What Murena actually does
Murena is a French company (Murena SAS, founded by Gaël Duval, creator of /e/OS) that sells two connected things: /e/OS, a de-Googled Android-based mobile operating system, on its own line of smartphones and tablets, and Murena Workspace, a Nextcloud-based cloud suite bundling email, calendar, contacts, drive storage and office tools. The pitch is replacing the entire Google-dependent phone experience — not just adding a VPN on top of stock Android, but removing Google's services, app store and default data collection from the device itself.
The core product
/e/OS phones ship with a de-Googled app store and a compatibility layer (based on microG) that lets many standard Android apps still run without direct Google Play Services dependencies. Murena Workspace, usable independently of the phones via web and mobile clients, gives every account 1GB of storage free, with paid tiers scaling from 20GB up through 2TB, each bundling the same integrated mail/calendar/drive/office toolset rather than selling storage alone. The office suite included at every tier covers document, spreadsheet and presentation editing built on open-source foundations, so a paid Workspace subscription functions as a genuine day-to-day productivity replacement rather than storage with a few extra apps tacked on.
What's new or notable
Murena continues expanding its own-brand hardware lineup (phones and tablets) alongside the Workspace subscriptions, meaning it's one of the few EU vendors combining a privacy-respecting OS, hardware, and cloud backend under one company rather than requiring users to combine a custom ROM with a third-party cloud provider themselves. For people who don't want to buy new hardware at all, /e/OS itself can also be installed on a range of already-supported existing phones, which lowers the barrier for someone who wants the de-Googled experience without replacing a device they already own.
Every Workspace paid tier also comes with the option of Hide My Email-style aliasing (starting with one alias on the free plan), letting users generate disposable forwarding addresses to keep their real inbox out of the hands of services they don't fully trust — a feature more commonly associated with Apple's ecosystem than with an independent European cloud provider.
Who should use Murena
Great fit if…
- You want a de-Googled phone, not just a privacy app — Murena sells the hardware and OS together, pre-configured.
- You want mail, calendar, drive and office in one place — Workspace bundles these rather than selling storage alone.
- EU jurisdiction and open-source foundations matter to you — French company, Nextcloud-based backend, GDPR by default.
Skip it if…
- You rely on apps that need full Google Play Services — some will behave inconsistently on /e/OS's compatibility layer.
- You need enterprise-grade support — Murena is a small team compared to the ecosystems it's replacing.
Pricing in detail
Murena Workspace can be used independently of buying an /e/OS phone. It offers a free tier and both monthly and annual billing on every paid tier, with annual billing discounted relative to paying monthly.
| Plan | Price | What's included |
|---|---|---|
| Free | €0 | 1GB storage, mail, calendar, drive, office tools, 1 Hide My Email alias |
| 20GB | 1,99€/month or 19,90€/year | Full Workspace suite at 20GB |
| 64GB | 3,99€/month or 39,90€/year | Marked "best value" tier |
| 256GB | 7,99€/month or 79,90€/year | Premium tier |
| 1TB | 12,99€/month or 129,90€/year | Premium tier |
| 2TB | 24,99€/month or 249,90€/year | Top premium tier |
Where it falls short
- App compatibility is not guaranteed — apps depending heavily on Google Play Services can misbehave on the microG-based layer.
- Limited support scale — as a small independent company, documentation and support responsiveness lag behind Google or Apple.
- No dedicated VPN product — Murena's privacy pitch is removing Google from the phone and cloud stack, not network-level traffic anonymization; anyone wanting an actual VPN needs a separate product.
Privacy & data
Murena SAS is based in France and operates under GDPR. Workspace runs on a Nextcloud-based, open-source backend, and /e/OS itself is built to strip default Google data collection from the phone experience rather than layering privacy features on top of it. Being built on open-source foundations (both the OS layer and the Nextcloud-based Workspace backend) means the underlying code is publicly inspectable rather than proprietary, which is a meaningfully different trust model than the closed ecosystems Murena is explicitly positioned against.
How we checked this
Pricing verified on murena.com/cloud-subscriptions/ on 2026-09-05, and the free-tier storage allocation was confirmed separately on murena.com/workspace/.
What you get, what you give up
What you get
- Sells actual de-Googled hardware (/e/OS smartphones) as well as the cloud suite, not just software
- Nextcloud-based Workspace with a real 1GB free tier and transparent per-GB pricing
What you give up
- /e/OS's app compatibility layer can behave inconsistently with apps that lean heavily on Google Play Services
- Small team relative to the scale of what it's replacing (Google's entire mobile+cloud stack), so support depth is limited