EU Sovereignty Score
Non-EU vendorEmail (Personal)Headquarters: US

HEY: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

HEY is an email and calendar service from 37signals LLC, the company behind Basecamp. It is delivered as a web application and as apps for Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS and Android. Its features include a screener for new senders, the Imbox, Paper Trail and Feed folders for different kinds of message, and an integrated calendar. HEY is a commercial, proprietary service, and no self-hosted version is described on the pages consulted.

37signals LLC is based in Oak Park, Illinois, in the United States. Its privacy policy states that its products are primarily housed in the United States, and that information from users in the EU or UK is transferred to and stored in the United States. The company offers a data processing addendum with Standard Contractual Clauses. It has also set up a replica in Amsterdam, which it says reduces response times for European users. For a European organisation this means the US-based provider remains subject to US law, regardless of that replica.

See the 8 European alternatives ↓Assess your stack with HEY 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 10, 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
CategoryEmail (Personal)
TypeProduct
Websitehey.com ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to HEY

The European alternatives to HEY 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

30 European Email (Personal) vendors are in the catalogue. View the whole category · Submit an alternative · View category on the map

Is HEY 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 HEY

HEY 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.

HEY 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.

HEY 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 HEY 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 HEY?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to HEY include Bluewin Mail, CounterMail and Disroot. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to HEY?

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

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

HEY 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 10, 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 Email (Personal)

Email (Personal): Personal email services — inbox, calendar, contacts. 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 Email (Personal) page — with no effect on your score
8 European alternatives to HEY — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score