Non-EU vendorDesktop OSHeadquarters: GB

Alfred: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Alfred is a productivity app for macOS that works as a launcher and automation tool. With hotkeys and keywords you can launch apps, find files, search the web, run calculations and system commands, and expand text snippets. A paid add-on, Powerpack, unlocks further features such as workflows and themes; workflows can run scripts in languages including AppleScript, Bash and Python. Alfred is installed locally on the Mac.

Alfred is developed by Running with Crayons Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales with its registered office in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is proprietary software and not open source. Settings can be kept in sync across Macs by placing the preferences folder in a cloud service of your choice, such as Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud Drive or OneDrive; some settings, including clipboard history, stay on each Mac. The United Kingdom is not an EU member state, so Alfred is a non-EU product.

See the 8 European alternatives ↓Assess your stack with Alfred pre-selected

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Sovereignty score

32 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign

Jurisdiction SOV-250
Headquartered outside the EU (GB)
Data residency SOV-30
No hosting in Europe (GB)
Cryptographic key sovereignty SOV-340
Key management with a non-European vendor
Freedom from lock-in SOV-640
Closed source: switching requires data migration
Source & runtime sovereignty SOV-4 · SOV-630
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

Headquarters	GB (OTHER)Verified by hand
EU adequacy decision	Yes — found adequate by the European CommissionVerified by hand
Sovereignty model	Vendor-hosted (non-EU)Verified by hand
Data hosting	GBVerified by hand
Open-source	NoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant	YesVendor-stated
Hosting signal	AKAMAI-LINODE-AP - Akamai Connected Cloud, SG (US)Technically measured
Category	Desktop OS
Type	Product
Website	alfredapp.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 Alfred

The European alternatives to Alfred 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

22 European Desktop OS 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 Alfred

Alfred is headquartered in GB, outside the EU. Contracts and data therefore also fall under non-European law. The GDPR applies through contractual terms, but in a conflict with local legislation you have less certainty than with a European vendor.

Alfred hosts data outside the EU (GB). Personal data therefore leaves the EU, which requires a transfer mechanism under the GDPR and pulls the data residency score down.

Alfred 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 Alfred 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 Alfred?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Alfred include Alpine Linux, Devuan and /e/OS. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Alfred?

Yes. Open-source EU alternatives to Alfred include Alpine Linux, Devuan, /e/OS, EndeavourOS, KDE neon, Linux Mint, Mageia and Manjaro. These keep your data fully under your own control and let you self-host if you want to.

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

Alfred is headquartered in GB (OTHER) and hosts data in GB. The vendor states it is GDPR-compliant, but the data falls under non-EU jurisdiction. For full EU data residency the EU alternatives on this page usually offer more certainty.

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

Cyber Resilience Act

Public signals that relate to the EU Cyber Resilience Act. They do not count towards the score. A missing line means "not found publicly".

We found none of these signals on the vendor's own site when we checked.

For products in scope of the CRA, CE marking is required from 11 December 2027; this cannot be checked yet.

Checked on October 9, 2026. What is the Cyber Resilience Act?

Digital sovereignty in Desktop OS

Desktop OS: Desktop operating system — daily work platform. 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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