Self-hosted / open sourcePassword ManagerHeadquarters: DE

Password Safe: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Password Safe is a free, open-source password manager that keeps user names and passwords in a single encrypted list, unlocked with a master password. It was designed by Bruce Schneier, who started the project at Counterpane Systems; the first release came out in 2002. The official version is available for Windows (10 and later), macOS and Linux, with packages for popular distributions, and for FreeBSD. The site also mentions two-factor authentication with a YubiKey. Third-party Android, iOS and Mac apps that use the same file format are listed on the site as clones.

Password Safe is a local application with no hosted service: your vault is a file that you store and synchronise yourself. The software is licensed under the Artistic License 2.0 and maintained by volunteers on GitHub; no company or parent company is named. Downloads are offered through GitHub and SourceForge, platforms that fall under US jurisdiction.

See the 8 European alternatives ↓Assess your stack with Password Safe 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	Open-source, distributedVerified by hand
Data hosting	EUVerified by hand
Open-source	YesVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant	YesVendor-stated
Hosting signal	NAMECHEAP-NET - Namecheap, Inc., US (US)Technically measured
Category	Password Manager
Type	Product
Website	pwsafe.org ↗

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 Password Safe

The European alternatives to Password Safe 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

25 European Password Manager 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 Password Safe

Password Safe 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 Password Safe scores best on data residency.

Password Safe 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 Password Safe 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 Password Safe?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Password Safe include AuthPass, Avira Password Manager and Dashlane. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Password Safe?

Yes. Open-source EU alternatives to Password Safe include AuthPass, gopass, KeePass and KeePassXC. These keep your data fully under your own control and let you self-host if you want to.

Is Password Safe GDPR-compliant and where is the data hosted?

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

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".

Report a vulnerability: github.com/pwsafe/pwsafe/security/policy
Supported versions: github.com/pwsafe/pwsafe/security/policy

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 Password Manager

Password Manager: Password vault — generate, store and autofill passwords. 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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