Migrating to Nextcloud is possible, and more and more organisations in Europe are doing it. On 3 November 2026, Nextcloud announced that schools in six German states could use its platform. In Austria, a ministry moved its 1,200 staff in a single day. In France, the Ministry of Education has 400,000 active accounts on its own Nextcloud. Hebeko supports local authorities, non-profits and SMEs in the same move.
Who is moving to Nextcloud in Europe
| Organisation | Country | People concerned | Progress |
|---|---|---|---|
| Schools in Berlin, Bremen, Hamburg, Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate | Germany | Schools and school authorities, each free to choose | Announced in November 2026, four-year agreement |
| Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state administration | Germany | About 5,000 staff, over 50,000 targeted | Under way, announced in July 2026 |
| Schleswig-Holstein state administration | Germany | About 30,000 staff | Gradually replacing SharePoint |
| Federal Ministry of Economy | Austria | Over 1,200 staff | In service |
| Nuage, French Ministry of Education | France | 400,000 active accounts in June 2026 | In service, 600,000 expected by the end of 2026 |
In Germany, schools and administrations
Berlin, Bremen, Hamburg, Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate have access to a shared platform for their schools. The German host IONOS runs it with Nextcloud, in its data centres in Germany. Each school decides whether to use it, and other states can join the agreement.
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is replacing SharePoint with Nextcloud in its administration, on the servers of its public IT provider. About 5,000 staff already share their files this way. Chat, video calls and calendars come next.
Schleswig-Holstein started with LibreOffice and email, and is now replacing SharePoint with Nextcloud. The state reports over €15 million saved in licences, against €9 million of one-off investment in 2026. The email switchover brought outages and delayed messages, which the minister responsible for digital affairs acknowledged. A pilot and a prepared switchover exist to reduce this risk.
In Austria, 1,200 staff in four months
The Austrian Federal Ministry for Economy, Energy and Tourism had to replace Skype for Business. It took four months from the first test to go-live, and all staff moved to Nextcloud in one day. The servers are on the ministry's premises.
The ministry did not leave everything at once. Internal exchanges run on Nextcloud, Outlook stays in place, and Teams is now used only for meetings with outside parties.
In France, 400,000 accounts at the Ministry of Education
The French Ministry of Education launched Nuage in 2020, based on Nextcloud. The service is intended for its 1.2 million staff and had 400,000 active accounts in June 2026, according to CIO. Its budget stays under €2 million a year.
Local authorities are moving too. On 13 October 2026, the City and Metropolis of Montpellier voted unanimously for a roadmap to leave Microsoft 365, whose licences cost them €1.8 million. The replacement tools have not yet been chosen.
Your daily tools in Nextcloud
Each department has a team folder, with permissions by group, in place of SharePoint sites. The sync client places these folders in the file manager on Windows, macOS or Linux. To work with outside parties, a link protected by a password and an expiry date is enough, as explained in our article on the end of passcode sharing in SharePoint.
Nextcloud Office opens .docx, .xlsx and .pptx files in the browser, and several people can work on them at once.
Talk brings together team conversations, video calls and screen sharing. Our comparison of Teams alternatives sets it against Visio, Tchap and Jitsi Meet.
Calendars are shared and synced with phones and Thunderbird. Deck, Forms and Tables cover what Planner, Microsoft Forms and lists do.
Hebeko supports your migration
As a Nextcloud integrator, Hebeko handles the project, from audit to maintenance.
- The audit sets aside files to archive and duplicates, then each SharePoint site or Teams team becomes a team folder, with the same permissions.
- Files are copied server to server. Allow one to two weeks for 5 TB from Microsoft 365.
- A volunteer team works on Nextcloud for four weeks.
- The latest changes are copied over a weekend, and everyone moves to Nextcloud on Monday.
The server is rented in France in your organisation's name, and you can change provider. We keep it up to date and train your users and administrators before the change.
Depending on your situation, these pages take you further:
- Migrating from Microsoft 365 to free software
- Free software for the public sector
- Free software for non-profits
- The cost of leaving Microsoft 365
- The Data Act and changing cloud provider
For a demonstration or a first conversation about your project, write to us.
Sources
- Six German states gain access to sovereign school-cloud based on Nextcloud, Nextcloud, 3 November 2026
- Bye-bye Microsoft: Nextcloud und Ionos starten Bildungsplattform für Schulen, heise, 3 November 2026
- Mecklenburg-Vorpommern setzt auf Open Source, IT-Administrator, 14 July 2026
- LibreOffice ersetzt Microsoft, Schleswig-Holstein state government, 4 December 2025
- Schleswig-Holstein's e-mail systems converted to open source, heise, October 2025
- Austrian Federal Ministry's sovereign collaboration with Nextcloud, case study, Nextcloud
- La apuesta francesa por la soberanía digital: una plataforma de código abierto para 400.000 usuarios, CIO, 26 June 2026
- Cette grande métropole française veut s'émanciper de Microsoft et des géants américains pour éviter de devenir une colonie numérique, France 3 Occitanie, 14 October 2026