Category: Project Management
8 European alternatives to Smartsheet — GDPR-compliant & EU-hosted.
Cloud work execution platform enabling organizations to plan, execute and manage projects, portfolios and strategic initiatives with real-time collaboration.
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Facts
- Headquarters
- US (US)
- EU adequacy decision
- Only for companies individually certified under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework
- Sovereignty model
- Vendor-hosted (non-EU)
- Category
- Project Management
- Type
- Product
- GDPR-compliant
- Yes
- Open-source
- No
- Data hosting
- US, EU, AU
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
Sovereignty profile of Smartsheet
How this vendor scores on the five dimensions of the Digital Sovereignty Heatmap: 0 is sovereign, 100 is high exposure. These are the same scores the assessment uses.
| Jurisdictional exposure (JES) | Headquartered in the US: CLOUD Act and FISA 702 | 90 |
|---|---|---|
| Data residency (DRS) | EU and non-EU hosting (US, EU, AU) | 50 |
| Cryptographic key sovereignty (CKS) | Key management with a non-European vendor | 80 |
| Platform lock-in (PLS) | Closed source: switching requires data migration | 60 |
| Source & runtime sovereignty (SRS) | Closed source, runtime with the vendor | 85 |
| Average | 73 |
Why digital sovereignty matters with Smartsheet
Smartsheet 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.
Smartsheet hosts data in US, EU, AU. Exactly what stays within the EU — and what does not — is defined by the vendor's data processing agreement and sub-processor list, not by a setting you control yourself; check those documents for the precise scope, including backups, logs and support access.
Smartsheet 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 Smartsheet together with your other vendors and gives a total score, a heatmap and the main risk drivers.
Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to Smartsheet
The European alternatives to Smartsheet come from our knowledge base of over 3,600 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.
- Forecast↗
AI-powered project and resource management platform, formerly headquartered in Copenhagen (DK). Acquired by US-based Accelo in July 2025 and fully integrated into accelo.com by May 2026. Ultimate parent is Accelo Inc. (San Francisco, US). EU data sovereignty guarantees previously claimed under eu-strict no longer apply.
DK · commercial
Frequently asked questions
What is the best European alternative to Smartsheet?
It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to Smartsheet include awork, Bitrix24 and Easy8. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.
Are there open-source alternatives to Smartsheet?
Yes. Open-source EU alternatives to Smartsheet include Kanboard and Leantime. These keep your data fully under your own control and let you self-host if you want to.
Is Smartsheet GDPR-compliant and where is the data hosted?
Smartsheet is headquartered in US and hosts data in US, EU, AU. The vendor states it is GDPR-compliant, but the data falls under non-EU jurisdiction. For full EU data residency the EU alternatives on this page usually offer more certainty.
Digital sovereignty in Project Management
Project Management: Project planning, issue tracking, knowledge management, team collaboration. 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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