Germany

Germany leads the June 2026 EDRIX at 7.64, ahead of Austria by 0.12 points. Its strength is breadth: top-three on three of four pillars, no weakness dragging the index down. Grassroots adoption stands out — Germany has the EU's highest Sovereign Browser share at 24.77% (Firefox + Opera combined) and the third-highest desktop Linux share at 6.09%. Public-sector hosting is similarly strong, with 89% of official sites EU-hosted. The persistent ceiling on Germany's score is the developer-ecosystem pillar — large absolute developer count, but a per-capita density (2.85) that lands mid-table behind the EU's small dev-dense economies.

Strengths

• Highest Sovereign Browser share in the EU — 24.77% Firefox + Opera, reflecting deep grassroots adoption of European-friendly browsers.
• Top-rated private-sector hosting — .de raw rating 0.61 (top three EU27), with federal government sites served by domestic providers (ITZBund, Babiel, SysEleven).
• Public-sector almost entirely EU-hosted — 89% sovereign across the surveyed federal-government, head-of-state, and Berlin domains.

Weaknesses

• Per-capita developer density is moderate — at 2.85, Germany trails small dev-dense economies (Netherlands 5.59, Estonia 5.14, Cyprus 4.72) on a per-million-inhabitants basis.
• Berlin's website holds back the public-sector pillar — www.berlin.de rates 0.67 while the federal government domains hit 1.00; that gap is the single largest drag on Germany's DR_PUB_SCT.

Outlook

Germany's lead is comfortable but not commanding. Austria has narrowed the gap from 0.50 to 0.12 in eight months on the strength of Linux adoption alone. Germany's developer-ecosystem score is structurally hard to move — it reflects long-running demographic patterns. Grassroots adoption (Linux + sovereign browsers) is the lever where Germany either consolidates or cedes the lead.

Historical context

2020 baseline

In 2020, Germany was a "leader," driving the European digital sovereignty agenda with its industrial and political weight. Its approach was broad, proactive, and deeply institutionalized, supported by a mature, government-backed ecosystem for open source software.

2024 progression

By 2024, Germany has significantly accelerated its federal open source policy. The government's "Digital Strategy for 2025" focuses on achieving digital sovereignty through the systematic use of open source. The establishment of the Centre for Digital Sovereignty (ZenDiS) in 2022 is a landmark development, steering major projects like the "Sovereign Workplace" and the federal code repository Open CoDE.

Historischer Verweis

OSOR-Datenblatt (PDF, 2024) — der länderbezogene Open-Source-Politikbericht, der in der zurückgezogenen Säule „Öffentliche Politik“ von EDRIX 1.0 verwendet wurde.