EU Sovereignty Score
Self-hosted / open sourceVirtualisation & ContainersHeadquarters: US

Kata Containers: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Kata Containers is an open source container runtime that starts lightweight virtual machines which plug into the container ecosystem. Each workload gets hardware virtualisation as a second layer of isolation, while the runtime still behaves like a container runtime. It supports the Kubernetes Container Runtime Interface and works with containerd, and it can use hypervisors such as QEMU, Cloud-Hypervisor and Firecracker. Platform and security teams use it to separate workloads that share a host, for example in multi-tenant clusters. Kata is software you install and run on your own infrastructure; it is not a hosted service.

The project began in December 2017 by combining Intel Clear Containers and Hyper.sh RunV. It is released under the Apache 2.0 licence and stewarded by the Open Infrastructure Foundation, formerly the OpenStack Foundation, with technical decisions taken by an elected Architecture Committee. No single company owns it. Because you operate Kata yourself, data and workloads stay in the EU data centres or clouds where you deploy it, and the open code can be audited.

See the 8 European alternatives ↓Assess your stack with Kata Containers pre-selected
MastodonLinkedInBlueskyXEmail
Sovereignty score
71 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign
  • Jurisdiction SOV-210
    Headquartered in the US: CLOUD Act and FISA 702
  • Data residency SOV-3100
    Hosting inside and outside Europe (EU, OTHER)
  • 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 October 5, 2026
Headquarters
US (US)Verified by hand
EU adequacy decision
Only for companies individually certified under the EU-US Data Privacy FrameworkVerified by hand
Sovereignty model
Open-source, distributedVerified by hand
Data hosting
EU, OTHERVerified by hand
Open-source
YesVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant
YesVendor-stated
Category
Virtualisation & Containers
Type
Product
Website
katacontainers.io ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to Kata Containers

The European alternatives to Kata Containers 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

20 European Virtualisation & Containers vendors are in the catalogue. View the whole category · Submit an alternative · View category on the map

Is Kata Containers 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 Kata Containers

Kata Containers 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.

Kata Containers 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.

Kata Containers 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 Kata Containers 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 Kata Containers?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Kata Containers include APPUiO (VSHN), Gardener and Giant Swarm. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Kata Containers?

Yes. Open-source EU alternatives to Kata Containers include Gardener, Giant Swarm, Harvester, IncludeOS, K3s, Kamaji and Kubermatic. These keep your data fully under your own control and let you self-host if you want to.

Is Kata Containers GDPR-compliant and where is the data hosted?

Kata Containers 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

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
github.com/kata-containers/kata-containers/security/policy
Supported versions
github.com/kata-containers/kata-containers/security/policy
Organisation behind the open-source project
Open Infrastructure Foundation

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 Virtualisation & Containers

Virtualisation & Containers: Virtualisation platforms, container management, Kubernetes distributions and hypervisors. 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 Virtualisation & Containers page — with no effect on your score
8 European alternatives to Kata Containers — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score