EU Sovereignty Score
Self-hosted / open sourceMessagingHeadquarters: DE

Conversations (XMPP): sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Conversations is an instant messaging app for Android based on the open XMPP (Jabber) protocol. It supports one-to-one and group chats, sharing of images and files, read markers that can be switched off, message history loaded from the server, synchronisation across devices, and end-to-end encrypted audio and video calls. For message encryption it supports OMEMO, which the project says provides forward secrecy and plausible deniability, as well as OpenPGP. It requires Android 6.0 or later. Because XMPP is a federated protocol, users choose their own server or provider.

Conversations is free software under the GPLv3, with its source code on Codeberg. It is developed by volunteers, led by Daniel Gultsch, and can be bought on Google Play, installed from F-Droid or built from source. The app does not host messages itself: they are stored on the XMPP server the user chooses, which can be run by a provider in the EU or by the organisation itself. For a European organisation this allows control over where data is hosted and, through OMEMO, over who can read message content.

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 2, 2026
Headquarters
DE (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
Hosting signal
HETZNER-AS - Hetzner Online GmbH, DE (DE)Technically measured
Category
Type
Product
Website

The hosting signal shows the network that serves the vendor's website, often a CDN, and not necessarily where the service or your data is hosted. How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to Conversations (XMPP)

The European alternatives to Conversations (XMPP) 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 Messaging 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 Conversations (XMPP)

Conversations (XMPP) 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.

Data is hosted exclusively in the EU, so Conversations (XMPP) scores best on data residency.

Conversations (XMPP) 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 Conversations (XMPP) 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 Conversations (XMPP)?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Conversations (XMPP) include Balsio, Berty and Delta Chat. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Conversations (XMPP)?

Yes. Open-source EU alternatives to Conversations (XMPP) include Berty, Delta Chat, Dino and Gajim. These keep your data fully under your own control and let you self-host if you want to.

Is Conversations (XMPP) GDPR-compliant and where is the data hosted?

Conversations (XMPP) is headquartered in DE (EU) and hosts data in EU. It is also open-source, so you can self-host it. That makes Conversations (XMPP) 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 2, 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 Messaging

Messaging: Personal messaging — chat, group conversations, media sharing. 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 Conversations (XMPP) — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score