EU Sovereignty Score
Non-EU vendorNotes & TasksHeadquarters: US

Simplenote: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Simplenote is a straightforward note-taking app that syncs notes automatically and in real time across devices. You can add tags, search instantly, share lists and publish notes online. Every change is backed up so you can view earlier versions, and Markdown is supported for writing, previewing and publishing. The app is available for iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, Linux and in a web browser.

Simplenote is a product of Automattic Inc., based in San Francisco in the United States. For users in Europe, Aut O'Mattic A8C Ireland Ltd. in Dublin acts as the data controller under the privacy policy, and data of users in the EU or UK may be used, stored or accessed by people outside the European Economic Area. The clients are open source: the web, Windows and Linux client is licensed under GPL-2.0, and separate repositories exist for macOS, iOS and Android. For a European organisation, the sync service is operated by a US company.

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Sovereignty score
49 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign
  • Jurisdiction SOV-210
    Headquartered in the US: CLOUD Act and FISA 702
  • Data residency SOV-30
    No hosting in Europe (US)
  • 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 July 2, 2026
HeadquartersUS (US)Verified by hand
EU adequacy decisionOnly for companies individually certified under the EU-US Data Privacy FrameworkVerified by hand
Sovereignty modelVendor-hosted (non-EU)Verified by hand
Data hostingUSVerified by hand
Open-sourceYesVerified by hand
GDPR-compliantYesVendor-stated
Hosting signalAUTOMATTIC - Automattic, Inc, US (US)Technically measured
CategoryNotes & Tasks
TypeProduct
Websitesimplenote.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 Simplenote

The European alternatives to Simplenote come from our knowledge base of over 6,200 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

25 European Notes & Tasks 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 Simplenote

Simplenote 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.

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

Simplenote 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 Simplenote 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 Simplenote?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Simplenote include Anytype, Carnet and CryptPad. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Simplenote?

Yes. Open-source EU alternatives to Simplenote include Carnet, CryptPad, HedgeDoc, Joplin, Nextcloud Notes, Nextcloud Tasks and OpenProject Tasks. These keep your data fully under your own control and let you self-host if you want to.

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

Simplenote is headquartered in US and hosts data in US. 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 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".

No public compliance evidence has been recorded for this vendor yet. Do you know its DPA or subprocessor list? Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Digital sovereignty in Notes & Tasks

Notes & Tasks: Note-taking apps and task management — write, organise, sync. 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 Simplenote — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score