EU Sovereignty Score
Self-hosted / open sourceDatabase & Data ManagementHeadquarters: SE

TerminusDB: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

TerminusDB is an open-source knowledge graph and document database with Git-like version control, sometimes described as git-for-data. It offers document APIs, GraphQL and a Datalog-based query engine called WOQL. It can be run locally or on your own infrastructure with Docker, and the maintainer also offers a hosted service, DFRNT Cloud. Organisations that need a versioned, auditable graph can consider it as an alternative to commercial graph databases such as Neo4j.

TerminusDB is maintained and offered by DFRNT AB, a Swedish company that has traded as Gettier since September 2026. The project has been under DFRNT's stewardship since 2025 and is licensed under Apache 2.0, so it can be run on your own infrastructure without a vendor contract. As a company based in Sweden, an EU member state, the maintainer is subject to EU law. The data location of the hosted DFRNT Cloud service is not stated on the vendor's public pages, so organisations considering it for personal data should check its hosting terms first.

See the 8 European alternatives ↓Assess your stack with TerminusDB pre-selected
MastodonLinkedInBlueskyXEmail
Sovereignty score
94 / 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-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-6100
    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 October 12, 2026
Headquarters
SE (EU)Verified by hand
Sovereignty model
Open-source, distributedVerified by hand
Data hosting
EUVerified by hand
Open-source
YesVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant
NoVendor-stated
Category
Database & Data Management
Type
Product
Website
terminusdb.com ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to TerminusDB

The European alternatives to TerminusDB come from our knowledge base of over 8,000 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

13 European Database & Data Management vendors are in the catalogue. View the whole category · Submit an alternative · View category on the map

Is TerminusDB one of many dependencies?

Score your whole stack in about three minutes. Free, no account needed.

Assess your stack →View a sample report (opens in a new tab)

Why digital sovereignty matters with TerminusDB

TerminusDB is headquartered in SE 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 TerminusDB scores best on data residency.

TerminusDB 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 TerminusDB 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 TerminusDB?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to TerminusDB include Aiven, ArangoDB and DuckDB. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to TerminusDB?

Yes. Open-source EU alternatives to TerminusDB include DuckDB, Elastic, Firebird SQL and Meilisearch. These keep your data fully under your own control and let you self-host if you want to.

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

TerminusDB is headquartered in SE (EU) and hosts data in EU. It is also open-source, so you can self-host it. That makes TerminusDB 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 October 12, 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

Digital sovereignty in Database & Data Management

Database & Data Management: Database systems, data warehousing, managed database services and data 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

See all →
Open in the alternatives dashboardMissing a vendor? Submit itAre you this vendor? You can also become a sponsor on the Database & Data Management page — with no effect on your score
8 European alternatives to TerminusDB — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score