EU Sovereignty Score
EU sovereignCAD & EngineeringHeadquarters: DE

PROSTEP: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

PROSTEP is a vendor-neutral software and consulting company for product lifecycle management (PLM), founded in 1993 and based in Darmstadt. Its digital thread platform includes OpenPDM INTEGRATE for cross-domain data integration, OpenCLM TRACEABILITY for regulated industries, OpenDXM COLLABORATE for secure data exchange with partners and OpenPDM MIGRATE for PLM migrations. It also offers the SaaS services OpenDXM GlobalX and OpenPDM SaaS, along with consulting and connectors for CAD, PLM and ERP systems.

PROSTEP AG is registered in the commercial register of Darmstadt under HRB 8383. The website lists its shareholders, among them Robert Bosch, Siemens and Volkswagen, and the prostep ivip association, and states that the company was founded by companies from the German automotive and electrical industries. No majority holder is named and no foreign parent is stated. The public website does not say where SaaS customer data is hosted, but its privacy policy refers to processing agreements under Article 28 GDPR. Organisations considering the SaaS services should ask for hosting locations and sub-processors in writing.

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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 10, 2026
Headquarters
DE (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
CAD & Engineering
Type
Product
Website
prostep.com ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to PROSTEP

The European alternatives to PROSTEP 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

68 European CAD & Engineering 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 PROSTEP

PROSTEP 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 PROSTEP scores best on data residency.

PROSTEP 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 PROSTEP 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 PROSTEP?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to PROSTEP include ACCA software, ALLPLAN and AUCOTEC Engineering Base. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to PROSTEP?

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

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

PROSTEP is headquartered in DE (EU) and hosts data in EU. That makes PROSTEP 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 10, 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

Digital sovereignty in CAD & Engineering

CAD & Engineering: Computer-aided design, 3D modelling and engineering simulation software. 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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8 European alternatives to PROSTEP — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score