Focsec vs IPQualityScore
Focsec is a European alternative to IPQualityScore: same security & identity use case, headquartered in Estonia and governed by EU GDPR, while IPQualityScore is based in the United States.
By the EU Alternatives team Last updated
Estonian IP intelligence API detecting VPNs, proxies, TOR, and bots: 300+ VPN providers, 500K+ proxies, 100K+ bots tracked, simple HTTP API with multi-language SDKs.
- Jurisdiction
- EU / EEA
- Primary privacy law
- EU GDPR
- US CLOUD Act exposure
- No
- Open source
- No
- Free tier
- No
Fraud teams use it to score IP addresses, flag proxies and VPNs, and verify emails and phone numbers through one API. A free tier covers 1,000 lookups a month, with paid plans from 99 dollars a month for 5,000. The operator is IPQualityScore LLC, a private company based in Las Vegas, Nevada, which puts the traffic you screen under American law.
- Jurisdiction
- United States
- GDPR by default
- Requires DPA + TIA
- US CLOUD Act exposure
- Yes
Focsec vs IPQualityScore at a glance
| Focsec | IPQualityScore | |
|---|---|---|
| Headquarters | Estonia | United States |
| Data jurisdiction | EU / EEA | United States |
| Primary privacy law | EU GDPR | Requires DPA + transfer assessment |
| US CLOUD Act exposure | No | Yes |
| Best for | Teams that need security & identity built for European data-protection requirements | Teams already invested in the IPQualityScore ecosystem |
Choose Focsec if…
- You want a provider governed by a European privacy regime
- GDPR or public-sector data-protection requirements apply to you
- You'd rather back the European tech ecosystem
Stick with IPQualityScore if…
- You depend on integrations only available in the IPQualityScore ecosystem
- Your organisation has no EU data-residency constraints
- Migration costs outweigh the jurisdiction benefits for now
About Focsec
Focsec is an Estonian IP intelligence API that detects suspicious network activity (VPNs, proxies, TOR exit nodes, and malicious bots) in real time. Built by Nineties Engineering OÜ in Tallinn, the service powers fraud prevention and bot protection for SaaS, e-commerce, and auth providers who need lightweight IP checks without the overhead of a full fraud platform.
Instead of relying on stale blocklists, Focsec continuously monitors VPN and proxy networks from its own collection infrastructure, keeping detection current and accurate.
Key features:
- 300+ VPN providers tracked globally
- 500,000+ proxies covering both free and commercial proxy detection
- TOR detection to identify Onion network traffic
- Bot detection that blocks 100,000+ known malicious bots, crawlers, and spammers
- Simple API using HTTP GET with bearer token auth:
api.focsec.com/v1/ip/{IP} - Multi-language SDKs for Python, Ruby, Node.js, and curl
- Fraud prevention use cases like signup abuse, multi-accounting, login fraud, and scraping
Free 14-day trial with full API access, no credit card required. A clean EU-based alternative to US IP intelligence services like IPQualityScore and MaxMind for teams who care about where their request logs are stored.
Why choose Focsec over IPQualityScore?
The decisive argument is data jurisdiction. IPQualityScore is headquartered in the United States, which means personal data processed through it can be subject to non-EU legal regimes: the US CLOUD Act, FISA 702, or similar laws depending on the provider. After the 2020 Schrems II ruling, EU organisations must carry out a transfer impact assessment for every such data flow.
Focsec removes that overhead. As an Estonia-based provider, it operates under EU GDPR, and data stays inside the EU/EEA by default. For regulated sectors such as health, public administration, and finance, that's not a nice-to-have but a requirement. For everyone else, it's concentration-risk insurance: you avoid depending on a single jurisdiction that can change the rules without warning.