EU Sovereignty Score
Non-EU vendorCollaborationHeadquarters: JP

Chatwork: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Chatwork is a group chat service for business teams, used to reduce internal email with real-time messages, project-specific video chats and files organised by project or topic. The vendor presents it as group chat for global teams and provides downloadable apps. It is a cloud-based product. The company brought the product to Europe in 2013.

The company is based in Japan, outside the EU and the EEA. The vendor states that it stores business data with 256-bit encryption and holds ISO 27001 certification. The vendor does not state where data is stored or whether an EU data-centre option exists. European organisations should therefore ask for hosting locations, sub-processors and a data processing agreement before storing business communication with the service.

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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
HeadquartersJP (OTHER)Verified by hand
EU adequacy decisionYes — found adequate by the European CommissionVerified by hand
Sovereignty modelVendor-hosted (non-EU)Verified by hand
Data hostingOTHERVerified by hand
Open-sourceNoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliantNoVendor-stated
CategoryCollaboration
TypeProduct
Websitechatwork.com ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to Chatwork

The European alternatives to Chatwork come from our knowledge base of over 6,200 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

37 European Collaboration 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 Chatwork

Chatwork 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.

Chatwork 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.

Chatwork 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 Chatwork 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 Chatwork?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Chatwork include BigBlueButton (self-host), CryptPad and Nextcloud Deck. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Chatwork?

Yes. Open-source EU alternatives to Chatwork include BigBlueButton (self-host), CryptPad, Nextcloud Deck, FluffyChat and HedgeDoc. These keep your data fully under your own control and let you self-host if you want to.

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

Chatwork 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 Collaboration

Collaboration: Team communication, file sharing, video conferencing, document editing. 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 Chatwork — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score