Dropbox can read your files. That's the reason to leave.
Dropbox is a US company, and under the CLOUD Act US authorities can compel it to hand over your data wherever that data physically sits. It also holds your encryption keys: there's no zero-knowledge by default, so a valid legal request reaches your plaintext. That's not a bug to be patched. It's the architecture. If you're moving off Dropbox for data residency or privacy, the bar is a provider under EU jurisdiction that cannot read your files, even under subpoena.
Five real European options clear that bar. We'll start with ours, then profile four others honestly. Where one beats us, we say so.
1. Beebeeb — zero-knowledge by default, German jurisdiction
Beebeeb is operated by Initlabs B.V., a Dutch company (KvK 95157565), with all data on dedicated servers in Falkenstein, Germany. Files are encrypted on your device before they leave it. The file payload is AES-256-GCM; sharing uses X25519 key exchange; your keys are derived from your passphrase with Argon2id tuned to 256 MB and 4 iterations. The passphrase never reaches us, and login runs over OPAQUE, so we never see your password either. The honest cost of that: lose your passphrase and we can't recover your files. That's what the BIP39 recovery phrase is for, and it's the real tradeoff of end-to-end encryption rather than a checkbox version of it.
The line that separates us from Dropbox: zero-knowledge applies on every tier, no exceptions. Not an upsell, not a business-only feature. Our security overview documents the full key-derivation chain instead of waving at "encryption."
Live today: the web app, a CLI, WebDAV through that CLI, encrypted sharing with expiry, revocation and passphrase protection, file versioning with configurable retention, file requests, TOTP-based 2FA, and passkeys. The product clients — web, CLI, mobile, desktop, and the core crypto library — are open source, so the encryption is auditable rather than asserted (the server and this site stay private). An independent audit is planned and the findings will be published. Native mobile and desktop apps are coming soon, as is one-click import from Google Drive and Dropbox — built specifically to kill the cost of dragging a few hundred gigabytes across by hand.
Pricing is flat and per-account, not per-seat: Starter €1.99/mo for 100 GB, Basic €3.99/mo for 200 GB, Pro €10.99/mo for 1 TB, scaling to 99 TB self-serve at +€10.99 per extra TB, with a custom quote beyond that — every plan opens with a 14-day free trial, no permanent free tier. Full numbers are on the pricing page, and the head-to-head sits in our Beebeeb-vs-Dropbox comparison.
Best for: people and small businesses who want zero-knowledge as the default, EU-member jurisdiction, and open-source clients without paying a privacy tax.
2. Proton Drive — the strongest privacy peer
Proton Drive is the closest thing to a like-for-like rival on privacy. It's Swiss, end-to-end encrypted, zero-knowledge, and its clients are open source. We won't pretend to beat Proton on encryption or openness — on those two axes it matches us. The free tier starts at 2 GB and reaches 5 GB once you finish a short setup checklist. Drive Plus runs about $4.99/mo for 200 GB at the standard rate; Proton Unlimited is $9.99/mo for 500 GB of Drive plus Mail, VPN, Pass and Calendar.
The difference is shape. Proton sells a privacy suite built around encrypted email, and Drive is one room in that house. If you want storage that grows into the terabytes as a first-class product, Proton's per-account ceiling is lower and its storage-per-euro at scale is tighter. Switzerland also sits outside the EU, which matters if your compliance posture specifically wants data inside the bloc.
Best for: people who want an encrypted email-and-storage ecosystem and value Swiss jurisdiction over EU-member jurisdiction.
3. Tresorit — the enterprise-grade incumbent
Tresorit is a mature, zero-knowledge, end-to-end encrypted service with deep admin controls, data-residency choice that includes Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands, and a long compliance track record. It's the safe procurement pick for a regulated mid-sized company. There's a free Basic tier of 3 GB, paid plans carry a 14-day trial, and the personal plan lands around €10.99/mo for 1 TB — level with our Pro, so no price win to claim there.
Two honest caveats. Tresorit's clients are not open source, so you're trusting their description of the cryptography rather than reading it. And it gets expensive once you scale to teams: Business Standard is roughly $18 per user per month on the annual plan. For a procurement team that wants audits and SLAs on paper, that premium buys genuine peace of mind.
Best for: regulated businesses that need granular admin controls and EU data residency, and accept closed-source clients to get them.
4. pCloud — flexible, but read the encryption fine print
pCloud is a Swiss company with an EU data-region option in Luxembourg, a free tier of up to 10 GB, and its signature draw: lifetime plans. You pay once — roughly $399 for 2 TB — instead of forever. The economics are genuinely good if you plan to stay a decade.
The catch is large for anyone leaving Dropbox for privacy. pCloud is not zero-knowledge by default. Client-side encryption is a paid add-on, pCloud Crypto, sold as a one-time lifetime fee of about $150. Skip it and pCloud holds your keys, which is the exact model you're trying to escape. Buy it and only your encrypted folder is private; the rest of the account is not.
Best for: people who prize a one-time lifetime price and large storage, and will pay extra to encrypt a subset of their files.
5. Internxt and Filen — the lean open-source challengers
Two smaller European players are worth knowing. Internxt is Spanish, open source and zero-knowledge, pairs AES-256 with Kyber-512 post-quantum key exchange, and was independently audited by Securitum (most recently in 2025). It's priced aggressively, from around €3/mo, though the free tier is a thin 1 GB. Filen is a small German team offering zero-knowledge storage with open-source clients and a 10 GB free tier at low prices, but without a published third-party security audit yet.
Both are credible privacy options on a budget. The tradeoff is maturity — smaller teams, thinner admin tooling, fewer of the collaboration features a business leans on daily. For a privacy-minded individual watching the bill, either makes a reasonable Dropbox replacement.
Best for: budget-conscious individuals who want open-source, zero-knowledge storage and don't need enterprise features.
How to choose
If your only requirement were "encrypted and European," any of these clears Dropbox. The real dividing lines are finer. Want zero-knowledge as the default on every tier, EU-member jurisdiction in Germany, open-source clients, and headroom to scale into the terabytes on a flat per-account price? That specific combination is the gap Beebeeb fills, and it's where Proton, Tresorit and pCloud each give something up. Want a privacy suite with email built in? Proton. Need enterprise admin controls and audits on file today, closed source acceptable? Tresorit. Want a one-time lifetime price? pCloud, with the encryption add-on bolted on.
The honest blocker on any migration is moving the data, and our Dropbox and Google Drive import — built to make that one click rather than a lost weekend — is coming soon. Until it ships,