Self-hosted / open sourceNotes & TasksHeadquarters: DE

Nextcloud Notes: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Nextcloud Notes is a distraction-free notes app for Nextcloud. Notes are organised in categories, can be marked as favourites and are formatted with Markdown. They are stored as regular files in the user's Nextcloud, so any Nextcloud client can view and edit them, and a REST API allows integration with other apps. Official Android and iOS apps exist, as do third-party clients. Administrators can set defaults such as display mode, file extension and storage folder. The app is enabled from the Nextcloud app store within an existing Nextcloud instance.

The app's listing names Nextcloud GmbH and Nextcloud contributors as authors. Nextcloud GmbH has its legal address in Stuttgart, Germany. The app is licensed under AGPL-3.0, and Nextcloud itself is open source and designed to run on the organisation's own servers. Notes therefore live in the storage of whichever Nextcloud instance is used, on premises or with a European hosting provider chosen by the organisation, which decides data location and access.

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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

Headquarters	DE (EU)Verified by hand
Sovereignty model	Open-source, distributedVerified by hand
Data hosting	EUVerified by hand
Open-source	YesVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant	YesVendor-stated
Compliance documents	1 published, see belowVendor-stated
Hosting signal	HETZNER-AS - Hetzner Online GmbH, DE (DE)Technically measured
Category	Notes & Tasks
Type	Product
Website	nextcloud.com ↗

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 Nextcloud Notes

The European alternatives to Nextcloud Notes 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

25 European Notes & Tasks 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 Nextcloud Notes

Nextcloud Notes 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 Nextcloud Notes scores best on data residency.

Nextcloud Notes 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 Nextcloud Notes 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 Nextcloud Notes?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Nextcloud Notes include Anytype, Bear and Capacities. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Nextcloud Notes?

Yes. Open-source EU alternatives to Nextcloud Notes include Carnet, CryptPad, HedgeDoc and Joplin. These keep your data fully under your own control and let you self-host if you want to.

Is Nextcloud Notes GDPR-compliant and where is the data hosted?

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

Security page / trust center: nextcloud.com/security/

Provenance of the links above:Vendor-stated

Links checked on September 21, 2026.

Digital sovereignty in Notes & Tasks

Notes & Tasks: Note-taking apps and task management — write, organise, sync. 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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