Category: Database & Data Management

8 European alternatives to MariaDB — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted.

open-source relationele database, community-gedreven fork by MySQL

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Facts

Headquarters: FI (EU)
Category: Database & Data Management
Type: Product
GDPR-compliant: Yes
Open-source: Yes
Data hosting: EU

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to MariaDB

Aiven
Managed open-source data infrastructure (PostgreSQL, Kafka, OpenSearch) in the cloud
FI · commercial
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CrateDB
Distributed SQL database optimised for machine data and IoT applications
AT · open-source
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DuckDB
In-process analytical database, the SQLite for OLAP, developed in the Netherlands
NL · open-source
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Elastic
Elastic (Elastic N.V.), headquartered at Keizersgracht 281, Amsterdam, Netherlands, develops Elasticsearch, the widely used distributed search and analytics engine, alongside Kibana and Logstash (the "ELK stack"). Since September 2024 Elasticsearch and Kibana source code is triple-licensed under AGPLv3, SSPL, and the Elastic License v2, with AGPLv3 being OSI-approved, restoring genuine open-source status after the 2021 licensing dispute. It can be self-hosted, run via Elastic Cloud with selectable EU data-center regions, or deployed via other providers, giving strong flexibility for EU sovereignty requirements.
NL · open-source
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Exasol
In-memory analytics database for high-performance data analysis and warehousing
DE · commercial
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Meilisearch
Open-core search engine: the Community Edition is MIT-licensed and free to use, but the Enterprise Edition (sharding, advanced observability, analytics) has been under BUSL 1.1 since v1.19 (August 2025), requiring a commercial agreement for production use.
FR · commercial
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SAP HANA
In-memory column-store database by SAP for real-time analytics and transaction processing
DE · commercial
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TigerData
Open-source time-series database as PostgreSQL extension for time-series workloads
SE · open-source
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Frequently asked questions

What is the best European alternative to MariaDB?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to MariaDB include Aiven, CrateDB and DuckDB. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to MariaDB?

Yes. Open-source EU alternatives to MariaDB include CrateDB, DuckDB, Elastic and TigerData. These keep your data fully under your own control and let you self-host if you want to.

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

MariaDB is headquartered in FI (EU) and hosts data in EU. It is also open-source, so you can self-host it. That makes MariaDB an EU-sovereign choice in its own right; the EU alternatives on this page are comparable European tools.

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