EU Sovereignty Score
Self-hosted / open sourceAIHeadquarters: FR

ChatMD: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

ChatMD is a free and open tool for creating a chatbot from a single Markdown file. You describe the conversation and answers in a simple syntax, publish the file online and the chatbot is reachable through a web address. Examples include FAQs, tutorials, quizzes, decision aids and role-play stories. An extended syntax supports variables and conditions; AI integrations, such as retrieval-augmented generation, are optional. ChatMD runs in the browser, with no server installation.

The project is published on La Forge, the public GitLab of the French education sector, and maintained by a project lead in France. The licence is MIT. According to the README there are no accounts and no personal data is collected. Version 8.12.1 was released on 31 August 2026, according to the changelog. You can host the code yourself. If you use the optional AI integrations, data goes to the language-model service you choose, so check its terms.

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Sovereignty score
94 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign
  • Jurisdiction SOV-2100
    Headquartered in the EU: European law applies
  • Data residency SOV-3100
    EU-only hosting
  • Cryptographic key sovereignty SOV-390
    Self-hostable: encryption keys under your own control
  • Freedom from lock-in SOV-680
    Open source: low switching costs
  • Source & runtime sovereignty SOV-4 · SOV-6100
    Source code auditable, forkable and self-hostable

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 14, 2026
Headquarters
FR (EU)Verified by hand
Sovereignty model
Open-source, distributedVerified by hand
Data hosting
EUVerified by hand
Open-source
YesVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant
YesVendor-stated
Category
AI
Type
Product
Website
chatmd.forge.apps.education.fr ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to ChatMD

The European alternatives to ChatMD come from our knowledge base of over 8,400 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

78 European AI 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 ChatMD

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

Data is hosted exclusively in the EU, so ChatMD scores best on data residency.

ChatMD is open source. You can audit the source code, self-host the software and keep the encryption keys under your own control. Switching is easier because data and software are not tied to a single party.

What this means for your organisation depends on your whole stack and context. The free assessment weighs ChatMD 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 ChatMD?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to ChatMD include Acapela Group, Aleph Alpha and Allinga TTS. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to ChatMD?

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

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

ChatMD is headquartered in FR (EU) and hosts data in EU. It is also open-source, so you can self-host it. That makes ChatMD 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 14, 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

In the changelog

Earlier changes to this page, as listed in the public changelog.

Digital sovereignty in AI

AI: Artificial intelligence — large language models, translation, generative AI. 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 ChatMD — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score