Non-EU vendorEducation & LMSHeadquarters: GB

Memrise: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Memrise is a language-learning service that teaches everyday speech with native-speaker video, smart review and AI-based practice. It is aimed at learners from complete beginners to people who want to move on from other apps, and the service is positioned for travel, work and personal situations. Learners use it through a web login and a mobile app.

Memrise is headquartered in London, United Kingdom. Its ownership is not stated on its website, and reference sources describe it as privately held and venture-backed, without a controlling owner identified. The United Kingdom is outside the EU and EEA, so transfers of European learners' data require suitable safeguards. Organisations considering the app for staff should check where learner data is stored and which transfer safeguards apply.

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Sovereignty score

32 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign

Jurisdiction SOV-250
Headquartered outside the EU (GB)
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

Headquarters	GB (OTHER)Verified by hand
EU adequacy decision	Yes — found adequate by the European CommissionVerified by hand
Sovereignty model	Vendor-hosted (non-EU)Verified by hand
Data hosting	OTHERVerified by hand
Open-source	NoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant	NoVendor-stated
Category	Education & LMS
Type	Product
Website	memrise.com ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to Memrise

The European alternatives to Memrise 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

52 European Education & LMS 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 Memrise

Memrise is headquartered in GB, 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.

Memrise 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.

Memrise 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 Memrise 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 Memrise?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Memrise include Anton, Chamilo and Classlife. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Memrise?

Yes. Open-source EU alternatives to Memrise include Chamilo, Forma LMS and H5P. These keep your data fully under your own control and let you self-host if you want to.

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

Memrise is headquartered in GB (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 Education & LMS

Education & LMS: Learning platforms, learning management systems and educational 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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