Xenaxio compared – Microsoft 365, Google Workspace and European providers

If you are looking for email, calendar and files for a small team, you can choose between big US platforms with plenty of AI and European providers with plenty of privacy – but usually little AI. Xenaxio brings both together. In this post we show how Xenaxio differs from the well-known alternatives – and when another provider is the better fit.

As of October 2026. Other providers’ features and plans change; please check the details on their websites.

What matters in the comparison

We asked ourselves six questions that count for small companies in Germany:

• Where is the data, and which law applies to the provider? A data centre in Germany is good – a provider based in the EU is better.
• Can the AI really help in the mailbox? Search, summarise, draft replies, find free slots – not just rephrase text.
• Who controls the AI? What may it do on its own, and can you see what it did?
• Can you connect your own AI chat? Claude, for example, without copying your emails into other tools.
• How easy is everyday work? Your own domain, shared mailboxes, Outlook and smartphones.
• Can you get out again? Open standards instead of lock-in.

Xenaxio at a glance

• Email on your domain, calendar, contacts and files – stored in a data centre in Germany, with encrypted backups.
• AI through the EU endpoint of Mistral AI (Paris). Your content is not used for training. Your company can now connect its own model instead (for example Ollama on your own hardware).
• The AI sees only what the person is allowed to see. It deletes nothing except the drafts it saved itself – and only after you confirm; it creates events only after you confirm, and it sends email only with your explicit permission.
• Every AI action is recorded in the audit log. Admins switch the AI on or off per person and see the usage.
• Your AI chat – Claude, for example – reaches your mailbox through the open Model Context Protocol (MCP). You can remove the connection at any time.
• For your team: your own sign-in page with your logo, shared mailboxes such as info@, delivery status per recipient, Outlook, Apple Mail and Thunderbird over IMAP and SMTP.
• Team chat like Slack – channels, threads, push notifications – with a chat server of its own for every company; through the open Matrix standard with other companies too.
• The web client is open source (AGPL-3.0), and the data is in standard formats (IMAP, JMAP, CalDAV, CardDAV).
• Online booking like Calendly: customers book free times right in your calendar, with invitation and reminder.
• Video meetings in the browser, with guests without an account through a waiting room, and calls right in Rooms – on our media server in Germany or on your servers.
• Cloud in Germany or installation on your own servers.

Microsoft 365 with Copilot

Microsoft 365 is the standard in many offices: Outlook, Word, Excel, Teams. Copilot is a paid add-on to the Microsoft 365 licence and can do a lot – in Word and Excel too.

The difference is the provider: Microsoft is a US company. Even when the data sits in a European data centre, US law applies to Microsoft, such as the CLOUD Act. For many law firms, practices and agencies, that is exactly the question their clients ask.

Choose Xenaxio over Microsoft 365 if you mainly need email, calendar and files, want the AI to come from Europe and don’t want to pay for office apps you don’t use. Microsoft 365 remains the better choice if your team works in Word, Excel and Teams every day.

Google Workspace with Gemini

Gmail, Calendar and Drive are easy to use, and Gemini is already included in the Business plans. As with Microsoft, the provider is a US company, and the AI processing happens at Google.

Choose Xenaxio over Google Workspace if data and AI should stay in Europe and you want to see exactly what the AI does in your mailbox. Google stays strong for real-time collaboration in documents and spreadsheets.

Zoho Workplace

Zoho offers a broad bundle of mail, office and many business apps at low prices and runs a data centre in the EU. Zoho Mail is, however, only available as Zoho’s cloud service, not for installation on your own servers, and the company is based in India.

Choose Xenaxio over Zoho if you want a provider from the EU, hosting in Germany or an installation in your own building.

Proton

Proton from Switzerland stands for end-to-end encryption: not even Proton can read your emails. For AI, there is the Proton Scribe writing assistant, among others, which helps you phrase your text.

That is exactly the difference: what the provider cannot read, no AI on the server can search either. Proton offers maximum protection – Xenaxio lets the AI work in the mailbox, under clear rules and with a log.

Proton is the better choice if end-to-end encryption is a must. Xenaxio fits better if the AI should really use your emails, calendar and files – for example “What did Ms Weber want, and when am I free next week?”.

German email providers: Tuta, mailbox.org, IONOS

Tuta (Hanover), mailbox.org (Berlin) and IONOS (Montabaur) are well-established providers from Germany. Tuta encrypts end-to-end and works with its own apps instead of Outlook or Thunderbird; mailbox.org offers email, calendar and office in the browser; IONOS sells an AI email assistant as an add-on.

To our knowledge, what these services lack is an AI assistant that searches mailbox, calendar, contacts and files together – and a way to connect your own AI chat safely to the mailbox.

Xenaxio fits better if German data centres matter to you and you want to use AI in your daily work.

Nextcloud

Nextcloud is open source and runs on your own servers – with files, calendar, mail and an assistant that can also use local language models. For that you need someone to look after servers, updates, security and backups.

Nextcloud is the right choice if you have your own IT and want to run everything yourself. Xenaxio fits better if you want data sovereignty without running servers – and if you do need it, Xenaxio runs on your servers too.

Online booking

Customers who book a meeting themselves instead of sending emails back and forth – many offer this by now: Microsoft with Bookings in its business plans, Google with appointment schedules in Calendar, Zoho with its own product Zoho Bookings, Nextcloud with appointments in its calendar app. Many teams also use a separate service such as Calendly.

In Xenaxio, online booking is built into the calendar: everyone sets up their own meeting types, busy times from subscribed Google and Outlook calendars count, and when a customer finds no free time, they propose times that suit them. Your customers’ details stay in Germany – with no extra service.

What makes Xenaxio different

• AI with clear limits. The assistant reads only what the person may see, deletes only drafts it saved itself (after confirmation), sends only with explicit permission and works with confirmation. Instructions someone writes into an email are not executed.
• Traceable. Every AI action – in the browser and from your AI chat – is in the audit log, exportable as CSV. The content of your emails does not end up there.
• Your AI chat in your mailbox. Claude and other AI chats that support MCP find emails, draft replies and schedule meetings. Every connection has its own key, which you can revoke at any time.
• Small things that matter every day. You see whether an email reached the recipient, and you learn after one hour if delivery is stuck – not after a day. Xenaxio checks your domain’s DNS records regularly and tells you when something is wrong.
• No lock-in. An open web client, standard protocols, and you can take your data with you at any time.

When another provider fits better

To be honest: Xenaxio is not right for every team.

• You need office apps such as Word and Excel from one provider – Xenaxio does not offer those. Video meetings are there, and webinars for up to 300 viewers on request; meeting recordings are not yet.
• End-to-end encryption of all emails is a must – then Proton or Tuta are the right choice.
• You want dedicated apps for iPhone and Android – you use Xenaxio in the browser, as an app installed from the browser or with your phone’s mail app over IMAP.

Since November 2025 there is also IONOS Nextcloud Workspace, and the federal openDesk is now sold to companies too. Both, and the others in this post, are in our overview of sovereign Microsoft 365 alternatives and on their own comparison pages.

Try it now

You will find all features on the Features page and how we protect your data under Security. Would you like Xenaxio for your team? Request access – we will set it up for you.