Hi there,
I started my crypto journey a couple of months ago and signed up with Kraken to buy my first BTC. Now I'm getting into a few altcoins but Kraken is almost always down!!
Kraken's infrastructure performs horribly under load. The CEO admitted as much just last month. He said there is a major update coming this month that will mitigate all the downtime, but I'm not holding my breath.
What other exchanges are there that are
1) trustworthy
2) Propose a EUR/BTC pairing
3) Offer SEPA deposits and withdrawals
4) Actually stay online most of the time
5) Good customer service
If you insist on BTC/EUR, the most reputable and trustworthy option is GDAX. It is not incredibly liquid for high volume traders because they segregate the USD and EUR liquidity pools -- only European and UK traders can use the EUR markets. The BTC/EUR market had ~9000 BTC volume yesterday. SEPA is available. One of the upsides of GDAX is that right now, they still have 0% fee on limit orders.
I would say that all exchanges are facing performance issues with the current volume and volatility, though. GDAX is no exception, but they are far superior to Kraken.
The variety of coins available on the exchange is a bonus, not a prerequisite.
Unfortunately, Kraken definitely has GDAX beat here. Only BTC, ETH and LTC are currently available. However, it's pretty obvious that they are in the process of adding new coin markets.