EU Sovereignty Score
EU sovereignHRHeadquarters: NL

AFAS: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

AFAS is a Dutch software company that develops business software, with ERP at its core. The suite includes modules for CRM, finance, HRM, order management, payroll, projects and workflow management. HR and payroll are a major part of the offering. The software is intended for organisations of different sizes and sectors. According to an independent description, AFAS ERP is available as a cloud subscription, as an on-premise installation or as a hybrid deployment.

AFAS is headquartered in Leusden, in the Netherlands, and emerged from a management buy-out from Getronics in 1996. According to AFAS, customer data is stored in Europe and remains under the customer's control, which the company describes as data sovereignty. For a European organisation this means HR and payroll data can stay with a European vendor and on European storage, while software and hosting depend on a single supplier.

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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 1, 2026
HeadquartersNL (EU)Verified by hand
Sovereignty modelVendor-hosted (EU)Verified by hand
Data hostingEUVerified by hand
Open-sourceNoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliantYesVendor-stated
Compliance documents1 published, see belowVendor-stated
Hosting signalLEASEWEB-NL-AMS-01 - LeaseWeb Netherlands B.V., NL (NL)Technically measured
CategoryHR
TypeProduct
Websiteafas.nl ↗

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 AFAS

The European alternatives to AFAS come from our knowledge base of over 6,200 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

58 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 AFAS

AFAS is headquartered in NL 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 AFAS scores best on data residency.

AFAS 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 AFAS 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 AFAS?

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

Are there open-source alternatives to AFAS?

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

Is AFAS GDPR-compliant and where is the data hosted?

AFAS is headquartered in NL (EU) and hosts data in EU. That makes AFAS 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".

Data Processing Agreement (DPA)
afas.nl/privacy

Provenance of the links above:Vendor-stated

Links checked on September 21, 2026.

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 AFAS — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score