EU sovereignVPNHeadquarters: SE

PrivateVPN: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

PrivateVPN is a VPN service for individuals that encrypts internet traffic and routes it through the provider's servers. Apps are available for Mac, Windows, iOS, Android and Kodi, and the service can also be set up on Linux and on routers. Listed features include a kill switch, P2P support, port forwarding, website unblocking for services such as streaming platforms, and up to ten simultaneous connections. The vendor describes its policy as no-logging and says support comes from in-house developers. The service is delivered as a subscription with a money-back guarantee.

PrivateVPN is operated by PrivateVPN Global AB, and the vendor describes itself as a Swedish-based VPN provider. The website names no owners or investors and does not say whether the company belongs to a larger group, so no foreign parent is documented. The software is not open source and there is no self-hosting option. For a European organisation, a Swedish operator falls under EU law, though the sources do not specify where the servers are hosted.

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Sovereignty score

71 / 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-360
Key management with a European vendor
Freedom from lock-in SOV-640
Closed source: switching requires data migration
Source & runtime sovereignty SOV-4 · SOV-655
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 5, 2026

Headquarters	SE (EU)Verified by hand
Sovereignty model	Vendor-hosted (EU)Verified by hand
Data hosting	EUVerified by hand
Open-source	NoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant	YesVendor-stated
Category	VPN
Type	Product
Website	privatevpn.com ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to PrivateVPN

The European alternatives to PrivateVPN 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

21 European VPN 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 PrivateVPN

PrivateVPN is headquartered in SE 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 PrivateVPN scores best on data residency.

PrivateVPN 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 PrivateVPN 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 PrivateVPN?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to PrivateVPN include AdGuard VPN, AirVPN and Avast SecureLine VPN. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to PrivateVPN?

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

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

PrivateVPN is headquartered in SE (EU) and hosts data in EU. That makes PrivateVPN 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 October 5, 2026.

Sources

Public sources used in the latest check of this record.

privatevpn.com/

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 9, 2026. What is the Cyber Resilience Act?

Digital sovereignty in VPN

VPN: Virtual private network — privacy protection, encrypted connection. 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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