Non-EU vendorVPNHeadquarters: GI

IVPN: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

IVPN is a privacy-focused VPN service. Its apps support WireGuard, OpenVPN and IPSec and use a post-quantum key exchange for WireGuard by default. It also offers AntiTracker (which blocks ads, malicious sites and trackers), private DNS, split tunnelling, multi-hop routes, a killswitch and obfuscation options for networks that block VPNs. The VPN gateways run on dedicated bare-metal servers in dozens of countries. It is a subscription service; sign-up does not require an email address, and payment is possible in cash, Monero or Bitcoin.

IVPN is operated by IVPN Limited, registered in Gibraltar, outside the EU; the Gibraltar Regulatory Authority is its GDPR regulator. According to its privacy policy, it does not log traffic, connection times, DNS requests or customer IP addresses, though minimal account data and payment records are kept. The apps for all platforms are open source (GPL-3.0) on GitHub; the service itself cannot be self-hosted. European organisations can choose a server location but rely on the provider for the server side.

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Sovereignty score

79 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign

Jurisdiction SOV-250
Headquartered outside the EU (GI)
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-675
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 July 2, 2026

Headquarters	GI (OTHER)Verified by hand
EU adequacy decision	No — no adequacy decisionVerified by hand
Sovereignty model	Vendor-hosted (non-EU)Verified by hand
Data hosting	EUVerified by hand
Open-source	YesVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant	YesVendor-stated
Hosting signal	OVH - OVH SAS, FR (CA)Technically measured
Category	VPN
Type	Product
Website	ivpn.net ↗

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 IVPN

The European alternatives to IVPN come from our knowledge base of over 6,800 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 VPN 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 IVPN

IVPN is headquartered in GI, outside the EU. Contracts and data therefore also fall under non-European law. The GDPR applies through contractual terms, but in a conflict with local legislation you have less certainty than with a European vendor.

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

IVPN 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 IVPN 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 IVPN?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to IVPN include Mullvad VPN, AirVPN and NordVPN. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to IVPN?

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

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

IVPN is headquartered in GI (OTHER) and hosts data in 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 July 2, 2026.

Sources

This record was checked via the vendor's website and legal notice during the full audit of June and July 2026. Source links have been recorded per record since 20 September 2026.

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

Cyber Resilience Act

Public signals that relate to the EU Cyber Resilience Act. They do not count towards the score. A missing line means "not found publicly".

Report a vulnerability: ivpn.net/en/vulnerability-reporting/

For products in scope of the CRA, CE marking is required from 11 December 2027; this cannot be checked yet.

Checked on October 9, 2026. What is the Cyber Resilience Act?

Digital sovereignty in VPN

VPN: Virtual private network — privacy protection, encrypted connection. 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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