EU Sovereignty Score
EU sovereignHRHeadquarters: DE

absence.io: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

absence.io is a software-as-a-service application for leave and absence management, time tracking and digital personnel files, aimed at small and mid-sized companies. The vendor describes it as a lean HR tool that combines time tracking, absence and holiday management and a digital personnel file in one system, with an optional module for expense and travel cost claims. The product runs as a web application in the browser and as native apps for iOS and Android.

absence.io GmbH is headquartered in Munich, Germany, and the vendor's site names no parent company outside the EU. The vendor states that customer data is stored exclusively on servers in Germany and that the service meets the requirements of the GDPR. For a European organisation the main questions are therefore the vendor's contractual and technical arrangements rather than foreign ownership or hosting outside the EU. The software is not open source, and the site does not describe a self-hosted option.

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Sovereignty score
71 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign
  • Jurisdiction SOV-2100
    Headquartered in the EU: European law applies
  • Data residency SOV-3100
    EU-only hosting
  • Cryptographic key sovereignty SOV-360
    Key management with a European vendor
  • Freedom from lock-in SOV-640
    Closed source: switching requires data migration
  • Source & runtime sovereignty SOV-4 · SOV-655
    Closed source, runtime with the vendor

SOV codes: the matching objective in the European Commission's Cloud Sovereignty Framework. Official source

How the score is calculated

Facts and evidence

Last checked October 12, 2026
Headquarters
DE (EU)Verified by hand
Sovereignty model
Vendor-hosted (EU)Verified by hand
Data hosting
EUVerified by hand
Open-source
NoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant
YesVendor-stated
Category
HR
Type
Product
Website
absence.io ↗

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Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to absence.io

The European alternatives to absence.io come from our knowledge base of over 7,800 vendors. We only list vendors headquartered in the EU or the EEA; fully European-owned vendors rank before vendors with a foreign owner. For each alternative you see the country, the open-source status and a short description.

Score per alternative: 0 = high exposure, 100 = sovereign

65 European HR vendors are in the catalogue. View the whole category · Submit an alternative · View category on the map

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Why digital sovereignty matters with absence.io

absence.io is headquartered in DE and therefore falls under European law: the GDPR, NIS2 and the Data Act. No foreign legislation can compel access to your data.

Data is hosted exclusively in the EU, so absence.io scores best on data residency.

absence.io is closed source and hosted by the vendor. The encryption keys and the runtime sit with the vendor and switching requires data migration. Ask about bring-your-own-key, export options and open standards.

What this means for your organisation depends on your whole stack and context. The free assessment weighs absence.io together with your other vendors and gives a total score, a heatmap and the main risk drivers.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best European alternative to absence.io?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to absence.io include AFAS, AlexisHR and ATOSS Workforce Intelligence. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to absence.io?

Our list of EU alternatives to absence.io is mostly commercial options. Browse the category on the map for open-source choices.

Is absence.io GDPR-compliant and where is the data hosted?

absence.io is headquartered in DE (EU) and hosts data in EU. That makes absence.io an EU-sovereign choice in its own right; the EU alternatives on this page are comparable European tools.

Details and sources

Verified by handHeadquarters, owner, hosting locations and licence have been checked by us against public sources. Free of charge and for every vendor, not a paid label. Nothing in this knowledge base is taken over automatically. Last checked on October 12, 2026.

Sources

Public sources used in the latest check of this record.

Compliance evidence

The links below point to the vendor's own public documents. We only record what we found: a missing link means "not found publicly", not "not compliant".

No public compliance evidence has been recorded for this vendor yet. Do you know its DPA or subprocessor list? Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Digital sovereignty in HR

HR: Human resources — personnel management, payroll, recruiting. In this category the choice of vendor determines who has legal access to your data, where that data lives and how easily you can switch later.

Also in this category

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8 European alternatives to absence.io — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score