EU Sovereignty Score
Self-hosted / open sourceIoT & EmbeddedHeadquarters: US

Zephyr Project: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

Zephyr is an open-source real-time operating system (RTOS) for embedded devices, from small Cortex-M microcontrollers to multi-core 64-bit processors. It is aimed at developers of connected products that need a small, scalable kernel with broad hardware support. The source code is published under the Apache License 2.0 and is built and run on the developer's own hardware, without a vendor-operated cloud service.

The project is hosted by the Linux Foundation, a non-profit organisation headquartered in San Francisco, United States, and is run by a community with a technical steering committee. Zephyr publishes long-term support releases and has a security response team. Because the code is public and runs locally, an organisation keeps control of its firmware and build chain. Governance and the foundation are US-based, so a European organisation that relies on the project should follow its releases and vulnerability reports itself.

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Sovereignty score
69 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign
  • Jurisdiction SOV-210
    Headquartered in the US: CLOUD Act and FISA 702
  • Data residency SOV-3100
    No hosting in Europe (US)
  • 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-665
    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 11, 2026
Headquarters
US (US)Verified by hand
EU adequacy decision
Only for companies individually certified under the EU-US Data Privacy FrameworkVerified by hand
Sovereignty model
Open-source, distributedVerified by hand
Data hosting
USVerified by hand
Open-source
YesVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant
NoVendor-stated
Category
IoT & Embedded
Type
Product
Website
zephyrproject.org ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to Zephyr Project

The European alternatives to Zephyr Project 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

62 European IoT & Embedded 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 Zephyr Project

Zephyr Project 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.

Zephyr Project hosts data outside the EU (US). Personal data therefore leaves the EU, which requires a transfer mechanism under the GDPR and pulls the data residency score down.

Zephyr Project 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 Zephyr Project 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 Zephyr Project?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Zephyr Project include 1NCE, Actility ThingPark and akenza. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to Zephyr Project?

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

Is Zephyr Project GDPR-compliant and where is the data hosted?

Zephyr Project is headquartered in US and hosts data in US. 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 11, 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 IoT & Embedded

IoT & Embedded: Internet of Things platforms, embedded systems and industrial IoT solutions. 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 Zephyr Project — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score