European ChatGPT alternatives for organisations

"ChatGPT alternative" can mean three different things: a place where employees chat with models, a platform where teams build agents, or a control layer in front of the models you already pay for. This page covers the first two, for organisations in the EU that need a defensible answer to "where does our data go, and who can see what happened". It is written by Sluis, so read our row as you would any vendor page. We checked every other row against the vendor's own documentation on 2026-10-01 and list the sources at the end.

What we compared on

Marketing pages for employee AI tend to say "secure" and "GDPR compliant". Those words do not separate products. These criteria do:

Hosting and who operates it. Where the application runs, and which legal entity runs it.
Where model inference happens. Storage in the EU is not the same as inference in the EU. Ask for both.
Residency control. Can an administrator restrict where requests may go, and is that enforced or only documented?
Personal data in prompts. Does the product detect and remove personal data before a prompt reaches the model, or does it rely on employees to be careful?
Audit trail. What does an administrator or auditor get to look at after the fact?
Identity and administration. SSO, role separation, enterprise controls.
Certifications. Independent attestations the vendor itself publishes.
Price model. Per seat, per use, or custom quote.
Self-hosting. Whether you can run it on infrastructure you control.

No product wins every row. The right pick depends on which rows your risk assessment weighs most.

The options at a glance

	Sluis Workspace	Mistral (Le Chat, now Vibe)	Langdock	Open WebUI (self-hosted)	ChatGPT Enterprise	Microsoft Copilot
Hosting	EU-hosted managed service run by 7Lab B.V., Amsterdam	EU by default, US endpoint optional	Multi-tenant on Microsoft Azure inside the EU	Your own infrastructure	OpenAI, with EU at-rest option for new workspaces	Microsoft 365 tenant, EU Data Boundary
Inference location	API and Workspace routing defaults to EU-only, refused before dispatch otherwise	Mistral models served from the EU by default; some features can transfer data out	Most models hosted in the EU, configurable	Whatever model you connect	In-region GPU inference for eligible Enterprise customers	EU traffic stays in the boundary, except Anthropic models
Residency enforcement	Organisation policy enforced at dispatch, with audit entry for changes	Enterprise can switch off some out-of-EU features	Configurable per workspace	You build it	Set at workspace creation	Tenant and licence based
PII removal before the model	Detection and reversible pseudonymisation before dispatch	Not documented as a built-in step in the sources we checked	Not documented as a built-in step in the sources we checked	Not built in as a policy layer	Not documented as a built-in step in the sources we checked	Purview controls, content filters
SSO	Google, Apple, Microsoft, passkeys, organisation two-factor; no SAML or SCIM	SAML SSO on Enterprise	SSO, SCIM and SAML on Business	You configure it	SAML SSO and SCIM	Entra ID
Certifications published	ISO 27001 certified	SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001/27701	ISO 27001, SOC 2 Type II	None (a software project)	SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001, CSA STAR	ISO 27001, ISO 42001 and others
Price model	Provider list price plus 10%, no seat fee, prepaid from EUR 25	Free, Pro and Team per seat, Enterprise custom	Per seat (Business EUR 25), enterprise custom	Free to use, enterprise licence optional	Per seat, quote	Per-user add-on to Microsoft 365 (US$30)
Self-host	Optional enterprise data plane (Sluis Edge)	Enterprise deployments	Single tenant from 2,000 seats; own cloud and on-premise from 5,000	Yes	No	No

Sluis Workspace

Sluis Workspace is the employee-facing half of Sluis: chat, agents and Skills that you build by describing them, spreadsheets and presentations in and out, and private or shared Knowledge. It sits behind the same gate as the Sluis gateway, so a Workspace message and an API call are inspected, routed and logged by one policy. Details are on the Sluis Workspace page.

What is distinctive, and backed by the documentation:

Residency is policy, not a promise. The default allows the EU jurisdiction only. A request that would reach a provider outside the allowed set is refused with a 403 before it is sent, so OpenAI models, for example, stay blocked until an owner allows the US jurisdiction. That is a recorded decision that needs a transfer-terms acknowledgement, and EU ownership of the provider is a separate, stricter setting.
Personal data handling. Sensitive values are detected and reversibly pseudonymised before dispatch, and a hash-chained audit ledger records which policy ran. You can verify the chain offline.
Pricing without seats. Managed model usage costs the provider's list price plus 10%. There is no platform subscription and no seat fee, and no free tier: self-service starts with at least EUR 25 of prepaid credit.
ISO 27001 certified, and the company is Sluis by SevenLab, legal entity 7Lab B.V. in Amsterdam.

What to weigh against it:

Detection is not perfect, and using Sluis does not by itself establish GDPR or HIPAA compliance.
Agent Harness traffic (the governed route for local coding agents) is the residency exception: the provider subscription chooses the serving region, and Sluis records it as unverified.
Members sign in with Microsoft, Google or Apple, can add a passkey or authenticator app, and owners can require two-factor. Sluis has no SAML single sign-on or SCIM provisioning.
The desktop apps are alpha builds; Workspace itself runs in the browser.
Sluis is a young company with a young product. Mistral, Microsoft and OpenAI have track records we do not.

If you also want to govern API traffic and coding agents with the same policy, see AI gateways for EU organisations compared.

Mistral Le Chat (now Vibe)

Mistral is a French model provider with its own assistant. Its help centre states that data is hosted in the European Union by default, and that you can explicitly use a US API endpoint, in which case data is hosted in the United States. It also says that, depending on the feature, data can be temporarily transferred outside the EU to the subprocessors listed in its trust centre, under Standard Contractual Clauses, and that Enterprise customers can deactivate some of those features at organisation level. Mistral says it complies with SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001/27701 frameworks.

The plans page lists a Free tier, Pro, Team at USD 24.99 per user per month excluding taxes (other currencies are shown by country) and an Enterprise tier; Team and Enterprise list audit logs, and Enterprise adds SAML SSO. The help centre states that Le Chat is now Vibe and that accounts, plans and conversations move over, so some pages still say Le Chat.

Choose it when you want an EU-headquartered vendor that trains and serves its own models, and you are comfortable with one model family.

See the detailed Sluis versus Mistral Le Chat comparison.

Langdock

Langdock is a German platform for rolling out AI to employees: chat, custom agents, workflows and an API. Its security page lists ISO 27001 certification and a SOC 2 Type II audit, no training on customer data, and a multi-tenant deployment hosted on Microsoft Azure inside the EU. The application and most models are hosted in the EU, and the model choice is configurable. Single-tenant SaaS starts at 2,000 seats, and bring-your-own-cloud and on-premise deployments at 5,000 seats. The Business plan, listed for up to 1,000 users, includes SSO, SCIM and SAML.

The pricing page shows a seat-based Business plan at EUR 25 per user per month excluding VAT, a custom Enterprise plan, workflow packages per workspace, and a Governance add-on that is free until 1 January 2027 and then ranges from EUR 1.50 to EUR 3.50 per user per month depending on volume and billing period. LLM usage for automated governance checks is billed separately.

Choose it when you want a seat-priced, EU-operated workspace with a broad model menu and workflow tooling, and your procurement process prefers a per-user line item. See the Sluis versus Langdock comparison.

Self-hosted options: Open WebUI and friends

Running an open interface on your own servers is the most direct answer to "where does the data go". Open WebUI is one example, and it pairs with any model backend you connect, including models you host yourself.

Two honest caveats. First, you take on the operations: updates, authentication, logging, retention, backup, and the work of building any policy layer. Second, the licence changed. The project's documentation states that code up to and including v0.6.5 is BSD-3-Clause, and that from v0.6.6 (April 2025) a branding clause applies: you may not remove or alter the Open WebUI branding unless you have 50 or fewer users in a 30-day period, have written permission, or hold an enterprise licence. The project says this is not an OSI-approved open source licence. Internal use at any scale is allowed with branding intact.

Choose it when you have a platform team, a small number of users or a strong appetite for control, and when the model side is also under your control.

ChatGPT Enterprise

OpenAI offers data residency in Europe for ChatGPT Enterprise and Edu. New workspaces can store customer content at rest in the region, including conversations, uploaded files and custom GPTs. Eligible customers with residency enabled can add inference residency, which keeps GPU inference on in-scope content in Europe, the US or the UAE. OpenAI lists SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001 and CSA STAR among its certifications, documents SAML SSO and SCIM, publishes a DPA, and states that business-plan data is not used for training by default.

The questions to ask are about eligibility and scope: residency applies to new workspaces, covers the data types OpenAI lists, and depends on your contract. It is also a single-vendor model menu, and OpenAI is a US company, which matters if your legal analysis includes foreign-jurisdiction access to data.

Choose it when employee demand is for the ChatGPT product itself and the residency terms in your contract satisfy your assessment. See the Sluis versus ChatGPT Enterprise comparison.

Microsoft Copilot

If your organisation lives in Microsoft 365, Copilot's main strength is that it works on your existing permissions and content. Microsoft states that Copilot is an EU Data Boundary service, that EU traffic stays within the boundary, that prompts and responses are not used to train foundation models, and that it holds ISO 27001, ISO 42001 and other certifications. Two details deserve attention: models provided by Anthropic as a subprocessor are currently excluded from the EU Data Boundary, and Microsoft says LLM calls can go to other regions during high utilisation, with the EU Data Boundary safeguards applying to EU users. Copilot is sold as a US$30 per user per month add-on to a qualifying Microsoft 365 licence.

Choose it when your data and workflows are already in Microsoft 365 and you value that integration over model choice. See the Sluis versus Microsoft 365 Copilot comparison. Anthropic's and Google's equivalents are covered in Sluis versus Claude for Work and Sluis versus Gemini for Workspace.

How to choose

You are already deep in Microsoft 365 and want assistance inside the Office apps: Copilot.
Your people want the ChatGPT product and your contract covers EU residency for your workspace: ChatGPT Enterprise.
You want an EU-headquartered model vendor with its own assistant: Mistral.
You want a seat-priced, EU-operated workspace with many models and workflow tooling: Langdock.
You have a platform team and want maximum control, and will build governance yourself: Open WebUI or a similar self-hosted interface.
You need one enforced policy across employee chat, API traffic and coding agents, with an audit trail you can verify, and usage-based pricing: Sluis.

Whichever you pick, ask three questions in writing: where does inference run, what leaves the EU under which conditions, and what can I show an auditor afterwards? Vendors that answer precisely are the ones worth shortlisting.

When the other products are the better choice

Sluis is not the right answer for every organisation. Copilot is better if the work is inside Word, Excel and Outlook. ChatGPT Enterprise is better if you need OpenAI's product features and your contract already covers residency. Mistral is better if an EU model vendor is itself a requirement. Langdock, Mistral Enterprise or ChatGPT Enterprise are better if SAML single sign-on or SCIM provisioning is non-negotiable today. A self-hosted interface is better if no managed service, ours included, is acceptable to your security team.

FAQ

What is the best European alternative to ChatGPT for a company?

There is no single best. Mistral Le Chat and Langdock are EU-operated workspaces, Open WebUI is the self-hosted route, and Sluis Workspace adds an enforced EU-only routing policy with personal-data handling before dispatch. Pick by which criteria your risk assessment weighs most, then verify the vendor's answers in writing.

Is ChatGPT Enterprise GDPR compliant for European companies?

OpenAI publishes a DPA, offers European data residency for new ChatGPT Enterprise workspaces and in-region inference for eligible customers, and says business data is not used for training by default. Whether your use is compliant depends on your own assessment, contract and configuration. No product on this page makes an organisation compliant by itself.

Does EU data residency mean the model runs in the EU?

Not necessarily. Storage at rest and inference location are separate commitments, and some products route a subset of models or features outside the EU. Ask for both in writing.

Can we self-host an employee AI workspace?

Yes. Open WebUI is the common choice, with the branding conditions described above. Langdock offers on-premise deployment from 5,000 seats, and Sluis offers Sluis Edge, an enterprise-only self-hosted data plane. Self-hosting the interface does not by itself control where the model runs, so check the model side too.

How does Sluis Workspace pricing compare with per-seat tools?

Sluis charges the provider's list price plus 10% for managed models, with no seat fee and no subscription, requires prepaid credit of at least EUR 25, and adds payment-method surcharges. Per-seat tools can be cheaper per head for heavy, uniform use and are simpler to budget. Usage-based pricing tends to suit uneven usage and mixed teams of people and agents.

Is Sluis certified?

Sluis is ISO 27001 certified. It does not claim GDPR or HIPAA compliance as a property of the product: its documentation says that using Sluis does not by itself establish either, and that personal-data detection is not perfect.