Non-EU vendorNotes & TasksHeadquarters: US

Google Keep: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Google Keep is a note-taking service from Google, part of the free, web-based Google Docs Editors suite. Notes can contain text, lists, images or audio. The service offers reminders, text extraction from images, automatic transcription of voice recordings, colour coding and labels, and an option to copy a note into Google Docs. Keep is a web application and is also available as an app for Android and iOS. There is no self-hosted or open source edition.

Google is headquartered in Mountain View, California, in the United States, and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. As a US provider, Google is subject to the CLOUD Act. According to its privacy policy, Google maintains servers around the world and information may be processed outside the user's country. Organisations on a supported Google Workspace edition can choose a geographic location for their data; Keep is covered for the storage of note text, titles, images, drawings and audio. The sources used here do not describe a comparable choice for personal accounts.

See the 8 European alternatives ↓Assess your stack with Google Keep 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 9, 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
Hosting signal	GOOGLE - Google LLC, US (US)Technically measured
Category	Notes & Tasks
Type	Product
Website	keep.google.com ↗

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 Google Keep

The European alternatives to Google Keep 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

25 European Notes & Tasks 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 Keep

Google Keep 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 Keep 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 Keep 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 Keep 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 Keep?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Google Keep include Anytype, Joplin and CryptPad. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Google Keep?

Yes. Open-source EU alternatives to Google Keep include Joplin, CryptPad, Nextcloud Notes, Trilium Notes (TriliumNext), Carnet, HedgeDoc and Nextcloud Tasks. These keep your data fully under your own control and let you self-host if you want to.

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

Google Keep 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 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 Notes & Tasks

Notes & Tasks: Note-taking apps and task management — write, organise, sync. 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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