EU-hosted, non-EU parentVPNHeadquarters: RO

CyberGhost: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

CyberGhost is a consumer VPN service that encrypts internet traffic and hides the user's IP address. It supports OpenVPN, IKEv2 and WireGuard and offers an automatic kill switch, DNS and IP leak protection and automatic Wi-Fi protection. Apps exist for Windows, macOS, Android, iOS and Linux, for TV platforms, as Chrome and Firefox extensions, and router setup is supported. CyberGhost says it keeps no connection logs and had this policy reviewed by Deloitte under ISAE 3000; CyberGhost itself commissioned the audit.

The operating company is CyberGhost S.R.L. in Bucharest, Romania. Its privacy policy names Kape Technologies PLC as ultimate holding company; Kape is based in London and also owns ExpressVPN. That UK parent is a jurisdiction signal for European organisations. Servers are located in more than one hundred countries, both inside and outside the EU. The service is proprietary and hosted by the provider.

See the 8 European alternatives ↓Assess your stack with CyberGhost pre-selected

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Sovereignty score

71 / 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-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-655
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 2, 2026

Headquarters	RO (EU)Verified by hand
Ultimate parent company	GBVerified by hand
Sovereignty model	Vendor-hosted (EU)Verified by hand
Data hosting	EUVerified by hand
Open-source	NoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant	YesVendor-stated
Compliance documents	1 published, see belowVendor-stated
Hosting signal	CLOUDFLARENET - Cloudflare, Inc., US (US)Technically measured
Category	VPN
Type	Product
Website	cyberghostvpn.com ↗

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 CyberGhost

The European alternatives to CyberGhost 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 VPN 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 CyberGhost

CyberGhost is headquartered in RO and therefore falls under European law: the GDPR, NIS2 and the Data Act. No foreign legislation can compel access to your data. The ultimate owner is based in GB. Foreign control undermines part of the certainty a European headquarters offers.

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

CyberGhost 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 CyberGhost 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 CyberGhost?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to CyberGhost include AdGuard VPN, AirVPN and Avast SecureLine VPN. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to CyberGhost?

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

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

CyberGhost is headquartered in RO (EU) and hosts data in EU. That makes CyberGhost 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".

Security page / trust center: cyberghostvpn.com/privacypolicy

Provenance of the links above:Vendor-stated

Links checked on September 21, 2026.

Cyber Resilience Act

Public signals that relate to the EU Cyber Resilience Act. They do not count towards the score. A missing line means "not found publicly".

Report a vulnerability: cyberghostvpn.com/privacyhub/cyberghost-bug-bounty/
security.txt: cyberghostvpn.com/.well-known/security.txt

For products in scope of the CRA, CE marking is required from 11 December 2027; this cannot be checked yet.

Checked on October 9, 2026. What is the Cyber Resilience Act?

Digital sovereignty in VPN

VPN: Virtual private network — privacy protection, encrypted connection. 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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