A Sovereign European Alternative for Enterprise Architecture: What to Check
Several enterprise architecture vendors have changed owners since 2023. For a European buyer, sovereignty is checked point by point: hosting location, operator, subprocessors, data exit and the use of AI.
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A consolidating market
SAP announced its acquisition of LeanIX in September 2023 and completed it in November 2023. Bizzdesign announced its acquisition of MEGA International, the vendor of HOPEX, in September 2024, then added Alfabet in January 2025 after buying it from Software GmbH. Orbus Software announced its acquisition of Capsifi on 11 December 2024.
A change of owner can alter a product’s roadmap, its integrations or its commercial terms. On its own, it says nothing about where your data is hosted: that question has to be put to every vendor.
The vendor’s nationality is not enough
SAP has its headquarters in Walldorf, Germany. Bizzdesign is based in the Netherlands, Ardoq in Norway, BOC Group, the vendor of ADOIT, in Austria, and Orbus Software in London.
A European vendor can host data outside the Union, and a vendor based elsewhere can offer a European hosting region. The commitments are found in the contract, the list of subprocessors and the security documentation.
Criteria to check
Each criterion calls for a written answer from the vendor, to be filed with the purchasing record.
- Hosting: the country, the data centre operator and the region chosen for your instance.
- Vendor: its registered office, the law governing the contract and the authorities that can request access to the data.
- Subprocessors: the published list, their countries and how you are told about a change.
- Deployment: whether the tool can be installed on your premises, and what that changes for support and updates.
- Reversibility: a full export, its formats and whether it can be loaded elsewhere.
- AI: the model provider, where the model is hosted, the data sent and the permissions the assistant acts with.
ArchiLU against these criteria
ArchiLU is published in Luxembourg by MIP-IT SARL. Each organisation has its own instance, hosted in the European Union; deployment on your premises is available as an option, on quotation, whatever the plan.
The full export takes the whole repository and re-imports into an empty database. Data also exports to Excel, Word, PDF, the architecture tools exchange format and PlantUML. AI reads the context available to the person using it, and the administrator can forbid it for a person or a role. The model provider and hosting are chosen according to your data policy.
What sovereignty does not settle
A tool hosted in Europe still has to cover your uses: repository, application portfolio, decisions, the DORA chain or formal modelling. Run the same tests with each shortlisted vendor: assign an owner, have a board decide, let an AI act with a person’s permissions.
Frequently asked questions
- What has changed in the enterprise architecture tool market?
- SAP acquired LeanIX in 2023. Bizzdesign acquired MEGA International in 2024, then Alfabet in January 2025, and Orbus Software acquired Capsifi in December 2024. These deals change the owner of several products; where your data is hosted still has to be checked vendor by vendor.
- What does a “sovereign” architecture tool cover?
- Verifiable facts: the hosting location and its operator, the vendor’s registered office and governing law, subprocessors, the option of deployment on your premises, a full export and control over AI. Each point can be read in the vendor’s contract and documentation.
- Can ArchiLU be deployed on our premises?
- Yes. Each organisation has an instance hosted in the European Union; deployment on your premises is a service on quotation, available whatever the plan.