Czechia
Prague is one of Europe's quiet tech capitals. Czechia builds Škoda (under VW now), Avast (Prague-born, NortonLifeLock-owned), and JetBrains — the IDE most European developers actually use. Plus the brewing tradition that gave the world Pilsner, and Bohemian glass that still defines premium tableware.
Below: Czech brands worth choosing over their US or Chinese alternatives.
Leader Fox
Known for: Affordable e-bikes, including city, trekking, and mountain models, designed and assembled in-house.
Assembly Location: Assembled in České Budějovice, Czech Republic.
Motors & Batteries: Utilizes various systems, including Bafang and Panasonic, depending on the model.
Availability: Sold through dealers and the company's own e-shop.
https://www.leaderfox.cz
Skoda Elroq
Manufactured in: Czechia
Compact crossover SUV, successor to the Škoda Karoq.
Battery (likely 58–77 kWh): ~500–580 km WLTP
Although a bit larger, it's positioned as a small family EV with long range.
Barum
Known for: Czech brand founded in 1932 in Otrokovice, with heritage tracing back through the Bata, Rubena, and Matador industrial names. Positioned as an honest budget tyre for Central European drivers, offering Continental-standard manufacturing at a lower price point. Produces around 17 million tyres per year, making the Otrokovice plant one of the largest tyre factories in Europe.
Festka
Known for: Czech bespoke frame-maker that competes at the very top of the custom-cycle market — every Festka is hand-laid in Prague to the rider's geometry and aesthetic preferences. Genuine European answer to American boutique brands like Moots and Argonaut.
Customisation: Every frame is custom-geometry, custom-paint, hand-laid in Prague
https://www.festka.com
Pilsner Urquell
Known for: The original lager. Every pale, golden, bottom-fermented beer in the world traces its lineage to this brewery. Urquell means "original source."
Budweiser Budvar
Known for: The original Budweiser. A century-long trademark battle with Anheuser-Busch. Czech national brewing sovereignty.
Bernard
Known for: The independent Czech lager that didn't sell out. Brewed without pasteurisation. Cult status among Czech beer drinkers who think Pilsner Urquell has gone too commercial.
Bageterie Boulevard
Known for: Freshly prepared baguette sandwiches, salads, soups, and seasonal offerings inspired by various European cuisines. The chain emphasizes quick service without compromising on quality, catering to busy urban customers seeking healthier fast-food options.
Available in: Over 60 locations across the Czech Republic and Slovakia
https://www.bb.cz
Bombay Express
Known for: Serving authentic North Indian cuisine in a fast-casual setting, including dishes like Chicken Tikka Masala, Chana Masala, freshly baked naan, wraps, and lassi drinks. The menu caters to both meat lovers and vegetarians, with clearly marked vegan options.
Available in: 13 locations across three countries: the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Austria
https://bombayexpress.cz
Kofola
Known for: Czechoslovak cola made from KOFO syrup — 14 herbs and fruits, less sweet than Coke, served on tap in pubs like beer. Invented as a use for surplus caffeine extracted from coffee beans by a state research institute. The communist-era cola that outlived communism.
Photopea
Ownership: Privately held
Pricing: Free with ads, $5/month
Known for: Web-based raster editor; Photoshop format compatible; works on Linux via browser. We just love Photopea and it works on any PC in the browser. It is so close to the Photoshop look, that you will not have any difficulties switching.
European Coffee Trip
Known for: Curated guide to specialty coffee shops across Europe, covering 5,000+ cafes with rich profiles and offline maps.
Available in: 39 European countries via mobile app
https://www.europeancoffeetrip.com
JetBrains
Ownership: Privately held by the founding team. Prague-headquartered (with engineering in Munich, Amsterdam) since 2000.
Alternative to: Microsoft VS Code, Eclipse, Sublime Text
Pricing: All-products pack ~€289/year (drops to €174 year 2, €116 year 3+); per-IDE plans from €99/year; educational and open-source free
Known for: The most important European developer-tools company most people outside the industry have never heard of. IDEs (IntelliJ, PyCharm, WebStorm, GoLand, Rider) used by most professional Java, Kotlin, Python and Rust developers. Created the Kotlin language. The clearest example of a European software company that won despite the American distribution advantage.
https://www.jetbrains.com
Productboard
Ownership: Privately held
Pricing: Essentials from $19/maker/month. Pro $59/maker/month. Enterprise custom pricing.
Known for: Prague-headquartered (San Francisco office too). Founded 2014 by Hubert Palan and Daniel Hejl. Product management platform — feature prioritisation, customer feedback aggregation, roadmapping. Customers include Microsoft, Zoom, UiPath, Avast. The European answer to Productboard's largely American competition (Aha!, Pendo, Productplan). Czech-founded, US-co-headquartered, but engineering is in Prague. The serious choice for product teams that prefer structured prioritisation over ticket-shuffling.
https://www.productboard.com
Apify
Ownership: Privately held
Pricing: Free tier with $5 platform credits. Paid plans from $49/month. Pay-per-use Actor pricing.
Known for: Prague-based, founded 2015 by Jan Čurn and Jan Kaifer. Web scraping and browser-automation platform — the Apify Store hosts ~3,000 pre-built 'Actors' (scraping bots) for sites like Google Maps, Amazon, Instagram, TikTok. Open-source Crawlee library underneath. Used by ~600,000 developers. European alternative to Bright Data (Israeli) and ScrapingBee. Strong open-source story (Crawlee is genuinely useful even without the platform). The Actor marketplace model means most common scraping jobs are already solved.
https://apify.com
GoodData
Ownership: Privately held
Pricing: Cloud growth tier from $20/workspace/month. Enterprise custom.
Known for: Prague-headquartered (San Francisco office). Founded 2007 by Roman Stanek. Embedded analytics platform — for SaaS companies that need to ship dashboards and BI inside their own products to customers. Headless BI architecture. Underrated Czech analytics company. Most companies hit GoodData when they need to embed dashboards in their own product and don't want to build BI from scratch. Quietly profitable and growing.
https://www.gooddata.com
Avast
Ownership: Acquired by NortonLifeLock (now Gen Digital, US-listed) in 2022 in a $8B+ deal
Pricing: Avast Free $0. Avast One ~€50/year. Premium Security tiers above.
Known for: Prague-founded 1988 by Pavel Baudiš and Eduard Kučera. Antivirus and consumer cybersecurity — Avast Free, AVG (acquired 2016), CCleaner. Headquarters still in Prague but ownership and strategy are now American. Czech-engineered, US-owned. Use Avast knowing the corporate parent is American — that's a real caveat for anyone choosing on sovereignty grounds. The product itself is still developed by the Prague team. For a fully European alternative, ESET (Slovak, family-controlled, unacquired) is the cleaner choice.
https://www.avast.com
A Gift for putin
"A Gift for Putin" is a Czech volunteer initiative dedicated to supporting Ukraine's defense against Russian aggression through crowdfunding campaigns. In March 2025, the initiative raised approximately €2.8 million from over 20,400 donors to purchase a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter for Ukraine's defense.
Good quality T-shirts with iconic designs (understandably their e-shop is somewhat limited).
https://www.weaponstoukraine.com
BeTon (Becherovka & Tonic)
What's in it: 50ml Becherovka (Czech herbal liqueur — cinnamon, clove, anise, 20 other things) topped with tonic water and a slice of lemon.
Where it's from: Karlovy Vary, Czechia. The drink is everywhere in Prague bars. The name BeTon translates to 'concrete' in Czech. The Czechs find this funny.
When to drink it: Early evening at a Prague bar with a U-shaped wooden counter and an unimpressed bartender.
The case: Most people have never heard of it and the ones who have don't shut up about it. Possibly the most underrated European cocktail.
People in Need (Člověk v tísni)
Focus: Humanitarian aid, education, human rights, development
Reach: 30+ countries; major Ukraine operations since 2014 (after Crimea) and dramatically scaled since 2022
Funding: Czech government + EU + private donors; SOS Ukraine campaign raised over 2 billion CZK since 2022
Known for: Czech humanitarian organisation with the deepest Ukraine track record in Central Europe — operating inside Ukraine continuously since 2014, including in areas other NGOs have evacuated. Plus the One World International Human Rights Film Festival (Prague, since 1999) — Europe's most important human-rights documentary platform.
https://www.peopleinneed.net
Alza
Known for: Electronics, appliances, and general merchandise
Employees: ~1,500
Availibility: Central Europe (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Austria, Germany)
https://alza.cz
