Self-hosted / open sourceVPNHeadquarters: US

OpenVPN: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

OpenVPN is a VPN protocol and the software built around it. The core OpenVPN program is distributed under the GPL-2.0 licence on GitHub. The company, OpenVPN, Inc., offers two products: OpenVPN Access Server, which organisations install on their own servers, and CloudConnexa, a cloud-delivered network service managed by the vendor. Access Server is the self-hosted option; CloudConnexa is the vendor-managed option.

OpenVPN, Inc. gives a contact address in Pleasanton, California, United States. Its privacy policy refers to the GDPR, offers a general data processing agreement with standard contractual clauses, and describes transfers of data from the EEA to the US. The vendor does not state where CloudConnexa customer data is hosted, and its website does not name an owner. For a European organisation, the self-hosted Access Server keeps the VPN infrastructure under its own control, while CloudConnexa depends on a US-based provider, so the hosting location and transfer terms should be confirmed in the contract.

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Sovereignty score

69 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign

Jurisdiction SOV-210
Headquartered in the US: CLOUD Act and FISA 702
Data residency SOV-3100
No hosting in Europe (US)
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-665
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 11, 2026

Headquarters	US (US)Verified by hand
EU adequacy decision	Only for companies individually certified under the EU-US Data Privacy FrameworkVerified by hand
Data hosting	Self-hosted, e.g. in US (your choice)Verified by hand
Open-source	YesVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant	YesVendor-stated
Category	VPN
Type	Product
Website	openvpn.net ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to OpenVPN

The European alternatives to OpenVPN 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

21 European VPN 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 OpenVPN

OpenVPN 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.

OpenVPN hosts data outside the EU (US). Personal data therefore leaves the EU, which requires a transfer mechanism under the GDPR and pulls the data residency score down.

OpenVPN 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 OpenVPN 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 OpenVPN?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to OpenVPN include AdGuard VPN, AirVPN and Avast SecureLine VPN. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to OpenVPN?

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

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

OpenVPN is headquartered in US and hosts data in US. 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 11, 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

Cyber Resilience Act

Public signals that relate to the EU Cyber Resilience Act. They do not count towards the score. A missing line means "not found publicly".

We found none of these signals on the vendor's own site when we checked.

For products in scope of the CRA, CE marking is required from 11 December 2027; this cannot be checked yet.

Checked on October 11, 2026. What is the Cyber Resilience Act?

Digital sovereignty in VPN

VPN: Virtual private network — privacy protection, encrypted connection. 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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