HomeToGo vs Airbnb
HomeToGo is a European alternative to Airbnb: same consumer products use case, headquartered in Germany and governed by EU GDPR, while Airbnb is based in the United States.
By the EU Alternatives team Last updated
Europe's largest vacation rental metasearch engine, comparing 15M+ listings in one place
- Jurisdiction
- EU / EEA
- Primary privacy law
- EU GDPR
- US CLOUD Act exposure
- No
- Open source
- No
- Free tier
- No
Airbnb is the largest marketplace for short-term stays, connecting hosts and guests in more than 100,000 towns and cities and taking a service fee on each booking. Browsing costs nothing; the platform earns on transactions. The company is based in San Francisco, which means booking and identity data sits with a US platform.
- Jurisdiction
- United States
- GDPR by default
- Requires DPA + TIA
- US CLOUD Act exposure
- Yes
HomeToGo vs Airbnb at a glance
| HomeToGo | Airbnb | |
|---|---|---|
| Headquarters | Germany | 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 consumer products built for European data-protection requirements | Teams already invested in the Airbnb ecosystem |
Choose HomeToGo 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 Airbnb if…
- You depend on integrations only available in the Airbnb ecosystem
- Your organisation has no EU data-residency constraints
- Migration costs outweigh the jurisdiction benefits for now
About HomeToGo
HomeToGo is a Berlin-based vacation rental metasearch engine, the Kayak of short-term rentals. Founded in 2014, the company aggregates over 15 million listings (cabins, condos, villas, houses) from thousands of providers worldwide, letting travelers compare prices across platforms like Vrbo, Booking.com, TripAdvisor, and direct property managers in a single search.
Rather than holding its own inventory, HomeToGo connects travelers with rental providers and earns through affiliate partnerships and advertising. The platform offers filtering by property type, amenities (pools, hot tubs, waterfront), location, and price, plus AI-powered search for natural-language trip planning. Localized versions exist in multiple countries and languages, with destination guides and specialty categories like monthly rentals and waterfront homes. Integrations with property management tools such as Smoobu let hosts list directly.
HomeToGo is publicly traded (Frankfurt: HTG) and stands as the largest European player in vacation rental metasearch, competing against US-rooted platforms like Airbnb and Vrbo. For travelers, the pitch is breadth and price transparency across providers in one place; for property managers, it's a distribution channel that sits above individual OTAs.
Why choose HomeToGo over Airbnb?
The decisive argument is data jurisdiction. Airbnb 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.
HomeToGo removes that overhead. As a Germany-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.