EU Sovereignty Score
Non-EU vendorCybersecurityHeadquarters: US

KnowBe4: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

KnowBe4 provides a cloud platform for security awareness training, simulated phishing attacks, email security and phishing incident response. Organisations assign training to employees and run simulations through a web console, and the service is delivered as software-as-a-service. Its product lines also include inbound and outbound email security and an incident-response tool for reported phishing emails.

KnowBe4, Inc. is headquartered in Clearwater, Florida, and has been privately owned since Vista Equity Partners, a US private equity firm, took it private in February 2023. Its privacy notice says personal data is stored in the United States or by affiliates in other countries, and that the company uses Amazon Web Services and other sub-processors. For European organisations, the relevant questions are the storage region chosen for their tenant and the reach of US legal process over a US company.

See the 8 European alternatives ↓Assess your stack with KnowBe4 pre-selected
MastodonLinkedInBlueskyXEmail
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 (US, 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 11, 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 hostingUS, EU, OTHERVerified by hand
Open-sourceNoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliantYesVendor-stated
CategoryCybersecurity
TypeProduct
Websiteknowbe4.com ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to KnowBe4

The European alternatives to KnowBe4 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

93 European Cybersecurity vendors are in the catalogue. View the whole category · Submit an alternative · View category on the map

Is KnowBe4 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 KnowBe4

KnowBe4 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.

KnowBe4 hosts data in US, 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.

KnowBe4 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 KnowBe4 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 KnowBe4?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to KnowBe4 include Actalis, Advenica and Avira. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to KnowBe4?

Yes. Open-source EU alternatives to KnowBe4 include CrowdSec. These keep your data fully under your own control and let you self-host if you want to.

Is KnowBe4 GDPR-compliant and where is the data hosted?

KnowBe4 is headquartered in US and hosts data in US, 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 11, 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".

We found none of these signals on the vendor's own site when we checked.

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

Checked on October 11, 2026. What is the Cyber Resilience Act?

Digital sovereignty in Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity: Threat detection, endpoint protection, SIEM, vulnerability management. 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 Cybersecurity page — with no effect on your score
8 European alternatives to KnowBe4 — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score