Self-hosted / open sourceHealthcareHeadquarters: BE

Orthanc (self-host): sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Orthanc is a free, lightweight open-source DICOM server for medical imaging. The server receives, stores and sends DICOM images, has a web interface and a REST API for automating imaging workflows. Plugins add features such as a web viewer, DICOMweb, PostgreSQL and MySQL support and whole-slide imaging. Orthanc runs on Windows and other platforms and is available as Docker images. It is intended for hospitals, laboratories, research groups and software developers who manage or integrate imaging data themselves.

The project originates in Belgium. Copyright is held by, among others, the University Hospital of Liège, UCLouvain, Osimis S.A. and Orthanc Team SRL. The core is licensed under GPLv3+, and plugins for scalable or cloud deployments, such as PostgreSQL and the web viewer, under AGPLv3+. No foreign parent company is named. An organisation hosts Orthanc itself, for example in an EU data centre, and so keeps full control over the imaging data. Commercial support is available through Orthanc Services. Operation and security remain the user's responsibility.

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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 July 2, 2026

Headquarters	BE (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
Hosting signal	OVH - OVH SAS, FR (FR)Technically measured
Category	Healthcare
Type	Product
Website	orthanc-server.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 Orthanc (self-host)

The European alternatives to Orthanc (self-host) 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

59 European Healthcare 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 Orthanc (self-host)

Orthanc (self-host) is headquartered in BE 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 Orthanc (self-host) scores best on data residency.

Orthanc (self-host) 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 Orthanc (self-host) 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 Orthanc (self-host)?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Orthanc (self-host) include Ada Health, Agfa HealthCare and Aiforia. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Orthanc (self-host)?

Our list of EU alternatives to Orthanc (self-host) is mostly commercial options. Browse the category on the map for open-source choices.

Is Orthanc (self-host) GDPR-compliant and where is the data hosted?

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

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 Healthcare

Healthcare: Healthcare — medical imaging, PACS, clinical systems. 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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