Self-hosted / open sourceCybersecurityHeadquarters: DE

WireGuard: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

WireGuard is a VPN protocol and software that encapsulates IP packets over UDP. Its website describes it as extremely simple, fast and modern; distribution of keys is left to other layers. It began on Linux, where it is part of the kernel (merged in 2020 with Linux 5.6), and it now runs on Windows, macOS, BSD, iOS and Android. Organisations install and operate it themselves on their own servers, routers and devices; it is not a hosted service.

WireGuard is open source: the kernel components are licensed under GPLv2, other parts under MIT, BSD, Apache 2.0 or GPL. No company or foundation runs the project. It was created by Jason A. Donenfeld, who holds the registered trademarks for the WireGuard name and logo. Funding has come from the Open Technology Fund, donations from several companies, the NLnet Foundation and, in 2023, more than 209,000 euros from Germany's Sovereign Tech Fund. Because you run it yourself, the location of your traffic and your keys is under your control.

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

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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, distributed	Verified by hand
Data hosting	EU	Verified by hand
Open-source	Yes	Verified by hand
GDPR-compliant	Yes	Vendor-stated
Hosting signal	AS-VULTR - The Constant Company, LLC, US (US)	Technically measured
Category	Cybersecurity
Type	Product
Website	wireguard.com ↗

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 WireGuard

The European alternatives to WireGuard 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

93 European Cybersecurity 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 WireGuard

WireGuard 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 WireGuard scores best on data residency.

WireGuard 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 WireGuard 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 WireGuard?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to WireGuard include Actalis, Advenica and Avira. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to WireGuard?

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

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

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

No public compliance evidence has been recorded for this vendor yet. Do you know its DPA or subprocessor list? Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Cyber Resilience Act

Public signals that relate to the EU Cyber Resilience Act. They do not count towards the score. A missing line means "not found publicly".

Report a vulnerability: wireguard.com/#security-contact

For products in scope of the CRA, CE marking is required from 11 December 2027; this cannot be checked yet.

Checked on October 9, 2026. What is the Cyber Resilience Act?

Digital sovereignty in Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity: Threat detection, endpoint protection, SIEM, vulnerability management. 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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