EU Sovereignty Score
Non-EU vendorCollaborationHeadquarters: SG

Lark: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Lark is an enterprise collaboration platform from ByteDance, first released in 2019. It covers messaging, cloud file management and document editing, and the vendor describes it as a context-aware AI workspace for teams. Lark runs in web browsers and on iOS, Android, macOS, iPadOS and Windows, and is delivered as a cloud service.

Lark Technologies Pte. Ltd. is a Singapore company and a ByteDance subsidiary. ByteDance is based in Beijing and is majority-controlled by a Chinese founder, so the ultimate owner sits outside the EU. Lark's global service stores user data in Singapore, separately from the China-only product Feishu. For a European organisation, the main questions are jurisdiction over access requests, the location of data and the contractual safeguards offered, since the operator is non-EU and under Chinese ultimate ownership.

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Sovereignty score
32 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign
  • Jurisdiction SOV-250
    Headquartered outside the EU (SG)
  • Data residency SOV-30
    No hosting in Europe (OTHER)
  • Cryptographic key sovereignty SOV-340
    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-630
    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
HeadquartersSG (OTHER)Verified by hand
Ultimate parent companyCNVerified by hand
EU adequacy decisionNo — no adequacy decisionVerified by hand
Sovereignty modelVendor-hosted (non-EU)Verified by hand
Data hostingOTHERVerified by hand
Open-sourceNoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliantNoVendor-stated
CategoryCollaboration
TypeProduct
Websitelarksuite.com ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to Lark

The European alternatives to Lark 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

37 European Collaboration 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 Lark

Lark is headquartered in SG, 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. The ultimate owner is based in CN. Foreign control undermines part of the certainty a European headquarters offers.

Lark hosts data outside the EU (OTHER). Personal data therefore leaves the EU, which requires a transfer mechanism under the GDPR and pulls the data residency score down.

Lark 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 Lark 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 Lark?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Lark include BigBlueButton (self-host), CryptPad and Nextcloud Deck. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Lark?

Yes. Open-source EU alternatives to Lark include BigBlueButton (self-host), CryptPad, Nextcloud Deck, FluffyChat and HedgeDoc. These keep your data fully under your own control and let you self-host if you want to.

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

Lark is headquartered in SG (OTHER) and hosts data in OTHER. Its GDPR compliance is limited or unclear. 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

Digital sovereignty in Collaboration

Collaboration: Team communication, file sharing, video conferencing, document editing. 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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8 European alternatives to Lark — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score