EU Sovereignty Score
Self-hosted / open sourceRemote Desktop & SupportHeadquarters: GB

PuTTY: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

PuTTY is a free implementation of SSH and Telnet for Windows and Unix, together with an xterm terminal emulator. System administrators and developers use it to log in to servers and network equipment over an encrypted connection and run commands there. The package also includes tools such as PSCP, PSFTP and Plink for file transfer and for use in scripts. PuTTY is downloaded as a desktop program and runs locally; there is no central service or cloud environment.

PuTTY is maintained by a small team in Cambridge, England, and is therefore outside the EU. The software is under the MIT licence. According to the privacy appendix in its documentation, PuTTY never phones home to the developers: it stores data only locally, such as the host key cache and saved sessions, and sends data only to the server you choose to connect to. Your configuration and connection details therefore stay on your own computer, out of the team's reach. The team still publishes new releases, including security fixes.

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Sovereignty score
77 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign
  • Jurisdiction SOV-250
    Headquartered outside the EU (GB)
  • Data residency SOV-3100
    No hosting in Europe (OTHER)
  • 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-665
    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 October 14, 2026
Headquarters
GB (OTHER)Verified by hand
EU adequacy decision
Yes — found adequate by the European CommissionVerified by hand
Sovereignty model
Open-source, distributedVerified by hand
Data hosting
OTHERVerified by hand
Open-source
YesVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant
YesVendor-stated
Category
Remote Desktop & Support
Type
Product
Website
chiark.greenend.org.uk ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to PuTTY

The European alternatives to PuTTY come from our knowledge base of over 8,400 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

22 European Remote Desktop & Support 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 PuTTY

PuTTY is headquartered in GB, 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.

PuTTY hosts data outside the EU (OTHER). Personal data therefore leaves the EU, which requires a transfer mechanism under the GDPR and pulls the data residency score down.

PuTTY 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 PuTTY 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 PuTTY?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to PuTTY include AnyDesk, DWService and FastViewer. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to PuTTY?

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

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

PuTTY is headquartered in GB (OTHER) and hosts data in 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 14, 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

In the changelog

Earlier changes to this page, as listed in the public changelog.

Digital sovereignty in Remote Desktop & Support

Remote Desktop & Support: Remote access, remote support and screen sharing. 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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8 European alternatives to PuTTY — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score