Self-hosted / open sourceWhiteboarding & Visual CollaborationHeadquarters: GB

tldraw: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

tldraw is an infinite-canvas SDK for React that developers use to build whiteboards, diagrams and other canvas tools. It provides real-time multiplayer collaboration with live cursors and presence, drawing tools, shapes, text, arrows and an Editor API for adding custom shapes and tools. The same technology powers tldraw.com, a collaborative whiteboard that the vendor describes as free and instant. Starter kits, including a multiplayer one, help teams get going quickly.

The source code is on GitHub under the tldraw licence: development use is free, while production use requires a licence key, according to the repository. The multiplayer starter kit is self-hosted and built on Cloudflare Durable Objects, so an organisation can run the collaboration backend on its own account and infrastructure. The tldraw site does not say where boards on tldraw.com are stored. Organisations that need control over data location and jurisdiction are therefore better served by building on the SDK with their own backend than by relying on the hosted service.

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

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Sovereignty score

63 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign

Jurisdiction SOV-250
Headquartered outside the EU (GB)
Data residency SOV-3100
No hosting in Europe (US, self-hosted)
Cryptographic key sovereignty SOV-380
Closed source, but self-hostable: encryption keys and runtime under your own control
Freedom from lock-in SOV-640
Closed source: switching requires data migration
Source & runtime sovereignty SOV-4 · SOV-645
Closed source, but self-hostable on your own infrastructure

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 9, 2026

Headquarters	GB (OTHER)Verified by hand
EU adequacy decision	Yes — found adequate by the European CommissionVerified by hand
Data hosting	Self-hosted, e.g. in US, self-hosted (your choice)Verified by hand
Open-source	NoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant	NoVendor-stated
Category	Whiteboarding & Visual Collaboration
Type	Product
Website	tldraw.com ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to tldraw

The European alternatives to tldraw 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

11 European Whiteboarding & Visual Collaboration 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 tldraw

tldraw is headquartered in GB, outside the EU. Contracts and data therefore also fall under non-European law. The GDPR applies through contractual terms, but in a conflict with local legislation you have less certainty than with a European vendor.

tldraw runs on infrastructure you choose and control yourself. You decide where the data lives, including fully within the EU if you want — this is not a fixed hosting choice made by the vendor.

tldraw is closed source, but you run the software yourself on your own infrastructure. The encryption keys and the runtime therefore stay under your own control, though you cannot audit or modify the source code. Ask about export options and open standards to limit software-level lock-in.

What this means for your organisation depends on your whole stack and context. The free assessment weighs tldraw 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 tldraw?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to tldraw include Collaboard, Conceptboard and Explain Everything. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to tldraw?

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

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

tldraw is headquartered in GB (OTHER) and hosts data in US, self-hosted. 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 9, 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 Whiteboarding & Visual Collaboration

Whiteboarding & Visual Collaboration: Infinite-canvas whiteboards for brainstorming, workshops and visual planning. 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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