EU Sovereignty Score
Non-EU vendorEducation & LMSHeadquarters: US

Duolingo: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Duolingo is a language-learning app that teaches languages through short, game-style lessons. Individual learners use it on phones and on the web. The company also offers Duolingo for Schools, a classroom version in which teachers create classes with a join code and follow student progress. The service is delivered as a cloud product, and the consumer app is available in app stores.

Duolingo, Inc. is headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and its Class A shares are listed on Nasdaq under the symbol DUOL. As a US company, it is subject to US law, including the CLOUD Act, for data it holds that US authorities can request. The main questions for a European school are where learner data is stored and which safeguards cover transfers to the United States.

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Sovereignty score
17 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign
  • Jurisdiction SOV-210
    Headquartered in the US: CLOUD Act and FISA 702
  • Data residency SOV-30
    No hosting in Europe (US)
  • Cryptographic key sovereignty SOV-320
    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-615
    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
Headquarters
US (US)Verified by hand
EU adequacy decision
Only for companies individually certified under the EU-US Data Privacy FrameworkVerified by hand
Sovereignty model
Vendor-hosted (non-EU)Verified by hand
Data hosting
USVerified by hand
Open-source
NoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant
NoVendor-stated
Category
Education & LMS
Type
Product
Website
duolingo.com ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to Duolingo

The European alternatives to Duolingo 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

52 European Education & LMS 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 Duolingo

Duolingo is headquartered in the United States. US vendors fall under the CLOUD Act and FISA 702: US authorities can compel access to data, even when that data sits in a European data centre. That is the core of the jurisdictional exposure in our model.

Duolingo hosts data outside the EU (US). Personal data therefore leaves the EU, which requires a transfer mechanism under the GDPR and pulls the data residency score down.

Duolingo 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 Duolingo 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 Duolingo?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Duolingo include Anton, Chamilo and Classlife. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Duolingo?

Yes. Open-source EU alternatives to Duolingo include Chamilo, Forma LMS and H5P. These keep your data fully under your own control and let you self-host if you want to.

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

Duolingo is headquartered in US and hosts data in US. 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 Education & LMS

Education & LMS: Learning platforms, learning management systems and educational 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 Duolingo — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score