The DAWO project: why a government switched
DAWO, the Dutch acronym for "open digital work environment", is a programme aimed at freeing public administrations from dependency on American proprietary suites.
According to information published by Heise in September 2026, eight municipalities joined the test phase announced in July 2026. The project is coordinated with European open-source stakeholders and runs on a GNU/Linux distribution: NixOS.
The choice of NixOS is deliberate. This system takes a declarative approach to configuration — system state is described in versioned files, making every deployment reproducible and every change traceable. For a public administration, this is as strong an auditability argument as the sovereignty argument.
The DAWO stack: Nextcloud, Element, OpenProject
Three open-source applications form the core of the Dutch sovereign digital workspace.
The three pillars of the DAWO stack
- Nextcloud: collaborative suite covering files, calendar, contacts and online document editing. Replaces OneDrive and SharePoint in day-to-day workflows.
- Element (Matrix messaging client): end-to-end encrypted, federated communication between servers. Replaces Teams, Slack and proprietary messaging apps.
- OpenProject: structured project management, roadmaps, task tracking and reports. Replaces Jira, Asana and Microsoft Planner.
The reasons behind the sovereign choice
Behind the Dutch decision, three sets of reasons stand out.
Why digital sovereignty has become a purchasing criterion
- Data control: with hosting on servers under European jurisdiction, data remains subject to GDPR and does not transit through infrastructures subject to extraterritorial laws.
- Compliance and auditability: the source code is public, configurations are versioned. An external audit can verify what is actually running, without relying on an editor's transparency.
- Total cost of ownership: Nextcloud, Element and OpenProject are free software. Hosting is the only recurring cost — no per-seat licence, no annual renewal imposed by a vendor, no pricing tier that evolves with commercial policies.
- Roadmap independence: the organisation retains control over its versions. It decides when to migrate, not the vendor.
- Resilience: a self-hosted stack does not depend on a service decision. No sunset, no acquisition triggering a forced migration.
What this means for an SME or institution
The DAWO project is a legible signal: digital sovereignty is no longer reserved for large administrations. Nextcloud, Element and OpenProject were designed to run on modest hardware — a VPS with 4 to 8 GB of RAM is sufficient for a mid-sized team.
For an SME or a regional institution, the challenge is different from that of a government: it is not about piloting a national programme, but about regaining control of the organisation's data without relying on an American service contract with changing terms.
The main barrier is not cost — it is perceived as the complexity of administration. This is precisely what ServOrbit VPS templates address: Nextcloud and Matrix (Element) can be deployed in minutes, with a pre-configured setup covering the database, Redis cache, reverse proxy and TLS. For routine maintenance, the VPS administration option takes over.
Organisations without a dedicated IT department can thus rely on the same stack as a European government, on a VPS hosted in a European datacenter.
Three classic objections, answered
Three concerns come up systematically when self-hosting is raised in a professional context.
Objections and responses
- "It is too complex to administer." VPS templates cover the initial deployment in minutes. For maintenance — updates, backups, monitoring — the VPS administration option is precisely designed for this case: you use the collaborative suite, we manage the server.
- "Security is insufficient without a dedicated team." A VPS hosted in a certified European datacenter, with automatic TLS, regular backups and a configurable firewall, offers a security posture at least equivalent to a shared service whose configuration you do not control. The attack surface is known and bounded.
- "What if the tool is no longer maintained?" Nextcloud, Element-Synapse and OpenProject are projects with active communities and companies whose main business depends on them. They are used by governments, universities and Fortune 500 companies — their maintenance is structurally assured well beyond what a SaaS contract guarantees.
Deploying the sovereign stack on a ServOrbit VPS
Choose a VPS with the right resources
For Nextcloud alone, plan for at least 2 vCPU and 4 GB of RAM. For the full stack (Nextcloud + Matrix/Element + OpenProject), plan for 4 vCPU and 8 GB. Each service can be installed on a separate VPS if the organisation prefers to isolate data by application.
Deploy Nextcloud from the VPS template
From the ServOrbit client area, select the Nextcloud template from the Marketplace. The template automatically configures MariaDB, Redis, the official
nextcloud:apacheDocker image and persistent volumes. Attach a domain to your VPS: the TLS certificate is issued and renewed automatically.Deploy Matrix (Element) from the VPS template
The Matrix-Synapse template configures Synapse (the Matrix homeserver), Element Web (the interface), PostgreSQL and the nginx vhost in a single operation. Note: the Synapse
server_nameis immutable after first startup — it is embedded in every user identifier (@alice:your-domain.com). Verify your domain name before launching the deployment.Install OpenProject on a dedicated VPS
OpenProject does not currently have a VPS template on ServOrbit, but it installs in a few commands via Docker Compose on a VPS with root access. The official documentation provides a maintained Compose file. Plan for at least 4 GB of RAM for professional use.
Configure backups
Weekly backups are included on entry-level plans; Pro and Agency plans offer daily backups. For a collaborative stack, also activate the premium backup option to cover Nextcloud data volumes and the Synapse PostgreSQL database.
Connect the three tools
Nextcloud natively integrates a Talk client (video) and can connect to a Matrix homeserver via the official application. OpenProject can send notifications to Element via webhooks. All three tools can share authentication via LDAP or SAML if the organisation has a centralised directory.
Activate the VPS administration option
For organisations without dedicated IT resources, the VPS administration option covers security updates, monitoring and maintenance tasks. This is the direct answer to the complexity objection: you retain control of your data, we handle server operations.
Governance and audits: document what is running
One of the advantages of NixOS, highlighted by the Dutch administrations, is the traceability of configurations. Even without NixOS, the approach remains applicable: versioning your docker-compose.yml files and configurations in a private Git repository (deployable via the Gitea template on ServOrbit) gives you a complete history of what runs on your infrastructure. In the event of a GDPR or NIS2 audit, you can show exactly which version of Nextcloud processed which data, and since when.
Self-hosted on VPS vs Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace
Scroll the table
| Criterion | DAWO stack (VPS) | Microsoft 365 / Google Workspace |
|---|---|---|
| Data location | European datacenter of your choice, guaranteed GDPR jurisdiction | Data centres subject to the US Cloud Act; transfers outside the EU possible |
| Recurring cost | VPS from 99 DH/month — no per-seat licence | Per-seat subscription, priced by the vendor, renewable on their terms |
| Version control | You decide when to migrate | Migration imposed by the vendor (end of support, feature removal) |
| Auditability | Public source code, versioned configurations | Black box: no visibility into internal processing |
| Vendor dependency | None: open-source stack, open standards (WebDAV, CalDAV, Matrix) | High: proprietary formats, costly migration |
| Administration | VPS administration option available | Managed by the vendor — without your control |
A government decision that normalises professional self-hosting
The DAWO initiative is external proof that the Nextcloud + Element + OpenProject stack delivers on its promises at government scale. This is not a commercial argument: it is peer validation.
For an SME, an association, a local authority or a professional practice, the equation is straightforward. These tools are available today as VPS templates, hosted in European datacenters, with no software surcharge. The barrier is technical — and it is lowered by templates and the administration option.
Digital sovereignty is not a concept reserved for states. It is an architectural decision that any organisation can make, at its own scale.
