The best replacement for unicode is ascii.

The best alternatives to unicode are rated as following:
★★★★★  ascii
★★★★  ansi
★★★★  utf-8
★★  non unicode
★★  non-unicode
★★  multibyte
★  mbcs
★  multibyte character set
★  double byte
★  utf 8
★  western european
★  utf-16
★  ascii code
★  multibyte c++
★  gsm alphabet
  western european encoding
  latin
  utf8
  ansi text
  ansi pst
  ascii java
  unicode
  latin1
  ansi driver
  ascii file
  send as is
  ebcdic
  utf

Your alternative for unicode is not listed? Suggest!
Speaking about unicode, one probably shouldn't forget about ascii.

Other search terms related to unicode and their ratings are:
★★★★★ ascii
You have in mind a companion for unicode and it is not yet here? Propose!



Google Trends

Scale is based on the average worldwide traffic of unicode in all years. Click on graph for more.
unicode
ascii
ansi