EU sovereignVPNHeadquarters: CH

ProtonVPN: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Proton VPN is a VPN service from Proton AG that encrypts internet traffic and hides the user's IP address. It supports WireGuard and OpenVPN and uses AES-256 or ChaCha20 encryption. Apps are available for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iPhone and iPad and Chromebook, with browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox and support for Android TV, Apple TV and Fire TV. A free plan exists, while paid plans add features such as an ad, tracker and malware blocker. It is delivered as an app-based subscription and belongs to the Proton ecosystem, which includes Proton Mail, Drive and Pass.

Proton AG is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, which is not an EU member but belongs to EFTA. The vendor states that its apps are open source and independently audited, that external experts have verified its no-logs policy, and that Swiss law imposes no forced-logging obligation. Proton says it fully controls the bare-metal servers holding maintenance data. No foreign parent company is documented. A European organisation should weigh Swiss rather than EU jurisdiction.

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Sovereignty score

69 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign

Jurisdiction SOV-2100
Headquartered in Switzerland: Swiss law, recognised by the EU as adequate
Data residency SOV-390
Hosting in the EU and Switzerland
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 9, 2026

Headquarters	CH (EU)Verified by hand
Sovereignty model	Vendor-hosted (EU)Verified by hand
Data hosting	CH, EUVerified by hand
Open-source	NoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant	YesVendor-stated
Compliance documents	1 published, see belowVendor-stated
Hosting signal	ProtonVPN - Proton AG, CH (CH)Technically measured
Category	VPN
Type	Product
Website	protonvpn.com ↗

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 ProtonVPN

The European alternatives to ProtonVPN 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 ProtonVPN

ProtonVPN is headquartered in Switzerland and falls under Swiss law, including the revised Swiss data protection act. Switzerland is not an EU member, but the European Commission recognises its level of data protection as adequate. Its Swiss headquarters does not by itself bring it under US legislation such as the CLOUD Act.

ProtonVPN hosts data in the EU and in Switzerland. Switzerland is covered by a European Commission adequacy decision, so personal data can go there without extra safeguards. If you require strictly EU hosting, check the data processing agreement for which data is stored in Switzerland.

ProtonVPN 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 ProtonVPN 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 ProtonVPN?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to ProtonVPN 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 ProtonVPN?

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

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

ProtonVPN is headquartered in CH (EFTA) and hosts data in CH, EU. That makes ProtonVPN 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 9, 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".

Security page / trust center: proton.me/security/response-center?ref=pvpn_lp_b2c_vpn_footer

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".

Report a vulnerability: proton.me/security/bug-bounty
security.txt: protonvpn.com/.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 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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