EU Sovereignty Score
Non-EU vendorNotes & TasksHeadquarters: CA

Obsidian: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Obsidian is an app for personal notes and knowledge bases. Notes are stored as plain Markdown files on your own device, so they are fast and work offline. The app offers links between notes, a graph view, Canvas for brainstorming and thousands of community plugins and themes. Paid services complement it: Sync for synchronising between devices, with optional end-to-end encryption, and Publish for turning notes into a website.

Obsidian is developed by Dynalist Inc. and, according to its makers, is funded by its users rather than investors. The software itself is proprietary rather than open source, but free to use, including commercially. Sync servers run on DigitalOcean in Singapore, Frankfurt, San Francisco and Sydney, and you choose the region when creating a remote vault. With end-to-end encryption, Obsidian cannot read the content, although some metadata is not encrypted. If you only work locally, all data stays on your own devices, which limits dependence on the vendor.

See the 8 European alternatives ↓Assess your stack with Obsidian pre-selected
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Sovereignty score
42 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign
  • Jurisdiction SOV-250
    Headquartered outside the EU (CA)
  • Data residency SOV-350
    Hosting inside and outside Europe (US, 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 9, 2026
HeadquartersCA (OTHER)Verified by hand
EU adequacy decisionYes — found adequate by the European CommissionVerified by hand
Sovereignty modelVendor-hosted (non-EU)Verified by hand
Data hostingUS, EU, OTHERVerified by hand
Open-sourceNoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliantYesVendor-stated
Hosting signalCLOUDFLARENET - Cloudflare, Inc., US (US)Technically measured
CategoryNotes & Tasks
TypeProduct
Websiteobsidian.md ↗

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 Obsidian

The European alternatives to Obsidian come from our knowledge base of over 6,200 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 Obsidian

Obsidian is headquartered in CA, 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.

Obsidian hosts data in US, 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.

Obsidian 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 Obsidian 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 Obsidian?

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

Are there open-source alternatives to Obsidian?

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

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

Obsidian is headquartered in CA (OTHER) and hosts data in US, 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 9, 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 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.

Also in this category

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