Non-EU vendorDNS Privacy & FilteringHeadquarters: CR

Njalla DNS: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Njalla DNS is a free public DNS resolver that, according to the provider, does not log and does not censor. The service works over DNS over TLS and DNS over HTTPS and is reachable on fixed IPv4 and IPv6 addresses. The page at dns.njal.la gives instructions for setting it up in Firefox, Chromium and Android. The resolver is a side offering of Njalla, a privacy-focused provider of domain registration, servers and VPN aimed at people who want anonymity or privacy protection. You can use the resolver without being a Njalla customer.

Njalla is run by njalla.srl, based in Costa Rica. That is a non-EU jurisdiction with no European parent company, so a European organisation should treat the resolver as a third-country provider, particularly where DNS queries can contain personal data. The no-logging claim is Njalla's own statement; no independent audit is referenced. The site does not say where the resolver servers are located. The consulted pages do not state that the service's source code is published.

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

Mastodon LinkedIn Bluesky X Email

Sovereignty score

42 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign

Jurisdiction SOV-250
Headquartered outside the EU (CR)
Data residency SOV-350
Hosting inside and outside Europe (EU, 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 5, 2026

Headquarters	CR (OTHER)Verified by hand
EU adequacy decision	No — no adequacy decisionVerified by hand
Sovereignty model	Vendor-hosted (non-EU)Verified by hand
Data hosting	EU, OTHERVerified by hand
Open-source	NoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant	YesVendor-stated
Category	DNS Privacy & Filtering
Type	Product
Website	njal.la ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to Njalla DNS

The European alternatives to Njalla DNS come from our knowledge base of over 7,800 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 DNS Privacy & Filtering vendors are in the catalogue. View the whole category · Submit an alternative · View category on the map

Is Njalla DNS one of many dependencies?

Score your whole stack in about three minutes. Free, no account needed.

Assess your stack →View a sample report (opens in a new tab)

Why digital sovereignty matters with Njalla DNS

Njalla DNS is headquartered in CR, 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.

Njalla DNS hosts data in EU, OTHER. Exactly what stays within the EU — and what does not — is defined by the vendor's data processing agreement and sub-processor list, not by a setting you control yourself; check those documents for the precise scope, including backups, logs and support access.

Njalla DNS 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 Njalla DNS 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 Njalla DNS?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Njalla DNS include AdGuard DNS, AdGuard Home and Blocky. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Njalla DNS?

Yes. Open-source EU alternatives to Njalla DNS include AdGuard Home and Blocky. These keep your data fully under your own control and let you self-host if you want to.

Is Njalla DNS GDPR-compliant and where is the data hosted?

Njalla DNS is headquartered in CR (OTHER) and hosts data in EU, OTHER. The vendor states it is GDPR-compliant, but the data falls under non-EU jurisdiction. 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 5, 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 DNS Privacy & Filtering

DNS Privacy & Filtering: Privacy-friendly DNS services, ad blocking and DNS filtering. 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

See all →

Open in the alternatives dashboard Missing a vendor? Submit it Are you this vendor? You can also become a sponsor on the DNS Privacy & Filtering page — with no effect on your score