Comparison
The sovereign alternative to ChatGPT for your business
A sovereign LLM or the model of your choice, deployed on your infrastructure, connected to your existing tools.
Why companies are looking for an alternative
The Cloud Act applies, even with European hosting
OpenAI and Microsoft are American companies: the Cloud Act applies to their data, regardless of where it is hosted.
Your prompts contain your business secrets
Contracts, strategy, source code: every prompt sent to a cloud AI exposes sensitive information to a third party.
A single AI provider limits your options
ChatGPT Enterprise only gives access to OpenAI's models — no alternative if their policy changes.
QAnswer vs ChatGPT Enterprise vs Microsoft Copilot
The criteria that matter for a European business.
QAnswer
ChatGPT Enterprise
Microsoft Copilot
Location of your data
Your servers, your private cloud, or our sovereign cloud in France
OpenAI cloud (US company)
Microsoft cloud (US company)
Exposure to the Cloud Act
Air-gapped configuration possible
Yes
Yes
On-premise / air-gapped deployment
Yes, on your own infrastructure
Not possible
Not possible
Choice of AI model
Model-agnostic: sovereign LLM, GPT-4o, Claude, Gemini, Mistral, Llama…
OpenAI models only
Mainly Azure OpenAI models; Anthropic's Claude was added in 2025, admin-enabled
Pricing model
Free plan, transparent tiers, no seat minimum
Custom enterprise quote; pricing and any seat minimums aren't publicly disclosed
Requires a Microsoft 365 license
Comparison made in good faith at the time of publication; vendor offerings evolve. The structural point, however, does not change: a US company remains subject to the Cloud Act regardless of where it hosts data.
What QAnswer actually does for your teams
Much more than a chat: a complete work platform, with multiple AI models running in the EU or on your own infrastructure.
Chat connected to your documents
Answers drawn from your own sources, every answer cited and traceable back to the original document.
AI agents and automations
Build agents that run your recurring processes, with human validation at critical steps.
Agentic web search
Up-to-date information, with cited sources, directly in the conversation.
Audio transcription and speaker diarization
Your meetings transcribed, with speaker identification, ready to use with AI.
Enterprise connectors
SharePoint, Confluence, Google Drive and more — indexed with existing permissions.
Turnkey self-hosting
The same platform, deployed on your own servers or in a sovereign cloud. Your content never leaves your perimeter.
What you gain by switching to QAnswer
Model-agnostic: sovereign LLM, GPT-4o, Claude, Gemini, Mistral or Llama, in a single interface
Your data stays with you: your servers, your private cloud, or our sovereign cloud in France
Every answer cited and traceable, with permissions inherited from your existing systems
No seat minimum, no mandatory quote to get started
Your documents connected: SharePoint, Confluence, Google Drive and more
ISO 27001 and ISO 42001 certified
Discover all the features, the security and the pricing of QAnswer.
How we get you up and running
No need for a DevOps team or an existing AI plan: we guide you from the first conversation through deployment.
A discovery call with our team
We discuss your current usage, your regulatory constraints, and your priority use cases. No commitment.
Deployment on your infrastructure
We install the platform on your servers or our sovereign cloud in France, and connect your data sources.
Training and ongoing support
Training for your teams, support from our team, and an SLA available on Enterprise plans.
Frequently asked questions
Geographic residency doesn't change the provider's legal jurisdiction. Microsoft remains a US company subject to the Cloud Act: US authorities can request access to the data it processes, regardless of which country its servers are in.
Your existing documents (SharePoint, Drive, Confluence, etc.) connect via our native connectors. The complexity mainly depends on the volume and structure of your data — let's discuss it during a discovery call to assess your specific case.
ChatGPT Enterprise doesn't publish public pricing: every contract is negotiated directly with OpenAI's sales team, and third-party reports point to seat minimums and annual commitments, though OpenAI doesn't confirm specific figures. QAnswer offers a free plan and transparent paid tiers, with no seat minimum to get started.
The Free plan lets you explore QAnswer with no time limit. The Essential plan is designed specifically for small teams ready to put their knowledge base to work.
Yes. QAnswer can be deployed in the cloud, on your on-premise infrastructure, or in an air-gapped environment with no internet connection at all — the same security model, whatever the configuration.
Try the sovereign alternative
Free trial in a few minutes, or a conversation about your needs with our team.