EU Sovereignty Score
Self-hosted / open sourceBPM & WorkflowHeadquarters: US

Windmill: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Windmill is an open-source orchestration platform that lets teams turn scripts written in languages such as Python, TypeScript, Go and SQL into workflows, internal apps, AI agents and data pipelines. It offers a visual workflow builder and scheduled or triggered execution. You can run Windmill yourself with Docker or Kubernetes, in your own cloud or on premises, or use the cloud service operated by Windmill Labs. Enterprise features such as SAML/SCIM are covered by a separate licence.

Windmill is developed by Windmill Labs, Inc., a US company with a team spread between Paris and San Francisco. The code is largely released under the AGPLv3 licence, but the Community Edition also contains closed-source components. According to the documentation, the shared cloud service runs in the United States; dedicated cloud instances in the EU are available only to Cloud Enterprise customers. Self-hosting gives you full control over location, workers and network. European organisations can thus keep processing in their own EU environment.

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Sovereignty score
71 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign
  • Jurisdiction SOV-210
    Headquartered in the US: CLOUD Act and FISA 702
  • Data residency SOV-3100
    Hosting inside and outside Europe (US, EU)
  • 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-675
    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 10, 2026
HeadquartersUS (US)Verified by hand
EU adequacy decisionOnly for companies individually certified under the EU-US Data Privacy FrameworkVerified by hand
Sovereignty modelOpen-source, distributedVerified by hand
Data hostingUS, EUVerified by hand
Open-sourceYesVerified by hand
GDPR-compliantNoVendor-stated
CategoryBPM & Workflow
TypeProduct
Websitewindmill.dev ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to Windmill

The European alternatives to Windmill 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

22 European BPM & Workflow 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 Windmill

Windmill 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.

Windmill hosts data in US, EU. 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.

Windmill 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 Windmill 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 Windmill?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Windmill include Albato, ARIS and Automatisch. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Windmill?

Yes. Open-source EU alternatives to Windmill include Automatisch, Ofelia (Bonita) and Flowable. These keep your data fully under your own control and let you self-host if you want to.

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

Windmill is headquartered in US and hosts data in US, EU. 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 10, 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 BPM & Workflow

BPM & Workflow: Business process management, workflow automation and process modelling. 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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8 European alternatives to Windmill — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score