EU Sovereignty Score
Self-hosted / open sourceDNS Privacy & FilteringHeadquarters: CY

AdGuard Home: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

AdGuard Home is an open-source DNS server that blocks ads and trackers for every device on a network, without software on each device. Tracking domains are routed to a black hole. The server can use DNS over HTTPS, DNS over TLS and DNSCrypt for upstream servers and can itself run as a DoH or DoT server. It also includes a built-in DHCP server, per-device settings, custom filtering rules, phishing and malware blocking, parental controls and a REST API. The software is written in Go, licensed under the GPL-3.0 and runs without root privileges.

AdGuard Home is developed by AdGuard, based in Cyprus (EU). Because you install it yourself, with a script on Linux, macOS or FreeBSD, with Docker or from the Snap Store, DNS queries and logs stay on your own infrastructure and no vendor cloud is needed. The upstream resolvers you choose determine where forwarded queries end up. For a European organisation it is a verifiable way to run DNS filtering under its own control, with the source code public on GitHub.

See the 8 European alternatives ↓Assess your stack with AdGuard Home pre-selected
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Sovereignty score
94 / 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-390
    Self-hostable: encryption keys under your own control
  • Freedom from lock-in SOV-680
    Open source: low switching costs
  • Source & runtime sovereignty SOV-4 · SOV-6100
    Source code auditable, forkable and self-hostable

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 1, 2026
Headquarters
CY (EU)Verified by hand
Sovereignty model
Open-source, distributedVerified by hand
Data hosting
EUVerified by hand
Open-source
YesVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant
YesVendor-stated
Hosting signal
CLOUDFLARENET - Cloudflare, Inc., US (US)Technically measured
Category
DNS Privacy & Filtering
Type
Product
Website
adguard.com ↗

The hosting signal shows the network that serves the vendor's website, often a CDN, and not necessarily where the service or your data is hosted. How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to AdGuard Home

The European alternatives to AdGuard Home come from our knowledge base of over 6,800 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

24 European DNS Privacy & Filtering 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 AdGuard Home

AdGuard Home is headquartered in CY 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 AdGuard Home scores best on data residency.

AdGuard Home is open source. You can audit the source code, self-host the software and keep the encryption keys under your own control. Switching is easier because data and software are not tied to a single party.

What this means for your organisation depends on your whole stack and context. The free assessment weighs AdGuard Home 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 AdGuard Home?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to AdGuard Home include AdGuard DNS, Blocky and Blokada. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to AdGuard Home?

Yes. Open-source EU alternatives to AdGuard Home include Blocky. These keep your data fully under your own control and let you self-host if you want to.

Is AdGuard Home GDPR-compliant and where is the data hosted?

AdGuard Home is headquartered in CY (EU) and hosts data in EU. It is also open-source, so you can self-host it. That makes AdGuard Home 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 1, 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 DNS Privacy & Filtering

DNS Privacy & Filtering: Privacy-friendly DNS services, ad blocking and DNS filtering. 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.

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8 European alternatives to AdGuard Home — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score