EU Sovereignty Score
Self-hosted / open sourceCybersecurityHeadquarters: US

OWASP ZAP (ZAP by Checkmarx): sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

ZAP (Zed Attack Proxy) is a web application security scanner for developers and security teams who want to find vulnerabilities during penetration tests and in CI pipelines. It acts as an intercepting proxy between browser and application, and also offers automated scans and extensions through add-ons. Since 2026 there is also an optional add-on that connects ZAP to a language model of your choice. It runs as a program on your own system.

ZAP is open source under the Apache License, version 2.0. Since September 2024 the three project leaders have been employed by Checkmarx, a commercial application security vendor that, according to its own site, operates from the US, London, Frankfurt and Tel Aviv, among other places; the project site carries the name 'ZAP by Checkmarx' and describes the project as community-based. Because you install and use ZAP yourself, scan results and target data stay on your own infrastructure. The project's direction is, however, shaped in part by a commercial company, which can matter when you assess your suppliers.

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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 14, 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
Open-source, distributedVerified by hand
Data hosting
USVerified by hand
Open-source
YesVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant
YesVendor-stated
Category
Cybersecurity
Type
Product
Website
zaproxy.org ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to OWASP ZAP (ZAP by Checkmarx)

The European alternatives to OWASP ZAP (ZAP by Checkmarx) come from our knowledge base of over 8,400 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

181 European Cybersecurity 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 OWASP ZAP (ZAP by Checkmarx)

OWASP ZAP (ZAP by Checkmarx) 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.

OWASP ZAP (ZAP by Checkmarx) 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.

OWASP ZAP (ZAP by Checkmarx) 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 OWASP ZAP (ZAP by Checkmarx) 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 OWASP ZAP (ZAP by Checkmarx)?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to OWASP ZAP (ZAP by Checkmarx) include Actalis, Advenica and Aikido Security. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to OWASP ZAP (ZAP by Checkmarx)?

Our list of EU alternatives to OWASP ZAP (ZAP by Checkmarx) is mostly commercial options. Browse the category on the map for open-source choices.

Is OWASP ZAP (ZAP by Checkmarx) GDPR-compliant and where is the data hosted?

OWASP ZAP (ZAP by Checkmarx) 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 14, 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".

security.txt
zaproxy.org/.well-known/security.txt

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

Checked on October 14, 2026. What is the Cyber Resilience Act?

In the changelog

Earlier changes to this page, as listed in the public changelog.

Digital sovereignty in Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity: Threat detection, endpoint protection, SIEM, vulnerability management. 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 OWASP ZAP (ZAP by Checkmarx) — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score