Self-hosted / open sourceCybersecurityHeadquarters: ES

MetaClean: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

MetaClean is a range of products from the Spanish company Adarsus Technologies for managing metadata and hidden data in documents. The software removes or modifies metadata in Microsoft Office, OpenOffice, PDF, image, audio and video files, so that confidential information does not leak when files are shared. The range includes MetaClean Control for viewing and editing metadata, MetaClean Sync for automatic processing on workstations and file servers, modules for Outlook, Gmail, Exchange and Zimbra, a command-line version and web portals. It runs on Windows, Linux, Unix and macOS and can process signed PDFs without invalidating the signature.

The website is operated by Metadata Strategy S.L. in Madrid, Spain; no foreign parent company is named. Because the software processes files on your own servers and workstations, documents need not leave your environment. For the portals and web service, the vendor states no hosting location. The site links MetaClean to GDPR, the Spanish ENS and ISO/IEC 27001. For European organisations it is a local option that does not rely on a US cloud service.

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

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Sovereignty score

80 / 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-380
Closed source, but self-hostable: encryption keys and runtime under your own control
Freedom from lock-in SOV-640
Closed source: switching requires data migration
Source & runtime sovereignty SOV-4 · SOV-680
Closed source, but self-hostable on your own infrastructure

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 14, 2026

Headquarters	ES (EU)Verified by hand
Data hosting	Self-hosted, e.g. in EU (your choice)Verified by hand
Open-source	NoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant	YesVendor-stated
Category	Cybersecurity
Type	Product
Website	adarsus.com ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to MetaClean

The European alternatives to MetaClean come from our knowledge base of over 8,400 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

181 European Cybersecurity 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 MetaClean

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

MetaClean runs on infrastructure you choose and control yourself. You decide where the data lives, including fully within the EU if you want — this is not a fixed hosting choice made by the vendor.

MetaClean is closed source, but you run the software yourself on your own infrastructure. The encryption keys and the runtime therefore stay under your own control, though you cannot audit or modify the source code. Ask about export options and open standards to limit software-level lock-in.

What this means for your organisation depends on your whole stack and context. The free assessment weighs MetaClean 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 MetaClean?

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

Are there open-source alternatives to MetaClean?

Our list of EU alternatives to MetaClean is mostly commercial options. Browse the category on the map for open-source choices.

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

MetaClean is headquartered in ES (EU) and hosts data in EU. That makes MetaClean 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 14, 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 14, 2026. What is the Cyber Resilience Act?

In the changelog

Earlier changes to this page, as listed in the public changelog.

125 European vendors from security and quality-label registers (October 14, 2026)

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.

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