EU Sovereignty Score
Self-hosted / open sourceMessagingHeadquarters: DE

Tox: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Tox is free, ad-free software for chatting, calling, video calls, screen sharing and file transfer, with group chats that support calls, video and files. It is a peer-to-peer protocol: users connect directly to one another using a public and private key pair. Several clients exist, such as qTox, Toxic and aTox. According to the website, conversations are encrypted and there are no central servers, so there is no single server that can be shut down or made to hand over data.

Tox is maintained by the TokTok project, a collective with no stated company structure or location. The reference implementation, c-toxcore, is free software under GPL-3.0 or later. Because there is no operator, there is no hosted service and no storage of messages with a vendor. There is also no contracting party for data processing agreements or support. TokTok itself states that the protocol and implementation have not had peer review and advises against use where proven high assurance is required. That is a relevant consideration for European organisations.

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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 July 2, 2026
Headquarters
DE (EU)Verified by hand
Sovereignty model
Open-source, distributedVerified by hand
Data hosting
EUVerified by hand
Open-source
YesVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant
YesVendor-stated
Compliance documents
1 published, see belowVendor-stated
Hosting signal
DIGITALOCEAN-ASN - DigitalOcean, LLC, US (US)Technically measured
Category
Messaging
Type
Product
Website
tox.chat ↗

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 Tox

The European alternatives to Tox 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 Messaging 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 Tox

Tox is headquartered in DE 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 Tox scores best on data residency.

Tox 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 Tox 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 Tox?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Tox include Balsio, Berty and Conversations (XMPP). On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Tox?

Yes. Open-source EU alternatives to Tox include Berty, Conversations (XMPP), Delta Chat, Dino and Gajim. These keep your data fully under your own control and let you self-host if you want to.

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

Tox is headquartered in DE (EU) and hosts data in EU. It is also open-source, so you can self-host it. That makes Tox 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 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".

Security page / trust center
tox.chat/faq.html

Provenance of the links above:Vendor-stated

Links checked on September 22, 2026.

Digital sovereignty in Messaging

Messaging: Personal messaging — chat, group conversations, media sharing. 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 Tox — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score