EU Sovereignty Score
Non-EU vendorProject ManagementHeadquarters: JP

Backlog: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Backlog is a project management and issue tracking platform from Nulab, a company founded in 2004 with its headquarters in Fukuoka, Japan. It combines project and task management, issue tracking and team collaboration, with built-in development tools such as Git and SVN. Integrations are offered with Slack, Microsoft Teams and Google Drive, and an AI assistant supports tasks such as task creation and progress reports. For larger organisations the vendor lists SAML authentication and user provisioning.

The vendor's website does not state where Backlog customer data is hosted, and it describes no GDPR data processing agreement. Nulab is headquartered outside the EU and the EEA, so a European organisation should check the data location and transfer terms with the vendor before using Backlog for sensitive projects. The vendor describes no self-hosted option.

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Sovereignty score
32 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign
  • Jurisdiction SOV-250
    Headquartered outside the EU (JP)
  • Data residency SOV-30
    No hosting in Europe (OTHER)
  • 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 11, 2026
Headquarters
JP (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
OTHERVerified by hand
Open-source
NoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant
NoVendor-stated
Category
Project Management
Type
Product
Website
nulab.com ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to Backlog

The European alternatives to Backlog 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

34 European Project Management 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 Backlog

Backlog is headquartered in JP, 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.

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

Backlog 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 Backlog 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 Backlog?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Backlog include Arinto, awork and Bitrix24. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Backlog?

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

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

Backlog is headquartered in JP (OTHER) and hosts data in OTHER. Its GDPR compliance is limited or unclear. 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 11, 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 Project Management

Project Management: Project planning, issue tracking, knowledge management, team collaboration. 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 Backlog — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score