EU sovereignCybersecurityHeadquarters: DE

Padloc: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Padloc is an open-source password manager for individuals and teams. Besides passwords it stores notes, documents, payment cards and licence keys, and it includes an authenticator for one-time codes, shared vaults for teams and directory sync for businesses. It runs as a web app, as desktop and mobile apps, and as browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox. According to Padloc, data is encrypted locally with keys derived from the master password, and its servers hold only encrypted data.

Padloc is developed by MaKleSoft UG, a company based in Ansbach, Germany, which states in its privacy policy that it is bound by EU privacy law, including the GDPR. The source code is published on GitHub under the GNU Affero General Public License. Self-hosting the server and web client is possible, although the project says detailed production guides are still to come. The privacy policy mentions third-party hosting processors without naming provider or location, so organisations needing a specific hosting region should ask the vendor or run their own server.

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

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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	DE (EU)Verified by hand
Sovereignty model	Vendor-hosted (EU)Verified by hand
Data hosting	EUVerified by hand
Open-source	YesVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant	YesVendor-stated
Compliance documents	1 published, see belowVendor-stated
Hosting signal	FASTLY - Fastly, Inc., US (US)Technically measured
Category	Cybersecurity
Type	Product
Website	padloc.app ↗

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 Padloc

The European alternatives to Padloc 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

93 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 Padloc

Padloc is headquartered in DE 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 Padloc scores best on data residency.

Padloc 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 Padloc 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 Padloc?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Padloc include Actalis, Advenica and Avira. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Padloc?

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

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

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

Security page / trust center: padloc.app/privacy/

Provenance of the links above:Vendor-stated

Links checked on September 21, 2026.

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 9, 2026. What is the Cyber Resilience Act?

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.

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