EU sovereignCloud Storage (Personal)Headquarters: DE

Filen: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Filen is an end-to-end encrypted cloud storage service for individuals, with web, desktop and mobile apps and a command-line client. It offers a network drive with Smart Sync, several sync modes, encrypted notes and end-to-end encrypted chats. For developers there are SDKs, and WebDAV and S3 access through a self-hosted CLI server. According to Filen, files are encrypted on the client with AES-256 and neither Filen nor any other party has access to them.

Filen is operated by Filen Cloud Dienste UG (haftungsbeschränkt) in Recklinghausen, Germany. According to its privacy policy, data is stored on servers hosted in Germany, and its analytics and feedback tools are self-hosted there too. Some payment and error-reporting processors, such as PayPal, Stripe, Sentry and Cloudflare Turnstile, process data in the United States or other third countries. The source code of its apps, such as the desktop client and the web app, is public on GitHub under the AGPL-3.0 licence.

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

Mastodon LinkedIn Bluesky X Email

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	Vendor-hosted (EU)Verified by hand
Data hosting	EUVerified by hand
Open-source	YesVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant	YesVendor-stated
Compliance documents	3 published, see belowVendor-stated
Hosting signal	MYLOC-AS - WIIT AG, DE (DE)Technically measured
Category	Cloud Storage (Personal)
Type	Product
Website	filen.io ↗

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 Filen

The European alternatives to Filen 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

22 European Cloud Storage (Personal) vendors are in the catalogue. View the whole category · Submit an alternative · View category on the map

Is Filen one of many dependencies?

Score your whole stack in about three minutes. Free, no account needed.

Assess your stack →View a sample report (opens in a new tab)

Why digital sovereignty matters with Filen

Filen 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 Filen scores best on data residency.

Filen 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 Filen 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 Filen?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Filen include CloudMe, Cozy Cloud and Cryptee. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Filen?

Yes. Open-source EU alternatives to Filen include Cozy Cloud, Cryptee and Internxt. These keep your data fully under your own control and let you self-host if you want to.

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

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

filen.io

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".

Data Processing Agreement (DPA): filen.io/privacy
Security page / trust center: filen.io/security
EU hosting documented: filen.io/terms

Provenance of the links above:Vendor-stated

Links checked on September 22, 2026.

Digital sovereignty in Cloud Storage (Personal)

Cloud Storage (Personal): Personal cloud storage — sync and share files. 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

See all →

Open in the alternatives dashboard Missing a vendor? Submit it Are you this vendor? You can also become a sponsor on the Cloud Storage (Personal) page — with no effect on your score