Non-EU vendorBrowserHeadquarters: US

Orion: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Orion is a web browser from Kagi, the company behind the paid search engine of the same name. It runs on the WebKit engine and is available for macOS, iOS and iPadOS, with a Linux version in beta. Orion includes built-in ad and tracker blocking and, according to Kagi, ships with zero telemetry by default. It is a locally installed app rather than a cloud service, and is funded through subscriptions or a one-time licence.

Kagi Inc. is a US public benefit corporation under Delaware law, founded in Palo Alto. It is therefore subject to US jurisdiction, including for the optional services in which Orion sends data to Kagi, such as automatic updates or on-demand Kagi services. According to Kagi, no personal information is sent to its servers unless the user opts in. The website does not say whether the browser's source code is open. For a European organisation, the relevant question is which optional features are switched on and how they fit its own rules on data processing and transfers outside the EU.

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

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Sovereignty score

17 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign

Jurisdiction SOV-210
Headquartered in the US: CLOUD Act and FISA 702
Data residency SOV-30
No hosting in Europe (US)
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 October 10, 2026

Headquarters	US (US)Verified by hand
EU adequacy decision	Only for companies individually certified under the EU-US Data Privacy FrameworkVerified by hand
Sovereignty model	Vendor-hosted (non-EU)Verified by hand
Data hosting	USVerified by hand
Open-source	NoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant	YesVendor-stated
Category	Browser
Type	Product
Website	orionbrowser.com ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to Orion

The European alternatives to Orion 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

18 European Browser 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 Orion

Orion 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.

Orion 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.

Orion 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 Orion 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 Orion?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Orion include Ecosia Browser, Falkon and Iridium Browser. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Orion?

Yes. Open-source EU alternatives to Orion include Falkon, Iridium Browser, Konqueror, LibreWolf, Midori, Mullvad Browser and Nyxt. These keep your data fully under your own control and let you self-host if you want to.

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

Orion 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 10, 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 10, 2026. What is the Cyber Resilience Act?

Digital sovereignty in Browser

Browser: Web browser — browsing, privacy, extensions, 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.

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