EU Sovereignty Score
Non-EU vendorCollaborationHeadquarters: US

Google Workspace: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Google Workspace is a subscription service from Google for collaboration and productivity. It includes Gmail, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Meet, Chat, Calendar and the Admin console, together with the Gemini AI assistant. It is aimed at individuals, businesses of all sizes, schools and non-profit organisations. Users work in the browser and in apps, and the services run entirely in Google's cloud.

Google is a US company, and Google Workspace is proprietary software with no open-source edition. Google hosts customer data in the US and Europe: with the data regions feature, administrators can pin the storage of covered data to the United States or Europe. Policies by organisational unit, or processing within the region, require specific editions such as Enterprise Plus. According to Google, users outside the selected region may experience higher latency, and some advanced features may become unavailable when in-region processing is enabled. For a European organisation, the provider's jurisdiction remains a consideration alongside the chosen data region.

See the 8 European alternatives ↓Assess your stack with Google Workspace pre-selected
MastodonLinkedInBlueskyXEmail
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 2, 2026
HeadquartersUS (US)Verified by hand
EU adequacy decisionOnly for companies individually certified under the EU-US Data Privacy FrameworkVerified by hand
Sovereignty modelVendor-hosted (non-EU)Verified by hand
Data hostingUS, EUVerified by hand
Open-sourceNoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliantYesVendor-stated
Compliance documents4 published, see belowVendor-stated
Hosting signalGOOGLE - Google LLC, US (US)Technically measured
CategoryCollaboration
TypeProduct
Websiteworkspace.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 Workspace

The European alternatives to Google Workspace come from our knowledge base of over 6,200 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

Is Google Workspace one of many dependencies?

Score your whole stack in about three minutes. Free, no account needed.

Assess your stack →View a sample report (opens in a new tab)

Why digital sovereignty matters with Google Workspace

Google Workspace 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 Workspace 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 Workspace 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 Workspace 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 Workspace?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Google Workspace include Open-Xchange, Nextcloud and Smash. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Google Workspace?

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

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

Google Workspace 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 2, 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".

Data Processing Agreement (DPA)
workspace.google.com/terms/dpa_terms.html
Subprocessor list
workspace.google.com/intl/en/terms/subprocessors.html
Security page / trust center
workspace.google.com/security/
EU hosting documented
workspace.google.com/security/

Provenance of the links above:Vendor-stated

Links checked on September 21, 2026.

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.

Also in this category

See all →
Open in the alternatives dashboardMissing a vendor? Submit itAre you this vendor? You can also become a sponsor on the Collaboration page — with no effect on your score
8 European alternatives to Google Workspace — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score