EU Sovereignty Score
Self-hosted / open sourceCAD & EngineeringHeadquarters: DE

LibreCAD: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

LibreCAD is a free, open source 2D CAD application for drafting and design. It runs on Windows, macOS and Linux and is available in many languages. It uses DXF as its internal format, reads and writes a range of other CAD formats and imports many raster and vector image types. Its interface and handling are similar to AutoCAD's. The project began around 2010 as a fork of the QCAD Community Edition, with no licence fees, trials or subscriptions. LibreCAD is installed as a desktop program, with installers published on GitHub for macOS, Windows and Linux.

LibreCAD is licensed under the GNU GPL version 2. A small group of dedicated people leads the project, supported by a wider community of users, contributors and developers, and funding comes through Open Collective and GitHub Sponsors. Because the software runs locally and the code is open, a European organisation can keep its drawings on its own systems without depending on a single vendor. The sources consulted do not state where the project is based or name any company owning it.

See the 8 European alternatives ↓Assess your stack with LibreCAD pre-selected
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 July 2, 2026
HeadquartersDE (EU)Verified by hand
Sovereignty modelOpen-source, distributedVerified by hand
Data hostingEUVerified by hand
Open-sourceYesVerified by hand
GDPR-compliantYesVendor-stated
Hosting signalGODADDY-SXB - Host Europe GmbH, DE (DE)Technically measured
CategoryCAD & Engineering
TypeProduct
Websitelibrecad.org ↗

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 LibreCAD

The European alternatives to LibreCAD 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

68 European CAD & Engineering 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 LibreCAD

LibreCAD is headquartered in DE 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 LibreCAD scores best on data residency.

LibreCAD 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 LibreCAD 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 LibreCAD?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to LibreCAD include ACCA software, ALLPLAN and AUCOTEC Engineering Base. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to LibreCAD?

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

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

LibreCAD is headquartered in DE (EU) and hosts data in EU. It is also open-source, so you can self-host it. That makes LibreCAD 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 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

Digital sovereignty in CAD & Engineering

CAD & Engineering: Computer-aided design, 3D modelling and engineering simulation software. 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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8 European alternatives to LibreCAD — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score