Non-EU vendorTranslation & LocalisationHeadquarters: JP

Gengo: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Gengo is an online translation service where customers order human translation through a web platform or an API. It covers website and app localisation and content such as ecommerce, legal and marketing material, with add-ons including post-editing of machine translation, video transcription, subtitling and proofreading. Integrations exist for tools such as WordPress, Zendesk and Magento. The service is delivered as hosted software.

Gengo was a Tokyo-based company when Lionbridge Technologies acquired it in January 2019, and it is now part of Lionbridge, a US group. For a European organisation the service therefore sits under a US parent company, which is relevant for CLOUD Act exposure. Gengo states that its services will move fully to Lionbridge technology from January 2027. The platform is not open source, and Gengo does not publish where customer data is hosted, so hosting location and data processing terms should be clarified with the vendor before confidential content is submitted.

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Sovereignty score

42 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign

Jurisdiction SOV-250
Headquartered outside the EU (JP)
Data residency SOV-350
Hosting inside and outside Europe (EU, OTHER)
Cryptographic key sovereignty SOV-340
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-630
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 9, 2026

Headquarters	JP (OTHER)Verified by hand
Ultimate parent company	USVerified by hand
EU adequacy decision	Yes — found adequate by the European CommissionVerified by hand
Sovereignty model	Vendor-hosted (non-EU)Verified by hand
Data hosting	EU, OTHERVerified by hand
Open-source	NoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant	YesVendor-stated
Category	Translation & Localisation
Type	Product
Website	gengo.com ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to Gengo

The European alternatives to Gengo 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

39 European Translation & Localisation 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 Gengo

Gengo is headquartered in JP, outside the EU. Contracts and data therefore also fall under non-European law. The GDPR applies through contractual terms, but in a conflict with local legislation you have less certainty than with a European vendor. The ultimate owner is based in US. Foreign control undermines part of the certainty a European headquarters offers.

Gengo hosts data in EU, OTHER. Exactly what stays within the EU — and what does not — is defined by the vendor's data processing agreement and sub-processor list, not by a setting you control yourself; check those documents for the precise scope, including backups, logs and support access.

Gengo 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 Gengo 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 Gengo?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Gengo include Acolad, Across Systems and Apertium. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Gengo?

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

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

Gengo is headquartered in JP (OTHER) and hosts data in EU, OTHER. The vendor states it is GDPR-compliant, but the data falls under non-EU jurisdiction. 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 9, 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 Translation & Localisation

Translation & Localisation: Translation platforms, localisation management and multilingual content tools. 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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