Non-EU vendorVPNHeadquarters: US

StrongVPN: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

StrongVPN is a commercial virtual private network (VPN) service that routes customers' internet traffic through servers it operates. Reportedly, the servers are located in several countries, including Germany, France, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. Customers use the service through client software, and it is a hosted service rather than software that organisations run on their own infrastructure.

The company is based in the United States. The service was launched by Strong Technology LLC and acquired in 2019 by the US technology company J2 Global; its VPN businesses now reportedly belong to Ziff Davis. Because the provider is established in the United States, it is subject to US legal process such as the CLOUD Act, wherever its servers stand. Where customer data is stored and how the GDPR is addressed is not publicly documented, so a European organisation should verify this with the provider before use.

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

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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 October 11, 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	USVerified by hand
Open-source	NoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant	NoVendor-stated
Category	VPN
Type	Product
Website	strongvpn.com ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to StrongVPN

The European alternatives to StrongVPN 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

21 European VPN 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 StrongVPN

StrongVPN 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.

StrongVPN 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.

StrongVPN 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 StrongVPN 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 StrongVPN?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to StrongVPN include AdGuard VPN, AirVPN and Avast SecureLine VPN. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to StrongVPN?

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

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

StrongVPN 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 October 11, 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

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".

We found none of these signals on the vendor's own site when we checked.

For products in scope of the CRA, CE marking is required from 11 December 2027; this cannot be checked yet.

Checked on October 11, 2026. What is the Cyber Resilience Act?

Digital sovereignty in VPN

VPN: Virtual private network — privacy protection, encrypted connection. 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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