Self-hosted / open sourceWhiteboarding & Visual CollaborationHeadquarters: DE

yEd Graph Editor: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

yEd Graph Editor is a desktop application for drawing diagrams and graphs, such as flowcharts, network diagrams, organisation charts and UML diagrams. Users create diagrams by hand or import external data, after which automatic layout algorithms arrange large diagrams. It runs on Windows, Linux and macOS and requires a Java runtime; an online variant, yEd Live, is also available. It is an alternative to drawing tools such as Microsoft Visio or Lucidchart for people who want to edit diagrams locally.

yEd is developed by yWorks GmbH in Tübingen, Germany. The program is licensed under its own yEd software licence agreement, which also covers commercial use; it is not open source. Diagrams are saved as files on the user's own computer, so the organisation decides where the data is kept. The yWorks website is hosted by IONOS in Germany. The privacy policy states that the optional AI graph generation feature in yEd Live sends the request to OpenAI; organisations that do not want this can simply not use the feature.

See the 8 European alternatives ↓Assess your stack with yEd Graph Editor pre-selected

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Sovereignty score

80 / 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-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-680
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 12, 2026

Headquarters	DE (EU)Verified by hand
Data hosting	Self-hosted, e.g. in EU (your choice)Verified by hand
Open-source	NoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant	YesVendor-stated
Category	Whiteboarding & Visual Collaboration
Type	Product
Website	yworks.com ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to yEd Graph Editor

The European alternatives to yEd Graph Editor come from our knowledge base of over 8,000 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

20 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 yEd Graph Editor

yEd Graph Editor 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.

yEd Graph Editor 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.

yEd Graph Editor 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 yEd Graph Editor 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 yEd Graph Editor?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to yEd Graph Editor include Beekast, Classroomscreen and Collaboard. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to yEd Graph Editor?

Our list of EU alternatives to yEd Graph Editor is mostly commercial options. Browse the category on the map for open-source choices.

Is yEd Graph Editor GDPR-compliant and where is the data hosted?

yEd Graph Editor is headquartered in DE (EU) and hosts data in EU. That makes yEd Graph Editor 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 12, 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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