EU Sovereignty Score
EU sovereignVideo StreamingHeadquarters: DE

RTL+: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

RTL+ is the streaming service of RTL Deutschland, aimed at Germany, Austria and Switzerland; a separate version exists in Hungary. It grew out of the RTLnow portal, later became TVNOW, and was renamed RTL+ in November 2021. The offer includes live streams, programmes from the RTL channels, series and films, among them content from Warner Bros. Discovery. There is a free ad-supported tier as well as paid subscriptions. RTL+ is delivered as a hosted service through the website and apps.

RTL Deutschland is based in Cologne and is part of RTL Group, which has its headquarters in Luxembourg City. Bertelsmann is the majority shareholder of RTL Group, so the ultimate parent is in Germany, within the EU. The service is not open source and cannot be self-hosted. For a European organisation this means both the operator and the owner fall under European law and no non-European parent appears in the ownership chain.

See the 8 European alternatives ↓Assess your stack with RTL+ pre-selected
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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 July 2, 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
Compliance documents
1 published, see belowVendor-stated
Hosting signal
AS-CBC - RTL Technology GmbH, DE (DE)Technically measured
Category
Video Streaming
Type
Product
Website
rtlplus.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 RTL+

The European alternatives to RTL+ 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

73 European Video Streaming 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 RTL+

RTL+ 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 RTL+ scores best on data residency.

RTL+ 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 RTL+ 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 RTL+?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to RTL+ include Accedo, ADN and Antena Play. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to RTL+?

Our list of EU alternatives to RTL+ is mostly commercial options. Browse the category on the map for open-source choices.

Is RTL+ GDPR-compliant and where is the data hosted?

RTL+ is headquartered in DE (EU) and hosts data in EU. That makes RTL+ 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 July 2, 2026.

Sources

This record was checked via the vendor's website and legal notice during the full audit of June and July 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".

Security page / trust center
rtlplus.com/datenschutz

Provenance of the links above:Vendor-stated

Links checked on September 23, 2026.

Digital sovereignty in Video Streaming

Video Streaming: Video streaming services — movies, series, live TV. 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 RTL+ — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score