EU Sovereignty Score
EU sovereignCAD & EngineeringHeadquarters: DE

CELUS: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

CELUS is an online electronics design platform that uses AI agents to turn requirements into a reference schematic and a bill of materials (BOM) with supply-chain data. Engineers describe the design intent step by step, review the proposed solution and export the result to the EDA tool they already use, such as Altium, Cadence, Siemens, Fusion or KiCad. Component manufacturers can add their reference designs and catalogue to the same workflow. CELUS is offered as a cloud service used through a web browser.

CELUS GmbH was founded in 2018 and is based in Munich, Germany, with further offices in Porto and Austin, Texas. Its privacy policy states that personal data is stored on the company's own servers and that processing follows the GDPR. Transfers outside the EEA take place under GDPR-compliant safeguards, such as standard contractual clauses, including to external AI service providers such as OpenAI. The location of the company's own servers is not stated, so a European buyer should ask for the hosting location and the list of AI sub-processors.

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Sovereignty score
59 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign
  • Jurisdiction SOV-2100
    Headquartered in the EU: European law applies
  • Data residency SOV-350
    Hosting inside and outside Europe (EU, US)
  • Cryptographic key sovereignty SOV-360
    Key management with a European vendor
  • Freedom from lock-in SOV-640
    Closed source: switching requires data migration
  • Source & runtime sovereignty SOV-4 · SOV-645
    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 12, 2026
Headquarters
DE (EU)Verified by hand
Sovereignty model
Vendor-hosted (EU)Verified by hand
Data hosting
EU, USVerified by hand
Open-source
NoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant
YesVendor-stated
Category
CAD & Engineering
Type
Product
Website
celus.io ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to CELUS

The European alternatives to CELUS 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

88 European CAD & Engineering 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 CELUS

CELUS is headquartered in DE and therefore falls under European law: the GDPR, NIS2 and the Data Act. No foreign legislation can compel access to your data.

CELUS hosts data in EU, US. 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.

CELUS 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 CELUS 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 CELUS?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to CELUS include ACCA software, ALLPLAN and AUCOTEC Engineering Base. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to CELUS?

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

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

CELUS is headquartered in DE (EU) and hosts data in EU, US. That makes CELUS an EU-sovereign choice in its own right; the EU alternatives on this page are comparable European tools.

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 12, 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 CAD & Engineering

CAD & Engineering: Computer-aided design, 3D modelling and engineering simulation software. 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 CELUS — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score