EU Sovereignty Score
EU-hosted, non-EU parentMessagingHeadquarters: LU

Viber: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Viber is a messaging and calling app for individuals and businesses. It offers one-to-one and group chats, voice and video calls, group calls started from a chat, stickers and GIFs, communities, and synchronisation between mobile and desktop. There is also a business offering and a paid calling service, Viber Out. Viber is delivered as an app and is not open source.

The service is provided by Viber Media S.à r.l. in Luxembourg; its parent company is Rakuten Group of Japan, so the ultimate owner sits outside the EU. According to its privacy policy, messages and calls have been end-to-end encrypted since version 6.0, with keys stored only on users' devices; backups are not covered by that encryption. The policy also refers to Rakuten Group's Binding Corporate Rules for data transfers within the group. A European organisation using Viber for business communication should weigh the foreign parent company and these transfer arrangements.

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Sovereignty score
59 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign
  • Jurisdiction SOV-2100
    Headquartered in the EU: European law applies
  • Data residency SOV-350
    Hosting inside and outside Europe (EU, US, OTHER)
  • Cryptographic key sovereignty SOV-360
    Key management with a European vendor
  • Freedom from lock-in SOV-640
    Closed source: switching requires data migration
  • Source & runtime sovereignty SOV-4 · SOV-645
    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 9, 2026
HeadquartersLU (EU)Verified by hand
Ultimate parent companyJPVerified by hand
Sovereignty modelVendor-hosted (EU)Verified by hand
Data hostingEU, US, OTHERVerified by hand
Open-sourceNoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliantYesVendor-stated
CategoryMessaging
TypeProduct
Websiteviber.com ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to Viber

The European alternatives to Viber 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

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 Viber

Viber is headquartered in LU and therefore falls under European law: the GDPR, NIS2 and the Data Act. No foreign legislation can compel access to your data. The ultimate owner is based in JP. Foreign control undermines part of the certainty a European headquarters offers.

Viber hosts data in EU, US, OTHER. Exactly what stays within the EU — and what does not — is defined by the vendor's data processing agreement and sub-processor list, not by a setting you control yourself; check those documents for the precise scope, including backups, logs and support access.

Viber 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 Viber 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 Viber?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Viber 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 Viber?

Yes. Open-source EU alternatives to Viber 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 Viber GDPR-compliant and where is the data hosted?

Viber is headquartered in LU (EU) and hosts data in EU, US, OTHER. That makes Viber 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 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 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 Viber — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score