EU Sovereignty Score
Self-hosted / open sourceOffice & ProductivityHeadquarters: BE

iText: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

iText is a family of PDF libraries for Java and .NET developers, used to create, read and manipulate PDF files inside their own applications. The core library, iText Core, can generate PDFs from HTML and CSS, perform OCR, optimise and redact documents, and handle PDF/A archiving, PDF/UA accessibility and digital signatures. It is available under the AGPL licence, which the vendor describes as free to use under its conditions, and under commercial licences. The libraries are integrated into the customer's own applications and processes.

iText Group NV has its headquarters office in Ghent, Belgium. PDFTron Systems Inc., which now operates as Apryse, acquired the company in 2022. Apryse was itself acquired in 2021 by the US investment firm Thoma Bravo and, according to press reports, is based in Denver, Colorado. The US ownership is therefore the CLOUD Act consideration, while the libraries run on infrastructure the customer controls. European organisations can keep document processing on their own servers, but commercial licences and support are contracted with the vendor.

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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 12, 2026
Headquarters
BE (EU)Verified by hand
Ultimate parent company
USVerified by hand
Sovereignty model
Open-source, distributedVerified by hand
Data hosting
EUVerified by hand
Open-source
YesVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant
YesVendor-stated
Category
Office & Productivity
Type
Product
Website
itextpdf.com ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to iText

The European alternatives to iText come from our knowledge base of over 8,000 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

34 European Office & Productivity 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 iText

iText is headquartered in BE and therefore falls under European law: the GDPR, NIS2 and the Data Act. No foreign legislation can compel access to your data. The ultimate owner is based in US. Foreign control undermines part of the certainty a European headquarters offers.

Data is hosted exclusively in the EU, so iText scores best on data residency.

iText 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 iText 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 iText?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to iText include Ashampoo Office, Calligra Suite and Craft Docs. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to iText?

Yes. Open-source EU alternatives to iText include Calligra Suite, CryptPad, EGroupware, Euro-Office, eXo Platform and Framasoft (Framapad/Framacalc). These keep your data fully under your own control and let you self-host if you want to.

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

iText is headquartered in BE (EU) and hosts data in EU. It is also open-source, so you can self-host it. That makes iText 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 12, 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

Timeline

Dated changes in who controls this vendor or where it is based, newest first. Every line links to the public sources.

  1. · AcquisitionVendor-stated

    Acquired by PDFTron (now Apryse), owned by Thoma Bravo (US) since 2021; announced on 5 April 2022.

All ownership changes

Digital sovereignty in Office & Productivity

Office & Productivity: Office software, word processing, spreadsheets and groupware. 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 iText — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score