European Alternatives to Netskope
Looking for a European alternative to Netskope? Netskope, Inc. of Santa Clara routes your staff's web and cloud traffic through its platform, and its privacy policy says transfers from Europe rest on standard contractual clauses and the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, with disclosure to public authorities possible on lawful request.
The European tools below split the job: some replace the VPN side with per-application access, others offer a managed SASE service with a web gateway, and each is contracted through an entity in the EU, the UK, Switzerland or Israel.
How we rank these tools — 4-step process
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European ownership, verified
The company is headquartered and incorporated in the EU, EEA, the UK, Switzerland or Israel, and processes customer data in Europe or Israel. A US parent company disqualifies a tool from this page regardless of where its servers are.
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2
Category fit and hands-on review
What the tool actually does, who it suits, and where it falls short — checked against the vendor’s own documentation, changelog and pricing page rather than its marketing copy.
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Compliance and pricing check
GDPR posture, hosting location and the prices quoted on this page are verified against the vendor’s public pricing before publication, and re-checked when we revisit the category.
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11 European Alternatives to Netskope
NetBird
Berlin WireGuard mesh network with a free plan and public per-user prices
Defguard
Self-hosted WireGuard platform that asks for MFA on each connection
Systancia
Zero trust access and privileged access for IT and industrial systems
Open Systems
Zurich operator running SASE as a managed service with a 24 by 7 team
Cato Networks
Single-platform SASE with SD-WAN, firewall, web gateway and ZTNA
Check Point SASE
SASE from Check Point, including the former Perimeter 81 service
genua
genusphere gives browser access to approved apps without a VPN client
Stormshield
French firewall maker with ZTNA built into its network products
SSH.com PrivX
Passwordless, just-in-time access to servers and cloud infrastructure
Sophos
UK security vendor selling ZTNA inside its Workspace Protection bundle
Cyolo
Agentless remote access and segmentation aimed at industrial sites
Key takeaways
- Netskope, Inc. has its seat in Santa Clara, California; per its privacy policy, transfers of European data are justified by standard contractual clauses and by a certification under the Data Privacy Framework.
- NetBird (Germany) publishes its prices at €0, €6 and €12 per user per month and can be self-hosted, but it covers private access only.
- Open Systems (Switzerland), Cato Networks (Israel) and Check Point SASE (Israel) are the three tools on this page that list a secure web gateway or CASB next to ZTNA.
- Defguard (Poland) and genua (Germany) can run on servers you control, which removes the cross-border transfer question.
- Of the eleven tools compared here, only NetBird and Defguard print any prices, and neither offers a web gateway.
Why people leave Netskope
Netskope, Inc. is a company from Santa Clara, California, that sits between your staff and the internet. Browsing, cloud apps and access to internal systems pass through its platform, which means the vendor handles metadata about who connects to what. That position is the reason a security product gets a closer look from a European buyer than a spreadsheet tool would.
The privacy policy sets out the legal footing. For data moving out of Europe it relies on standard contractual clauses, plus a Data Privacy Framework certification between the EU and the US that also covers the British and Swiss routes, and the policy says personal information can be disclosed to public authorities on a lawful request. Both are normal for a US vendor, and both depend on rules that a court or a government can change.
People searching for an alternative are rarely unhappy with the engineering. They are asked by a works council, a regulator, a public customer or a board member where the traffic goes, and a company in California is a harder answer than a company in Berlin or Paris. The sections below show which European tools replace which part of Netskope, and which parts none of them replace.
- Data transfers depend on a framework, not on where it sits Netskope states that data leaving Europe is covered by standard contractual clauses and by its DPF certification. That is a lawful route today. It also means the arrangement is only as stable as the framework behind it, and a buyer who wants to avoid revisiting the question can pick a vendor whose contract, courts and hosting all sit inside Europe, or a tool run on your own servers.
- Disclosure to authorities is written into the policy The privacy policy allows disclosure to public authorities on a lawful request. For a service that sees connection metadata for the whole company, a European buyer in a regulated sector may prefer a counterparty subject to one legal system. Self-hosted tools such as NetBird and Defguard take the question away, because the control plane is on infrastructure you operate.
- You may be paying for a stack you only half use A company that bought Netskope mainly so staff could reach internal applications is paying for web and cloud inspection it may not need. Per-application access tools do that one job with less machinery, and several publish their prices: NetBird lists €6 and €12 per user per month, and Defguard has a free edition. Whether the inspection half matters is the real decision.
- The policy covers marketing data as well Netskope's privacy policy says that sharing with advertising and marketing providers can count as a sale or sharing under some laws, and offers an opt-out where required. That text applies to personal information the company collects, not to your traffic, but it shows how a US vendor describes its data use compared with a tool whose only business is the network itself.
What you have to replace, not just match
Netskope is sold as a bundle, and the first job is to list which pieces you switched on. The pair data names Netskope Private Access as the module European tools target: users reach internal applications without a flat VPN. NetBird, Defguard, Systancia, genua and Cyolo each cover that slice, with different weights on cloud, self-hosting and industrial systems.
The web side is harder. Secure web gateway, CASB and inline inspection of SaaS traffic appear in the product lists of only three tools on this page: Open Systems, Cato Networks and Check Point SASE. If your Netskope contract exists mainly to filter browsing and watch cloud app usage, shortlist those three, or pair an access tool with a separate DNS or proxy filter. Stormshield and genua come from the firewall side and add ZTNA features around it.
Then there is what Netskope holds that has to move: policies, user groups, certificates deployed to endpoints, the agent on every laptop and the logs your auditors use. The access tools rebuild policy as group rules and rely on your identity provider, so the identity layer is the dependency to verify first.
The alternatives compared
| Position | Tool | Headquarters | Pricing | Jurisdiction |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | NetBird | Berlin, Germany | Free EUR 0 (up to 5 users, 100 machines); Team EUR 6 and Business EUR 12 per seat each month; Enterprise priced individually | EU (Germany) |
| #2 | Defguard | Szczecin, Poland | Open Source free; Business free up to 10 users and one location, paid options beyond that; Enterprise priced individually | EU (Poland) |
| #3 | Systancia | Sausheim, France | No prices published; contact or demo | EU (France) |
| #4 | Open Systems | Zurich, Switzerland | No prices published; quote | Switzerland (adequacy decision, outside the EEA) |
| #5 | Cato Networks | Israel, Israel | No prices found; licensed per user group and ZTNA user | Israel (outside the EU/EEA) |
| #6 | Check Point SASE | Israel, Israel | No prices published; demo | Israel (outside the EU/EEA) |
| #7 | genua | Kirchheim (Munich), Germany | Pricing on request | EU (Germany) |
| #8 | Stormshield | Issy-les-Moulineaux, France | Enterprise pricing on request | EU (France) |
| #9 | SSH.com PrivX | Helsinki, Finland | No prices published; free trial offered | EU (Finland) |
| #10 | Sophos | Abingdon, United Kingdom | See website | United Kingdom (adequacy decision, outside the EEA) |
| #11 | Cyolo | Israel, Israel | No prices published; demo | Israel (outside the EU/EEA) |
How each alternative compares to Netskope
Best for: Teams that mainly use Netskope for private application access and want printed prices and open code
NetBird GmbH in Berlin sells a WireGuard-based network where devices connect to each other directly and a policy engine decides which groups reach which resources. Against Netskope Private Access the setup is lighter: you install a client, connect an identity provider and write group rules. The registry entry is Amtsgericht Charlottenburg, HRB 237529 B, and the terms are under German law.
The website lists a free tier capped at 5 users and 100 machines, then €6 (Team) and €12 (Business) per user per month, charged only for users and machines that actually connected during the period. Device posture checks and traffic logs begin on the €12 plan. The vendor shows an ISO 27001 and DORA banner, which is its own claim and was not checked.
What NetBird does better than Netskope
- Prices are printed, where Netskope contracts start with a conversation
- Source code under BSD-3-Clause and AGPLv3 can be read and hosted
- German company, German law, and a self-hosting option
- Billing follows active users only
Where NetBird is a step down from Netskope
- No secure web gateway, CASB or inline DLP
- Posture checks need the €12 plan
- A much smaller company than Netskope
Standout against Netskope. It is the only tool here that combines a free plan, printed per-user prices and a self-hosted option.
Best for: Engineering teams that run their own servers and want identity, VPN and MFA in one stack
Defguard Sp. z o.o. of Szczecin (KRS 0001168794) packs a WireGuard VPN, single sign-on and multi-factor authentication into one platform that lives on your hardware. Compared with Netskope, the difference is where trust sits: nothing leaves your network unless you decide, and the vendor says the stack has no external dependencies. Polish law governs the terms.
Each time a connection starts, a further factor (TOTP, WebAuthn or e-mail) is requested, which makes a stolen laptop holding a valid key less useful. Users can be synced from LDAP or Active Directory. The Open Source edition is free with unlimited users, and the Business edition costs nothing for as many as 10 users on a single location. Paid prices are not published.
What Defguard does better than Netskope
- MFA is enforced on the connection, not only at sign-in
- A built-in identity provider removes a second product
- Free edition with unlimited users
- Runs entirely on servers you control
Where Defguard is a step down from Netskope
- No web filtering or CASB
- You patch and operate it yourself
- A young, small vendor next to Netskope
Standout against Netskope. It asks for a second factor each time a tunnel is opened.
Best for: Manufacturers and public bodies that give suppliers remote access to IT and operational technology
SA SYSTANCIA of Sausheim, near Mulhouse (RCS Mulhouse 419 687 231), sells Gate for remote access under zero trust and Cleanroom for privileged sessions. Set against Netskope, the interest is in operational technology: the vendor names OT next to IT and describes access for contractors who connect to machines. The vendor states its data centers are in France.
Gate can be run as software or taken as a SaaS service, which gives a choice that Netskope does not offer in the same way. The product list includes identity and authentication modules. The analyst placements it cites are the vendor's own statements and were not checked. Prices are not published, and there is no web gateway or CASB.
What Systancia does better than Netskope
- Covers OT systems as well as office applications
- Privileged access sits in the same suite
- Gate comes as software or as a hosted service
- French company with a register entry and French data centers stated
Where Systancia is a step down from Netskope
- No web gateway or CASB
- No published prices and self-reported rankings
- A smaller partner ecosystem
Standout against Netskope. It treats supplier access to plant systems as a core use case, not an afterthought.
Best for: Multi-site companies that want the vendor to operate network and security without an internal team
Open Systems AG of Zurich is the nearest in shape to Netskope among the European options: its descriptions list SD-WAN, a firewall, a secure web gateway, CASB and ZTNA. The difference is the operating model. A vendor team runs the service around the clock under contractual SLAs, and the imprint says the company belongs to the Swiss Post Group.
A vendor blog says data is hosted in Switzerland or the EU where possible and exclusively in Switzerland on request. The website terms follow Swiss law, and Switzerland is outside the EU. The customer contract was not available, and the vendor site refused automated access, so hosting statements come from excerpts. No prices or self-service trial are shown.
What Open Systems does better than Netskope
- Web gateway, CASB and ZTNA are listed together
- Operated by the vendor, with named contacts
- Swiss or EU hosting stated, with Swiss-only on request
- Backed by a postal group, not a startup
Where Open Systems is a step down from Netskope
- No prices and no trial
- Less hands-on control than a product you configure
- Contract terms and hosting could not be verified
Standout against Netskope. It is the one tool here sold as an operated service with a web gateway included.
Best for: Organisations with many branches that want networking and security from one vendor
Cato Networks Ltd. is an Israeli company, and its documentation lists regional legal entities in Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, France and other countries, each contracting in its region. In scope it matches Netskope: SD-WAN, firewall, secure web gateway, IPS, CASB, DLP, ZTNA and remote browser isolation sit on one control plane. Which entity signs your order depends on where you buy.
Management instances run in the US, the EU, India and Japan, and geo-fencing keeps traffic on regional points of presence. Cato also describes deployments through a national telecom or with customer-hosted PoPs. ZTNA licences cover up to 3 devices per user. The main site blocked automated access, and no price list was found.
What Cato Networks does better than Netskope
- EU legal entities can be the contracting party
- Regional management instances and geo-fencing
- Sovereign options with private PoPs or a private management instance
- Covers web, SaaS and private access together
Where Cato Networks is a step down from Netskope
- Israeli headquarters, so not an EU company
- No public prices and a region-dependent contract entity
- Single-vendor platform that is a full migration to leave
Standout against Netskope. It offers the same feature set through public, telecom-run and customer-hosted deployments.
Best for: Organisations that already run Check Point firewalls and buy security through a reseller
Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. is the contracting party, and per search excerpts of its cloud terms the law is Israeli with the Tel Aviv-Yafo courts. The product, formerly Harmony SASE, covers private access, internet access inspected on the device and in the cloud, and SaaS security. The Perimeter 81 website now carries the title Check Point SASE - Perimeter 81.
On the networking side the product page lists SD-WAN, zero-touch provisioning and failover between MPLS, 5G and broadband links, and DLP with over 800 predefined data types. Check Point says it sells entirely through channel partners, so a reseller handles the quote. Hosting regions are not stated, and the cloud terms page blocked automated access.
What Check Point SASE does better than Netskope
- Private access, web and SaaS controls in one product
- Agentless access option for unmanaged devices
- Israeli-law contract in place of a US one
- A path for existing Perimeter 81 customers
Where Check Point SASE is a step down from Netskope
- No prices, and sold only through partners
- Hosting regions not stated
- A large vendor, so the small-European-challenger angle does not apply
Standout against Netskope. Perimeter 81, formerly a separate ZTNA service, is now part of the same product family.
Best for: Public bodies and critical infrastructure operators that want access tooling under their own control
Registered at Amtsgericht München as HRB 98238, genua GmbH is based in Kirchheim near Munich, and its own homepage names the Bundesdruckerei Group as parent. The genusphere product lets staff open approved applications in a browser, no VPN client needed. Rights follow roles, activity is logged, and identities come from Microsoft Entra ID or Keycloak. Deployment can be on your own premises, on a Kubernetes cluster or in a cloud.
The wider range is firewalls: genugate splits an application level gateway and a packet filter onto two computers, carries Common Criteria EAL 4+ on the product page, and is approved for VS-NfD, NATO RESTRICTED and EU RESTRICTED. The licence can be activated offline. Prices are on request, and the company sells to authorities and industry more than to self-service buyers.
What genua does better than Netskope
- Runs where you decide, including air-gapped networks
- No client software needed for browser access
- German company with national approvals on the firewall line
- Sits next to firewall and VPN products from the same vendor
Where genua is a step down from Netskope
- Browser access to applications, not every network protocol
- No web gateway or CASB
- Quote-only and sales-led
Standout against Netskope. Its firewall line has national approval for classified networks, which no SASE service here can match.
Best for: Organisations that already run or plan firewall appliances and want ZTNA added to them
Based in Issy-les-Moulineaux, Stormshield belongs fully to Airbus Defence and Space Cyber Programmes. The core range is firewalls. Its ZTNA page lists workstation checks, rules per user or group, MFA and micro-segmentation, and the vendor says no extra fee applies for them within its products.
The same company sells an endpoint agent, Stormshield Endpoint Security Evolution, with an ANSSI CSPN qualification and Spain's CCN-LINCE approval, and its privacy notice says data is processed mostly within the EEA. The model is appliances that you run, not a cloud broker, and there is no cloud web gateway. Pricing is on request and no trial is listed.
What Stormshield does better than Netskope
- ZTNA is part of the firewall, with no separate licence stated
- French company, with qualifications from the French and Spanish authorities
- Host-compliance checks before access
- Data processing mostly within the EEA
Where Stormshield is a step down from Netskope
- No global cloud service or web gateway
- Hardware to buy and operate
- Thin partner network outside France
Standout against Netskope. It treats ZTNA as an extra on firewalls you already buy, not as a separate subscription.
Best for: Infrastructure teams that want to remove shared admin passwords and long-lived keys
SSH Communications Security Oyj is a Finnish public company with its headquarters at Karvaamokuja 2D in Helsinki. PrivX works from the privileged side: an administrator receives a certificate valid for one session, so no password or key stays around to be stolen. Against Netskope, it overlaps only with the part where staff reach servers and cloud workloads.
The product page describes zero standing privileges, access for human and non-human identities, secrets management and browser sessions with single sign-on. A free trial is offered. Prices, hosting options and self-hosting are not stated on the product page, and the terms and governing law were not opened. It is not a web gateway and does not filter browsing.
What SSH.com PrivX does better than Netskope
- No standing passwords or keys, as access expires with the session
- Covers machine identities as well as people
- A free trial is offered
- Finnish public company
Where SSH.com PrivX is a step down from Netskope
- Not a web gateway, CASB or general access broker for all staff
- No published prices
- Hosting and contract terms were not verified
Standout against Netskope. Access is granted per session on a certificate that then expires.
Best for: Buyers whose estate already uses Sophos endpoints and firewalls
Sophos Limited, with its registered office in Abingdon, is the contracting party in the end user terms for customers outside the US, Canada and Latin America; those regions contract with Sophos Technology Limited. The terms point to English law and English courts. Group ownership was not checked. Outside the EU and EEA, the UK is nevertheless covered by an adequacy decision.
On the vendor's ZTNA page the selling points are MFA, access rules that take the health of the device into account, micro-segmentation, and Synchronized Security, which cuts off a compromised machine on its own. The capability ships inside the Sophos Workspace Protection bundle, priced on request. Its DLP product elsewhere in the range is documented for Windows only.
What Sophos does better than Netskope
- Device health decides access automatically
- Integrates with firewall and endpoint products you may already own
- Contract in English law for most customers
Where Sophos is a step down from Netskope
- UK vendor, so outside the EU and the EEA
- Strongest only when the rest of the Sophos stack is in place
- No published prices
Standout against Netskope. Access decisions follow the health status reported by Sophos endpoint and firewall.
Best for: Manufacturers and utilities that let suppliers connect to OT networks and want sessions recorded
Cyolo Security Ltd. is named as the responsible entity in the privacy policy, and its homepage now speaks to OT and critical infrastructure rather than to office workers. Its Privileged Remote Operations product gives employees and third parties least-privilege access, with sessions that can be supervised and recorded. A separate segmentation product limits lateral movement.
Access is agentless for users and critical assets, and MFA can be applied to legacy systems that cannot run an agent. The segmentation product offers policy simulation before enforcement and is deployed without a cloud dependency, according to the vendor. The terms page returned not found, so the governing law of a customer contract is not verified. No prices are published.
What Cyolo does better than Netskope
- Supervised and recorded sessions for third-party access
- Works with legacy systems through agentless deployment
- No cloud dependency stated for the segmentation product
Where Cyolo is a step down from Netskope
- No web gateway or CASB, and a narrow OT focus
- No published prices
- Contract law not verified
Standout against Netskope. It records and supervises vendor sessions on systems that cannot run an agent.
What actually breaks when you switch
The first break is the endpoint agent. Netskope runs a client on each device and steers traffic through it, so removing it changes how browsing is filtered until the new tool is live. Keep both installed on a pilot group, and decide which one owns DNS and proxy settings so that two tools do not fight over them. Certificates that Netskope deployed to inspect encrypted traffic also have to be removed from devices after the switch.
The second break is policy and logs. Rules written for one vendor rarely export into another, so expect to rebuild groups, per-application rules and exceptions by hand, and to rewrite alerts that feed your log system. Contracts matter too: check the notice period and renewal date on the Netskope agreement before you start, and for the access tools confirm which identity provider they trust. Self-hosted options add the work of running the servers.
Can a European tool replace the Netskope agent on every laptop?
For private access, yes. NetBird and Defguard work from a client, and Cyolo and genua offer agentless or browser access and tie rights to users and groups. For web and cloud filtering the answer depends on what your contract uses today. Open Systems, Cato Networks and Check Point SASE list a web gateway, and for the others you need a second tool next to the access product.
Plan the rollout in two waves. Move private application access first, because a VPN replacement is easy to roll back. Move the web filtering last, and keep the old agent installed on a pilot group until the new policy has produced a month of logs you can compare.
Does switching to a European vendor remove US legal exposure?
It removes the vendor from US jurisdiction as a contracting party, which is what most procurement checklists ask. It does not change the fact that your devices, identity provider and cloud apps may still sit with US companies. If your sign-in runs through a US identity service, the access broker is only one link in the chain.
Check three things in the contract: which legal entity signs, which law governs it, and where the management plane runs. Cato Networks and Check Point SASE are Israeli companies, Open Systems is Swiss, Sophos is British, and each contracts through a different set of entities, so the answer differs by tool.
Which one to pick
If your use of Netskope is mostly private application access, start with NetBird for a cloud service with printed prices, or Defguard if you want everything on your own servers. Systancia and Cyolo fit sites with industrial systems, and SSH.com PrivX fits server and cloud administration. genua and Stormshield fit organisations that already run their firewalls.
If the web and cloud side is the reason you bought Netskope, shortlist Open Systems for an operated service, Cato Networks for a single platform with EU entities, and Check Point SASE if you buy through a security reseller. Request quotes with the same scope, ask for the contracting entity and hosting region in writing, and keep Netskope running on a pilot group until the new logs match.
Frequently Asked Questions
It depends on the criterion. NetBird ranks first on this page for private access because it has a free plan, public prices and self-hosting. If you need a web gateway and CASB in one managed service, Open Systems from Zurich is the closest match in scope, and Cato Networks is the single-platform option with EU legal entities. Industrial sites should look at Systancia or Cyolo.
Only partly. Open Systems, Cato Networks and Check Point SASE list a web gateway, CASB and ZTNA together, so they are the nearest to a like-for-like swap. The rest replace the private access half. Prices are not public for those three, so request quotes for the same user count and compare the scope in writing.
Yes, for access. NetBird publishes most of its code under BSD-3-Clause and AGPLv3 and can be self-hosted, Defguard is self-hosted by design, and genua can be run on your own premises, on a Kubernetes cluster or in the cloud. You then own patching and availability. Web gateways and CASB are not available self-hosted from the tools reviewed here.
No vendor on this page publishes a migration timeline, so treat any figure as an estimate. A small team moving only private access can pilot NetBird or Defguard in days because both start from groups and identity. A multi-site rollout of Cato Networks or Open Systems involves contracts, network cutovers and, for managed services, a project with the vendor.
I did not compare against Netskope's prices, which were not part of this review. What can be said is that only NetBird (€0, €6, €12 per user per month) and Defguard (a free edition, and a free tier for up to ten users) print numbers. The other nine quote on request, so ask for a price at your size.
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