Non-EU vendorBPM & WorkflowHeadquarters: US

AWS Step Functions: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

AWS Step Functions is a serverless orchestration service for modelling business logic as visual workflows. According to the vendor, the workflows connect more than 220 AWS services, provide built-in error handling, state management and parallel processing, and scale from a few to millions of executions. Typical uses include sequencing ETL jobs, coordinating AWS Lambda microservices, IT automation with manual approval steps and AI workflows with human oversight. The service is delivered only as a managed cloud service inside AWS.

Step Functions is provided by Amazon Web Services, Inc., a US company, and therefore falls under US jurisdiction, including the CLOUD Act. The service is available in several European AWS regions, including Frankfurt, Ireland, Paris, Milan, Spain and Stockholm, and customers choose the region where their data is stored. AWS offers a GDPR data processing addendum. Workflows tied to AWS services are not easy to move; a European organisation that wants to limit dependency can consider open-source workflow orchestration engines.

See the 8 European alternatives ↓Assess your stack with AWS Step Functions pre-selected

Mastodon LinkedIn Bluesky X Email

Sovereignty score

27 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign

Jurisdiction SOV-210
Headquartered in the US: CLOUD Act and FISA 702
Data residency SOV-350
Hosting inside and outside Europe (US, EU)
Cryptographic key sovereignty SOV-320
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-615
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 10, 2026

Headquarters	US (US)Verified by hand
EU adequacy decision	Only for companies individually certified under the EU-US Data Privacy FrameworkVerified by hand
Sovereignty model	Vendor-hosted (non-EU)Verified by hand
Data hosting	US, EUVerified by hand
Open-source	NoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant	YesVendor-stated
Category	BPM & Workflow
Type	Product
Website	aws.amazon.com ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to AWS Step Functions

The European alternatives to AWS Step Functions 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 BPM & Workflow vendors are in the catalogue. View the whole category · Submit an alternative · View category on the map

Is AWS Step Functions one of many dependencies?

Score your whole stack in about three minutes. Free, no account needed.

Assess your stack →View a sample report (opens in a new tab)

Why digital sovereignty matters with AWS Step Functions

AWS Step Functions is headquartered in the United States. US vendors fall under the CLOUD Act and FISA 702: US authorities can compel access to data, even when that data sits in a European data centre. That is the core of the jurisdictional exposure in our model.

AWS Step Functions hosts data in US, EU. Exactly what stays within the EU — and what does not — is defined by the vendor's data processing agreement and sub-processor list, not by a setting you control yourself; check those documents for the precise scope, including backups, logs and support access.

AWS Step Functions 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 AWS Step Functions 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 AWS Step Functions?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to AWS Step Functions include Albato, ARIS and Automatisch. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to AWS Step Functions?

Yes. Open-source EU alternatives to AWS Step Functions include Automatisch, Ofelia (Bonita) and Flowable. These keep your data fully under your own control and let you self-host if you want to.

Is AWS Step Functions GDPR-compliant and where is the data hosted?

AWS Step Functions is headquartered in US and hosts data in US, EU. 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 10, 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 BPM & Workflow

BPM & Workflow: Business process management, workflow automation and process modelling. 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

See all →

Open in the alternatives dashboard Missing a vendor? Submit it Are you this vendor? You can also become a sponsor on the BPM & Workflow page — with no effect on your score