram and Jochem, working from an upstairs flat in Alkmaar, with their cat. The headline carried their own caveat: things going well today offer no guarantee for the future. That is still true.
What the reviewers liked, and what they missed
The most thorough test so far came from Philipp Rüegg at Digitec Galaxus in Switzerland, in May 2026. He used PixelUnion for about a month before he wrote his review. He found switching from Google Photos easy, backups fast and reliable, and all metadata intact after the import. Search by keyword or person worked well, and so did sharing with people who do not use Immich. His conclusion: for anyone who wants a European Google Photos alternative without running their own server, PixelUnion is a comparable option at almost the same price.
He also listed what he missed. Face recognition and search are not quite at Google’s level. Spontaneous sharing takes more steps, and you cannot yet share photos automatically with specific people. The editor is basic. And there is no PixelUnion app for iOS yet. On Chipp.in, Brinkmann pointed to the lack of end-to-end encryption, and to the fact that PixelUnion was a new service without a track record.
These are fair points, and we would rather name them here than leave them out. Some come from the Immich software we build on, some are ours to solve. When we fix one, we will write about it here. As for the track record, only time answers that. We are eighteen months in.
Thank you
The newspapers and broadcasters are only part of the story. PixelUnion is listed on directories such as european-alternatives.cloud, euroalternative.eu, Only EU and the European Tech Map. People reviewed us on Trustpilot, discussed us on the Techlore forum and r/BuyFromEU, and asked us hard questions in our Reddit AMA.
To every journalist who took the time to test, interview, or ask a critical question: thank you. To the people who maintain those lists of European alternatives, often unpaid: thank you. And to every user who told a friend or a family member about PixelUnion: thank you most of all. Two people from Alkmaar cannot reach this many people on their own.
We will keep building, keep reading the criticism, and keep your photos in Europe.
Start free with PixelUnion →
Cover photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash.