EU Sovereignty Score
Self-hosted / open sourceDomain Name RegistrarsHeadquarters: CZ

FRED: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

FRED is open-source registry software for running domain and ENUM registries. Registry operators run it on their own infrastructure, either from pre-compiled binaries or by compiling the source themselves. The core is written in C, with PostgreSQL for storage and Python 3 for utilities. The documentation describes version v2026.1, released in February 2026.

FRED is developed by CZ.NIC, an interest association of legal entities based in Prague, Czech Republic, which operates the .cz registry and the MojeID service. The software is published under the GNU General Public License, so a registry can inspect and modify its source code. Because FRED runs on the operator's own infrastructure, the operator decides where registry data is stored; no vendor hosting is involved. Its direct users are domain and ENUM registry operators rather than end customers.

See the 8 European alternatives ↓Assess your stack with FRED pre-selected
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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 12, 2026
Headquarters
CZ (EU)Verified by hand
Sovereignty model
Open-source, distributedVerified by hand
Data hosting
EUVerified by hand
Open-source
YesVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant
NoVendor-stated
Category
Domain Name Registrars
Type
Product
Website
fred.nic.cz ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to FRED

The European alternatives to FRED come from our knowledge base of over 8,000 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

49 European Domain Name Registrars 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 FRED

FRED is headquartered in CZ 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 FRED scores best on data residency.

FRED 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 FRED 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 FRED?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to FRED include 101domain, Active24 and Afnic. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to FRED?

Our list of EU alternatives to FRED is mostly commercial options. Browse the category on the map for open-source choices.

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

FRED is headquartered in CZ (EU) and hosts data in EU. It is also open-source, so you can self-host it. That makes FRED 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 12, 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 Domain Name Registrars

Domain Name Registrars: Companies that register and manage internet domain names. 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 FRED — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score