Is Sprachmemo subject to the CLOUD Act?

No. The CLOUD Act compels US-based companies (or US subsidiaries) to hand over data they control, regardless of where it physically lives. Sprachmemo has no US entity, no US contracts, and no US-controlled infrastructure in the data plane. Stripe processes payment data and is US-headquartered, but that boundary is well-defined: payment metadata only, never your records.

Where exactly is my data stored?

On dedicated servers we operate ourselves, physically located in Germany. The audit log, attachments, embeddings - everything in the data plane - lives there. Backups stay within the same EU jurisdiction in different physical locations and roll off on a 30-day window. We deliberately do not name the exact data centre - knowing the rack does not buy the customer anything and would make operator changes a public event.

Do you log IPs or session metadata to a US service?

No third-party analytics, no Google Analytics, no Meta pixel, no third-country tag manager. The first-party device + session ledger lives in our own Postgres + Redis - same EU boundary as the rest of the data plane. Logs are operational only and rotate at 30 days.

What happens if I'm a customer outside the EU?

You can use Sprachmemo from anywhere. The data still lives in the EU; the request travels from your location to our servers and back. That's a posture choice on our side, not a geo-restriction on yours.

Sprachmemo

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Sprachmemo: the EU alternative to OpenAI Whisper API

Same job, hosted in the EU. Sprachmemo runs in Germany under German law - your data stays in EU jurisdiction end to end.

EU alternative

Whisper

OpenAI

Compare

Finn GlasCo-Founder + Engineering

·February 11, 2026·

2 min read

If your reason for moving off OpenAI Whisper API is data sovereignty, the comparison gets simpler. Sprachmemo is hosted in Germany on infrastructure we operate ourselves - no US-headquartered company in the request path. The CLOUD Act does not reach what physically lives here.

At a glance

If you're building a tool yourself and ship audio to OpenAI's hosted endpoint, Whisper is hard to beat on raw accuracy for English. Sprachmemo is the choice if you don't want to wire transcription yourself, don't want a US data-processor in the loop, and primarily speak German. The two products serve different jobs.

EU jurisdiction

What 'EU-hosted' actually means here, end to end

Sprachmemo runs on dedicated machines we operate ourselves, physically located in Germany. There is no US-headquartered subprocessor in the request path - the data plane (your records, your files, your audit log) lives entirely in EU jurisdiction. Two third parties exist outside that boundary: Stripe (payment information only, under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework) and the mail relay for transactional email. Neither sees your records. OpenAI Whisper API's setup is the variable - if their primary infra is US-based, the CLOUD Act applies regardless of what their privacy page claims.

Sprachmemo vs OpenAI Whisper API: EU comparison

	Ours Sprachmemo	Theirs OpenAI Whisper API
German accuracy (clean studio audio)	Vosk Large: very good	Excellent
Surface	Browser app + transcription	API only - you build the UI
Privacy posture	Audio on EU servers, no training	Audio to OpenAI US infra, OpenAI's policy applies
German accuracy (noisy phone audio)	Solid	Strong
Self-hosted option	We host it - or run the same Vosk yourself	Open-weights Whisper exists, but you have to run it
Cost for 60 min/month	Free tier covers it	≈ 0,36 USD via the API (audio only, no UI)
Cost for 60 hours/month	Basis or Power tier	≈ 21 USD via the API (audio only)
Editable transcript + audio archive

When to pick which

Pick Sprachmemo when

You want a working app, not a SDK. Tap the circle, get a transcript, edit it.

Your audio shouldn't transit US infrastructure (clinical, legal, journalistic, kids).

German is your primary language and you want it to work without a configuration step.

Pick OpenAI Whisper API when

You're a developer integrating speech-to-text into a product you ship yourself.

Your audio has unusual characteristics (heavy accents, low SNR, non-German non-English languages).

You want the absolute state of the art on accuracy and the policy footprint isn't a blocker for your use case.

EU-jurisdiction questions

Specific to where the data lives, who can subpoena it, and what crosses borders.

Start with Sprachmemo

Free plan, no credit card. We host in Germany. Export + delete are self-serve.

Written by

Finn Glas

Co-Founder + Engineering

Finn is one of the Co-Founders. He owns the engineering side, the infrastructure, and most of the late-night fixes that ship before anyone notices.

finn.glas at aicuflow dot comLinkedIn Website