Self-hosted / open sourceCDN, DNS & DomainsHeadquarters: CZ

Knot DNS: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Knot DNS is a high-performance, authoritative-only DNS server: it answers queries for the zones it hosts but does not act as a recursive resolver. It supports incremental zone transfers (IXFR), dynamic updates (DDNS), response rate limiting and automatic DNSSEC signing, and can synthesise A, AAAA and PTR records dynamically. It runs on Linux, the BSDs, macOS and other POSIX systems. Knot DNS is software that you install and operate yourself, for example as the name server behind a domain portfolio or a hosting platform.

Knot DNS is developed by CZ.NIC, the organisation that operates the .cz domain registry in the Czech Republic. The code is open source under the GNU GPL version 3 or later, with its primary repository at gitlab.nic.cz and a mirror on GitHub. As there is no vendor-hosted service, DNS data remains wherever you deploy the server, including in EU data centres, and no third party processes your zones. A European organisation therefore keeps full control of hosting and updates, in exchange for running and maintaining the name servers itself.

See the 8 European alternatives ↓Assess your stack with Knot DNS pre-selected

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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 4, 2026

Headquarters	CZ (EU)Verified by hand
Sovereignty model	Open-source, distributedVerified by hand
Data hosting	EUVerified by hand
Open-source	YesVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant	YesVendor-stated
Category	CDN, DNS & Domains
Type	Product
Website	knot-dns.cz ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to Knot DNS

The European alternatives to Knot DNS 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

14 European CDN, DNS & Domains 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 Knot DNS

Knot DNS is headquartered in CZ and therefore falls under European law: the GDPR, NIS2 and the Data Act. No foreign legislation can compel access to your data.

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

Knot DNS 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 Knot DNS 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 Knot DNS?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Knot DNS include Bunny.net, ClouDNS and deSEC. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Knot DNS?

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

Is Knot DNS GDPR-compliant and where is the data hosted?

Knot DNS is headquartered in CZ (EU) and hosts data in EU. It is also open-source, so you can self-host it. That makes Knot DNS 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 4, 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 CDN, DNS & Domains

CDN, DNS & Domains: Content delivery networks, DNS services and domain registration. 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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