EU Sovereignty Score
Self-hosted / open sourceGIS & GeospatialHeadquarters: DE

Nominatim: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Nominatim is geocoding software that searches OpenStreetMap data by name and address and, for a given location, looks up the matching address (reverse geocoding). Organisations use it for address search in map applications and web forms. It is delivered as server software and as a Python library that you run on your own server with your own OpenStreetMap import; according to the project site, the official OpenStreetMap website runs on it too.

Nominatim is developed by a community without a legal entity; according to the imprint on the project website, its lead maintainer is based in Germany, and the site names a company as a supporter of parts of the development. The Python code is licensed under the GPL (version 3 or later); a few other parts are under Apache-2.0 or GPL-2.0. When you host it yourself, search queries stay with you; the public instance is governed by a usage policy of the OpenStreetMap Foundation. Development was co-funded through the EU's NGI Zero programme, run by NLnet.

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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 October 16, 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
Category
GIS & Geospatial
Type
Product
Website
nominatim.org ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to Nominatim

The European alternatives to Nominatim come from our knowledge base of over 9,500 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

90 European GIS & Geospatial 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 Nominatim

Nominatim 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 Nominatim scores best on data residency.

Nominatim 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 Nominatim 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 Nominatim?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Nominatim include 3Dsurvey, 52°North and actinia. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Nominatim?

Yes. Open-source EU alternatives to Nominatim include 52°North, actinia, Camptocamp, Clearance and CloudCompare. These keep your data fully under your own control and let you self-host if you want to.

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

Nominatim is headquartered in DE (EU) and hosts data in EU. It is also open-source, so you can self-host it. That makes Nominatim 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 16, 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

In the changelog

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

Digital sovereignty in GIS & Geospatial

GIS & Geospatial: Geographic information systems, map visualisation and spatial data analysis. 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

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8 European alternatives to Nominatim — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score