Non-EU vendorCollaborationHeadquarters: US

Google Chat: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Google Chat is the messaging and collaboration service in Google Workspace. Teams use it for direct messages and group spaces with threaded conversations, file sharing, reactions and tasks. It is connected to Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Meet and Groups, and offers apps, webhooks and a Chat API for custom integrations. Gemini features provide summaries and translation. Google Chat is delivered as SaaS in the browser and through desktop and mobile apps.

Google is part of Alphabet and headquartered in the United States, so US jurisdiction, including the CLOUD Act, applies. With Workspace Data Regions, administrators can choose to store data at rest, such as messages, attachments and room names, in the United States or Europe. Processing in use is covered by the region commitments only under Enterprise Data Regions or Assured Controls. Google offers a data processing addendum that defines the GDPR and covers Workspace. Organisations that want to stay within the EU therefore need to choose the right edition and region setting deliberately and take possible access from the United States into account.

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

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Sovereignty score

27 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign

Jurisdiction SOV-210
Headquartered in the US: CLOUD Act and FISA 702
Data residency SOV-350
Hosting inside and outside Europe (US, EU)
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	US, EUVerified by hand
Open-source	NoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant	YesVendor-stated
Category	Collaboration
Type	Product
Website	workspace.google.com ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to Google Chat

The European alternatives to Google Chat 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

37 European Collaboration 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 Google Chat

Google Chat 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.

Google Chat hosts data in US, EU. 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.

Google Chat 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 Google Chat 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 Google Chat?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Google Chat include BigBlueButton (self-host), CryptPad and Nextcloud Deck. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Google Chat?

Yes. Open-source EU alternatives to Google Chat include BigBlueButton (self-host), CryptPad, Nextcloud Deck, FluffyChat and HedgeDoc. These keep your data fully under your own control and let you self-host if you want to.

Is Google Chat GDPR-compliant and where is the data hosted?

Google Chat is headquartered in US and hosts data in US, EU. 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 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 Collaboration

Collaboration: Team communication, file sharing, video conferencing, document editing. 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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