EU Sovereignty Score
Non-EU vendorDatabase & Data ManagementHeadquarters: US

InterSystems IRIS: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

InterSystems IRIS is a data platform for building AI-enabled, high-performance applications. It combines SQL and NoSQL, transactions and concurrent analytics in a single database engine, with features for interoperability between systems, semantic search and generative AI, and for embedding analytics, business rules and machine learning in applications. InterSystems names healthcare, financial services and supply chain as focus areas. The platform can be deployed on AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and Tencent Cloud, in private clouds, on premises, in hybrid setups, on bare metal or on virtual machines, using the same API.

InterSystems Corporation is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States. IRIS is commercial, proprietary software; the sources describe no open-source edition. Where the data resides depends on the chosen deployment: with your own installation in a European data centre you decide, while on a public cloud run by a US provider that provider also shapes the legal context. For European organisations, the combination of a US supplier and the chosen hosting location is the point to assess.

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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 (EU, OTHER)
  • 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 5, 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 hostingEU, OTHERVerified by hand
Open-sourceNoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliantYesVendor-stated
CategoryDatabase & Data Management
TypeProduct
Websiteintersystems.com ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to InterSystems IRIS

The European alternatives to InterSystems IRIS 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

13 European Database & Data Management 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 InterSystems IRIS

InterSystems IRIS 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.

InterSystems IRIS hosts data in EU, OTHER. 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.

InterSystems IRIS 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 InterSystems IRIS 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 InterSystems IRIS?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to InterSystems IRIS include Aiven, ArangoDB and DuckDB. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to InterSystems IRIS?

Yes. Open-source EU alternatives to InterSystems IRIS include DuckDB, Elastic, Firebird SQL, MariaDB and Meilisearch. These keep your data fully under your own control and let you self-host if you want to.

Is InterSystems IRIS GDPR-compliant and where is the data hosted?

InterSystems IRIS is headquartered in US and hosts data in EU, OTHER. 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 5, 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 Database & Data Management

Database & Data Management: Database systems, data warehousing, managed database services and data platforms. 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 InterSystems IRIS — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score