EU Sovereignty Score
Non-EU vendorVPNHeadquarters: US

ZeroTier: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

ZeroTier is a software-defined networking platform. According to its website, it connects people, devices and clouds in one virtual network, as an alternative to conventional VPN setups. The company's software is distributed with a mix of open-source and source-available components.

ZeroTier, Inc. is a US company. ZeroTier is headquartered in California, in the United States, and is therefore subject to US law. The software is not open source as a whole: the public repository states that the core code is licensed under the Mozilla Public License, while parts are labelled source-available. The core code can be inspected, but a hosted network service involves a US provider, and the location of its hosting is not stated on the vendor's website; European organisations should confirm hosting and data processing terms before relying on a hosted network.

See the 8 European alternatives ↓Assess your stack with ZeroTier pre-selected
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Sovereignty score
17 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign
  • Jurisdiction SOV-210
    Headquartered in the US: CLOUD Act and FISA 702
  • Data residency SOV-30
    No hosting in Europe (US)
  • Cryptographic key sovereignty SOV-320
    Key management with a non-European vendor
  • Freedom from lock-in SOV-640
    Closed source: switching requires data migration
  • Source & runtime sovereignty SOV-4 · SOV-615
    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 11, 2026
HeadquartersUS (US)Verified by hand
EU adequacy decisionOnly for companies individually certified under the EU-US Data Privacy FrameworkVerified by hand
Sovereignty modelVendor-hosted (non-EU)Verified by hand
Data hostingUSVerified by hand
Open-sourceNoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliantNoVendor-stated
CategoryVPN
TypeProduct
Websitezerotier.com ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to ZeroTier

The European alternatives to ZeroTier 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

20 European VPN 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 ZeroTier

ZeroTier 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.

ZeroTier 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.

ZeroTier 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 ZeroTier 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 ZeroTier?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to ZeroTier include AdGuard VPN, AirVPN and Avira Phantom VPN. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to ZeroTier?

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

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

ZeroTier 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

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".

We found none of these signals on the vendor's own site when we checked.

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

Checked on October 11, 2026. What is the Cyber Resilience Act?

Digital sovereignty in VPN

VPN: Virtual private network — privacy protection, encrypted connection. 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 ZeroTier — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted · EU Sovereignty Score