EU Sovereignty Score
Self-hosted / open sourceCDN, DNS & DomainsHeadquarters: FR

happyDomain: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

happyDomain is an open-source platform for managing DNS zones. It brings domains from registrars, DNS providers and self-hosted name servers into one interface and groups records by service, such as email or website. Changes can be reviewed as a diff before they are applied, there is a history with one-click rollback, an action log and a REST API. Automatic checks watch things such as expiry, DNSSEC, certificates and availability. It is meant for administrators from a single domain to large estates and is delivered as software that you install yourself.

happyDomain is maintained by the de facto association happyDNS in Caen, France. The source code is licensed AGPL-3.0-or-later, and the project site and documentation describe installation on your own servers. According to the site, an online version is currently in a closed beta. When self-hosted, zones and provider credentials stay on your own infrastructure. Development is funded through NLnet's NGI Zero Core fund, supported by the EU's Next Generation Internet programme.

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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 16, 2026
Headquarters
FR (EU)Verified by hand
Sovereignty model
Open-source, distributedVerified by hand
Data hosting
EUVerified by hand
Open-source
YesVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant
YesVendor-stated
Category
CDN, DNS & Domains
Type
Product
Website
happydomain.org ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to happyDomain

The European alternatives to happyDomain come from our knowledge base of over 9,500 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

21 European CDN, DNS & Domains 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 happyDomain

happyDomain is headquartered in FR 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 happyDomain scores best on data residency.

happyDomain 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 happyDomain 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 happyDomain?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to happyDomain include Bunny.net, Caddy and CDNsun. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to happyDomain?

Yes. Open-source EU alternatives to happyDomain include Caddy, deSEC and dnsdist. These keep your data fully under your own control and let you self-host if you want to.

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

happyDomain is headquartered in FR (EU) and hosts data in EU. It is also open-source, so you can self-host it. That makes happyDomain 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 16, 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

In the changelog

Earlier changes to this page, as listed in the public changelog.

Digital sovereignty in CDN, DNS & Domains

CDN, DNS & Domains: Content delivery networks, DNS services and domain registration. 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 happyDomain — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score