EU Sovereignty Score
Self-hosted / open sourceCybersecurityHeadquarters: DE

GnuPG: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

GnuPG, also known as GPG, is an open-source implementation of the OpenPGP standard for encrypting, signing and verifying email and files. It is a command-line tool and part of the GNU project, and it runs locally on the user's own computer or server. Current versions are published on the project website together with release notes and signed release keys. Users generate and manage their own keys, so no third-party service is involved in encrypting content.

The software is maintained by g10 Code GmbH, a German company with its office in Erkrath near Düsseldorf. The company's imprint describes it as privately owned and names its managing director, who is the founder and principal author of GnuPG. The code is licensed under the GNU General Public License version 3. For a European organisation, using GnuPG means that the software, its keys and its metadata stay within the organisation's own systems, and that no data is sent to a vendor cloud.

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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
DE (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
Cybersecurity
Type
Product
Website
gnupg.org ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to GnuPG

The European alternatives to GnuPG come from our knowledge base of over 7,800 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

125 European Cybersecurity 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 GnuPG

GnuPG 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 GnuPG scores best on data residency.

GnuPG 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 GnuPG 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 GnuPG?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to GnuPG include Actalis, Advenica and Aikido Security. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to GnuPG?

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

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

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

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".

We found none of these signals on the vendor's own site when we checked.

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

Checked on October 12, 2026. What is the Cyber Resilience Act?

Digital sovereignty in Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity: Threat detection, endpoint protection, SIEM, vulnerability management. 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

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8 European alternatives to GnuPG — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score