EU Sovereignty Score
Non-EU vendorPersonal Backup & SyncHeadquarters: US

Carbonite: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Carbonite is a cloud service for backing up PCs and Macs. After installation, the software automatically makes encrypted backups of files, which you can restore through a web browser or the Android and iOS app. The personal plans support Windows and macOS. According to its documentation, Carbonite encrypts files with AES-256 and sends them over TLS; on Windows you can manage your own encryption key, which is not possible on Mac. Carbonite states that its employees cannot see the contents of a backup.

Carbonite originated as a US company and has been part of OpenText, a Canadian company, since 2019. According to its support documentation, data from the personal Safe plans is stored in Carbonite's own data centres in the United States. A choice of European location is mentioned only for server backup, not for personal plans. For a European user this means storage under US jurisdiction, so the private key option on Windows can add a layer of protection.

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Sovereignty score
17 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign
  • Jurisdiction SOV-210
    Headquartered in the US: CLOUD Act and FISA 702
  • Data residency SOV-30
    No hosting in Europe (US)
  • 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
Ultimate parent company
CAVerified 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
USVerified by hand
Open-source
NoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant
NoVendor-stated
Category
Personal Backup & Sync
Type
Product
Website
carbonite.com ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to Carbonite

The European alternatives to Carbonite come from our knowledge base of over 8,000 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

20 European Personal Backup & Sync 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 Carbonite

Carbonite 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. The ultimate owner is based in CA. Foreign control undermines part of the certainty a European headquarters offers.

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

Carbonite 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 Carbonite 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 Carbonite?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Carbonite include Acronis True Image, Ashampoo Backup and Backup4all. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Carbonite?

Yes. Open-source EU alternatives to Carbonite include BorgBackup, Cryptomator and FreeFileSync. These keep your data fully under your own control and let you self-host if you want to.

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

Carbonite is headquartered in US and hosts data in US. 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 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

Timeline

Dated changes in who controls this vendor or where it is based, newest first. Every line links to the public sources.

  1. · AcquisitionVendor-stated

    Acquired by OpenText (Canada); the acquisition closed on 24 December 2019 and Carbonite became a wholly owned subsidiary.

All ownership changes

Digital sovereignty in Personal Backup & Sync

Personal Backup & Sync: Personal backup tools, file synchronisation and data recovery. 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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8 European alternatives to Carbonite — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score