Non-EU vendorCybersecurityHeadquarters: US

Qualys VMDR: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Qualys VMDR (Vulnerability Management, Detection and Response) is a cloud platform for vulnerability management. It builds an inventory of devices, including cloud, container and mobile assets, detects software vulnerabilities and misconfigurations, and prioritises them using threat indicators and risk scores. It can identify missing patches and, with a separate Patch Management subscription, start their deployment. Data is collected by lightweight Cloud Agents and scanners and managed in Qualys's cloud platform.

Qualys is a publicly traded US company headquartered in Foster City, California, and is therefore subject to US law such as the CLOUD Act. It operates several regional platforms, including three in Europe (EU1, EU2 and EU3), and announced a local platform for customers in Italy in 2023. Qualys does not name the exact data-centre locations, so have them confirmed contractually. VMDR is not open source. A European organisation can therefore choose a European platform, but still deals with a US provider.

See the 8 European alternatives ↓Assess your stack with Qualys VMDR pre-selected

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Sovereignty score

27 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign

Jurisdiction SOV-210
Headquartered in the US: CLOUD Act and FISA 702
Data residency SOV-350
Hosting inside and outside Europe (US, EU)
Cryptographic key sovereignty SOV-320
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-615
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 September 20, 2026

Headquarters	US (US)Verified by hand
EU adequacy decision	Only for companies individually certified under the EU-US Data Privacy FrameworkVerified by hand
Sovereignty model	Vendor-hosted (non-EU)Verified by hand
Data hosting	US, EUVerified by hand
Open-source	NoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant	YesVendor-stated
Hosting signal	CLOUDFLARENET - Cloudflare, Inc., US (US)Technically measured
Category	Cybersecurity
Type	Product
Website	qualys.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 Qualys VMDR

The European alternatives to Qualys VMDR 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

93 European Cybersecurity 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 Qualys VMDR

Qualys VMDR is headquartered in the United States. US vendors fall under the CLOUD Act and FISA 702: US authorities can compel access to data, even when that data sits in a European data centre. That is the core of the jurisdictional exposure in our model.

Qualys VMDR hosts data in US, EU. 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.

Qualys VMDR 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 Qualys VMDR 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 Qualys VMDR?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Qualys VMDR include Greenbone, Outpost24 and Holm Security. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Qualys VMDR?

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

Is Qualys VMDR GDPR-compliant and where is the data hosted?

Qualys VMDR is headquartered in US and hosts data in US, EU. 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 September 20, 2026.

Sources

This record was checked via the vendor's website and legal notice when it was added on September 20, 2026. Source links have been recorded per record since 20 September 2026.

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: qualys.com/docs/responsible-disclosure-policy.pdf
security.txt: qualys.com/.well-known/security.txt
Supported versions: notifications.qualys.com/notifications/2026/07/23/end-of-support-qualys-cloud-agent-versions-for-2027

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 Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity: Threat detection, endpoint protection, SIEM, vulnerability management. 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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