EU Sovereignty Score
EU sovereignMaps & NavigationHeadquarters: DE

GraphHopper: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

GraphHopper is a routing platform built on OpenStreetMap data. Its commercial Directions API calculates routes for cars, bikes, pedestrians, vans, trucks, cargo bikes and more, with customisable profiles, and a Route Optimization API supports planning of vehicle routes. At its core is an open-source routing engine that runs as a Java library or a standalone web server and supports map matching, isochrones, public transit routing with GTFS data and turn instructions in more than 45 languages. GraphHopper Maps, jsprit and the Photon geocoder are also open source.

GraphHopper GmbH is based in Munich, Germany. The engine is released under the Apache License 2.0, so it can be run on your own infrastructure. According to the privacy policy, Directions API requests are processed on Hetzner servers in Germany. For geocoding and map tiles, further providers may be involved, such as OpenCageData, Gisgraphy, NetToolKit and Omniscale, for which no location is stated. For European organisations this offers a choice between an API hosted in the EU and full self-hosting of the engine.

See the 8 European alternatives ↓Assess your stack with GraphHopper pre-selected
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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 4, 2026
HeadquartersDE (EU)Verified by hand
Sovereignty modelVendor-hosted (EU)Verified by hand
Data hostingEUVerified by hand
Open-sourceYesVerified by hand
GDPR-compliantYesVendor-stated
Compliance documents1 published, see belowVendor-stated
Hosting signalHETZNER-AS - Hetzner Online GmbH, DE (DE)Technically measured
CategoryMaps & Navigation
TypeProduct
Websitegraphhopper.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 GraphHopper

The European alternatives to GraphHopper 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 Maps & Navigation 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 GraphHopper

GraphHopper 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 GraphHopper scores best on data residency.

GraphHopper 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 GraphHopper 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 GraphHopper?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to GraphHopper include BRouter, calimoto and cartes.gouv.fr. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to GraphHopper?

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

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

GraphHopper is headquartered in DE (EU) and hosts data in EU. It is also open-source, so you can self-host it. That makes GraphHopper 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 4, 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".

EU hosting documented
graphhopper.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/dpa-2018-03-27.pdf

Provenance of the links above:Vendor-stated

Links checked on September 23, 2026.

Digital sovereignty in Maps & Navigation

Maps & Navigation: Maps, route planning and navigation services. 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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8 European alternatives to GraphHopper — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score