EU Sovereignty Score
Non-EU vendorCMSHeadquarters: US

Squarespace: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Squarespace is a website builder and hosting platform for entrepreneurs and small businesses. It provides templates, an AI website builder and a drag-and-drop editor, with tools for online stores, portfolios, blogs, scheduling, invoicing, memberships and donations, plus email and SMS campaigns, SEO tools, domain registration and business email. It is delivered as software as a service and is aimed at creative professionals, consultants, nonprofits, event organisers and individuals, with a programme for freelancers and agencies.

Squarespace, Inc. is based in New York. Since October 2024 it has been delisted and privately held, after funds of Permira, a British private equity firm, acquired it. Its ultimate parent therefore sits in the United Kingdom, while the company remains American, so US legislation such as the CLOUD Act can apply. According to its data processing addendum, data may be transferred to countries in which Squarespace or its sub-processors operate, in particular the US, relying on the EU-US Data Privacy Framework or standard contractual clauses. Squarespace is not open source.

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Sovereignty score
17 / 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-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 July 2, 2026
HeadquartersUS (US)Verified by hand
Ultimate parent companyGBVerified 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-sourceNoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliantNoVendor-stated
Hosting signalSQUARESPACE - Squarespace, Inc., US (US)Technically measured
CategoryCMS
TypeProduct
Websitesquarespace.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 Squarespace

The European alternatives to Squarespace 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

39 European CMS 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 Squarespace

Squarespace 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. The ultimate owner is based in GB. Foreign control undermines part of the certainty a European headquarters offers.

Squarespace 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.

Squarespace 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 Squarespace 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 Squarespace?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Squarespace include TYPO3, Umbraco and Kirby CMS. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Squarespace?

Yes. Open-source EU alternatives to Squarespace include TYPO3, Umbraco, Contao, Cockpit CMS, Neos CMS and Plone. These keep your data fully under your own control and let you self-host if you want to.

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

Squarespace is headquartered in US and hosts data in US. Its GDPR compliance is limited or unclear. 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

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
squarespace.com/vulnerability-reporting
security.txt
squarespace.com/.well-known/security.txt

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 CMS

CMS: Content management systems — websites, headless CMS, digital experience platforms. 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 Squarespace — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score