Non-EU vendorVPNHeadquarters: PK

PureVPN: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

PureVPN is a subscription VPN service that presents itself as a wider privacy suite. It offers VPN connections over WireGuard, OpenVPN, IKEv2 and SSTP, obfuscated servers, split tunnelling and a kill switch, plus optional add-ons such as a dedicated IP, port forwarding, a password manager, a tracker and ad blocker, dark web monitoring and a service for removing data from data brokers. Apps are available for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS, along with browser extensions and support for TV devices and routers.

PureVPN is a brand of GZ Systems Limited, whose registered address is in Road Town, Tortola, in the British Virgin Islands; the company was founded in 2007 and a co-founder is based in Pakistan. Its privacy policy names no parent company. The provider lists servers in many countries, including Germany, France, Spain and Italy. The software is proprietary. The privacy policy names no EU representative; for transfers from the EEA to third countries, the provider relies on standard contractual clauses. For a European organisation, this is a provider outside the EU.

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Sovereignty score

42 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign

Jurisdiction SOV-250
Headquartered outside the EU (PK)
Data residency SOV-350
Hosting inside and outside Europe (EU, OTHER)
Cryptographic key sovereignty SOV-340
Key management with a non-European vendor
Freedom from lock-in SOV-640
Closed source: switching requires data migration
Source & runtime sovereignty SOV-4 · SOV-630
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	PK (OTHER)Verified by hand
EU adequacy decision	No — no adequacy decisionVerified by hand
Sovereignty model	Vendor-hosted (non-EU)Verified by hand
Data hosting	EU, OTHERVerified by hand
Open-source	NoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant	YesVendor-stated
Category	VPN
Type	Product
Website	purevpn.com ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to PureVPN

The European alternatives to PureVPN 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 PureVPN

PureVPN is headquartered in PK, outside the EU. Contracts and data therefore also fall under non-European law. The GDPR applies through contractual terms, but in a conflict with local legislation you have less certainty than with a European vendor.

PureVPN hosts data in EU, OTHER. Exactly what stays within the EU — and what does not — is defined by the vendor's data processing agreement and sub-processor list, not by a setting you control yourself; check those documents for the precise scope, including backups, logs and support access.

PureVPN 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 PureVPN 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 PureVPN?

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

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

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

PureVPN is headquartered in PK (OTHER) and hosts data in EU, OTHER. The vendor states it is GDPR-compliant, but the data falls under non-EU jurisdiction. For full EU data residency the EU alternatives on this page usually offer more certainty.

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.

purevpn.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".

Report a vulnerability: purevpn.com/vulnerability-disclosure-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 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.

Also in this category

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