Non-EU vendorVPNHeadquarters: CA

CactusVPN: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

CactusVPN is a commercial VPN service for individuals and small-scale users who want to encrypt their connection and bypass regional restrictions. Besides the VPN, the company offers SmartDNS, which routes traffic for selected websites through a different region. Apps exist for Windows, macOS, Android, iOS and Fire TV, plus extensions for Chrome and Firefox, and one subscription allows an unlimited number of devices. According to a ProPrivacy review, supported protocols include OpenVPN, IKEv2 and WireGuard. CactusVPN says it keeps no logs; a badge on its site refers to a no-logs audit by Securitum.

The company states that it started as a small business in Moldova in 2011 and has turned down offers to buy it. Its website names neither an operating legal entity nor a current headquarters, so check this before using it in your organisation. Servers are located in more than twenty countries, both inside and outside Europe. The service is hosted by the provider.

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Sovereignty score

42 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign

Jurisdiction SOV-250
Headquartered outside the EU (CA)
Data residency SOV-350
Hosting inside and outside Europe (EU, US, 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 9, 2026

Headquarters	CA (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	EU, US, OTHERVerified by hand
Open-source	NoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant	YesVendor-stated
Category	VPN
Type	Product
Website	cactusvpn.com ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to CactusVPN

The European alternatives to CactusVPN 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

21 European VPN 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 CactusVPN

CactusVPN is headquartered in CA, 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.

CactusVPN hosts data in EU, US, OTHER. 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.

CactusVPN 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 CactusVPN 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 CactusVPN?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to CactusVPN include AdGuard VPN, AirVPN and Avast SecureLine VPN. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to CactusVPN?

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

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

CactusVPN is headquartered in CA (OTHER) and hosts data in EU, US, OTHER. 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 9, 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 VPN

VPN: Virtual private network — privacy protection, encrypted connection. 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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