Non-EU vendorCloud Storage (Personal)Headquarters: US

OneDrive: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

OneDrive is Microsoft's cloud service for file storage and synchronisation. Users store, back up and share files and co-author Office documents, with online editing, version history, a recycle bin and Files On-Demand on Windows 10 and 11. Personal Vault adds a protected area with stronger authentication. OneDrive is built into Windows and is delivered as a web service with apps for Windows, macOS, Android, iOS and visionOS. It also serves as the storage back end for the web version of Microsoft 365.

OneDrive is operated by Microsoft, a US company, so US legislation such as the CLOUD Act can apply. For business Microsoft 365 customers with a sign-up location in the EU or EFTA, Microsoft describes an EU Data Boundary within which customer data is stored and processed. In limited circumstances, data may still be transferred outside that boundary. OneDrive is not open source and is not self-hosted.

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

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Sovereignty score

27 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign

Jurisdiction SOV-210
Headquartered in the US: CLOUD Act and FISA 702
Data residency SOV-350
Hosting inside and outside Europe (US, EU)
Cryptographic key sovereignty SOV-320
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-615
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 July 2, 2026

Headquarters	US (US)	Verified by hand
EU adequacy decision	Only for companies individually certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework	Verified by hand
Sovereignty model	Vendor-hosted (non-EU)	Verified by hand
Data hosting	US, EU	Verified by hand
Open-source	No	Verified by hand
GDPR-compliant	No	Vendor-stated
Compliance documents	1 published, see below	Vendor-stated
Hosting signal	MICROSOFT-CORP-MSN-AS-BLOCK - Microsoft Corporation, US (US)	Technically measured
Category	Cloud Storage (Personal)
Type	Product
Website	onedrive.live.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 OneDrive

The European alternatives to OneDrive 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

22 European Cloud Storage (Personal) 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 OneDrive

OneDrive is headquartered in the United States. US vendors fall under the CLOUD Act and FISA 702: US authorities can compel access to data, even when that data sits in a European data centre. That is the core of the jurisdictional exposure in our model.

OneDrive hosts data in US, EU. 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.

OneDrive 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 OneDrive 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 OneDrive?

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

Are there open-source alternatives to OneDrive?

Yes. Open-source EU alternatives to OneDrive include Nextcloud and Filen. These keep your data fully under your own control and let you self-host if you want to.

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

OneDrive is headquartered in US and hosts data in US, EU. Its GDPR compliance is limited or unclear. 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 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: microsoft.com/en-us/trust-center

Provenance of the links above:Vendor-stated

Links checked on September 21, 2026.

Digital sovereignty in Cloud Storage (Personal)

Cloud Storage (Personal): Personal cloud storage — sync and share files. 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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