Files, chat, sign-on and a team wiki on machines you control, operated by Pilae, with your directory as the source of truth.
- Replacing
- Microsoft 365, by Microsoft Corporation
- With
- Nextcloud, Collabora Online, Mattermost, Element, Jitsi Meet, Keycloak, Outline
- Runs on
- Your servers, or Pilae Cloud in Switzerland and the EU
- Migration
- Included in onboarding, at a fixed price
Why teams leave Microsoft 365
The whole organisation in one tenant
Mail, files, chat and identity usually sit in one Microsoft tenant under one contract. Moving the most sensitive workloads onto your own machines puts that data in the country you choose, under your control.
One workload at a time
Nothing forces a big-bang switch. Files can move first, chat next, and mail can stay in Exchange Online for as long as it suits you.
A stack you can leave
Every app in it is open source or source-available, stores its data in ordinary formats and comes with a written exit plan. If you leave Pilae, the stack keeps running.
Microsoft 365 vs Nextcloud operated by Pilae
| What is being compared | Microsoft 365 | Pilae |
|---|---|---|
| Where data is stored | In Microsoft datacentres, with an EU Data Boundary and in-country data residency for eligible customers. | On your premises or on dedicated machines in any of 12 Pilae Cloud regions, six of them in Switzerland and the EU, with backups at a second site in the same jurisdiction. |
| Files and documents | OneDrive and SharePoint, with Word, Excel and PowerPoint on the desktop and in the browser, and real-time co-editing. | Nextcloud for files and sync. Desktop Office keeps working; in-browser co-editing with Collabora, licensed separately. |
| Chat and calls | Teams: chat, channels, meetings, webinars, phone system and deep Office integration. | Mattermost or Element for channels, threads and direct messages, with desktop and mobile apps. Jitsi Meet for video meetings in the browser. No phone system. |
| Mail and calendar | Exchange Online and Outlook. | Calendars and contacts in Nextcloud over CalDAV and CardDAV. Pilae does not operate mail; Exchange Online or your mail provider stays in place. |
| Identity | Microsoft Entra ID, with conditional access and SSO to thousands of applications. | Keycloak federating your Active Directory or LDAP, or working alongside Entra ID, with SAML and OpenID Connect to every app. |
| Wiki and knowledge base | SharePoint sites, Loop and OneNote. | Outline, with collections per team and permissions from your directory. |
| Operation | Fully run by Microsoft as a SaaS product. | Daily encrypted backups with monthly restore tests, planned upgrades by the Pilae Agent, 60-second probes, 99.9% monthly availability commitment with service credits. |
| Pricing | Per user, per month, by plan, with add-ons for security and compliance features. | On request, for the operated platform. Collabora and any Mattermost licence your requirements need are shown separately in the proposal. |
A self-hosted workplace, one workload at a time
Microsoft 365 is hard to beat on breadth: Office on every device, Teams, Exchange and Entra ID under one contract. That breadth is also why leaving it looks daunting, and why most organisations do not leave it all at once.
Pilae replaces the workloads where control matters most. Nextcloud holds files and calendars, Collabora Online edits Office documents in the browser, Mattermost or Element carries chat, Jitsi Meet runs video meetings, Keycloak signs people in to all of it, and Outline holds the team wiki. We deploy them on your premises or on dedicated machines in any of 12 Pilae Cloud regions, six of them in Switzerland and the EU, reachable through the private network. Together they form our sovereign workplace.
What stays with Microsoft, and what moves
We are plain about the gaps. Pilae does not operate mail, and neither Jitsi Meet nor Mattermost replicates large webinars or the phone system. For files, documents, chat, meetings, identity and documentation, the move is well understood, and it is part of our fixed-price migration, with sign-on set up through identity.
After each switch, the Pilae Agent plans every upgrade, waits for your approval and applies it in your window. Data residency states where each piece runs, backups included. Pricing is on request. Tell us which workloads you want to move and we come back with a plan.
Moving from Microsoft 365 to Nextcloud
Map the tenant
Which workloads are used, by whom and how much: OneDrive, SharePoint sites, Teams, mailboxes, app registrations in Entra ID. The inventory decides the order of the move.
Put identity in place first
Keycloak is connected to your Active Directory, LDAP or Entra ID, so every app that follows signs in with the accounts people already have.
Move files, then chat, then the wiki
OneDrive and SharePoint content copies into Nextcloud, Teams channels move to Mattermost, and site pages that are really documentation move to Outline. Each step has its own cutover date.
Reduce licences as workloads leave
Users who no longer need a workload move to a smaller Microsoft plan or none at the next renewal. Mail can stay in Exchange Online throughout.
The apps that replace Microsoft 365
Nextcloud
Files, calendars and shared documents for the whole organisation, on storage you can point at in a room you control.
Replaces Google Drive, Dropbox, SharePoint
Collabora Online
In-browser editing of Word, Excel and PowerPoint files beside Nextcloud, on your own hardware or in the Pilae region you choose, so no document passes through someone else's cloud.
Replaces Microsoft 365 for the web, Google Docs
Mattermost
Team chat, channels and calls on a server in the country you choose, with the message history stored in your own database.
Replaces Slack, Microsoft Teams
Element
Encrypted team messaging on the Matrix protocol: the Element apps on a Synapse homeserver you own, run in Switzerland, the EU or your own datacentre.
Replaces Microsoft Teams chat, Slack, WhatsApp
Jitsi Meet
Video meetings people join from a link in the browser, run in Switzerland, the EU or your own datacentre so the servers that route the calls stay in the jurisdiction you picked.
Replaces Zoom, Microsoft Teams meetings, Google Meet
Keycloak
Single sign-on for everything else you run, with your own directory as the source of truth and no per-seat bill between you and it.
Replaces Okta, Microsoft Entra ID
Outline
A fast, well-structured team wiki and knowledge base, on a server you choose, signed in through your own identity provider.
Replaces Notion, Confluence