Datawrapper

The newsroom standard for charts, maps, and tables — no code, no trackers, no cookies.

Free for journalists

Strong

https://www.datawrapper.de · Reviewed 2026-04-02 · Editorial assessment by Mike Schneider — not an independent security audit

What should journalists know about Datawrapper?

Datawrapper is the default for newsroom data visualization, and nothing else comes close on the privacy side. Embedded charts set zero cookies, run zero trackers, use zero third-party scripts — GDPR and CCPA compliant out of the box. That matters when your readers are in authoritarian contexts. The free tier is genuinely unlimited. The team is ~25 people generating ~$3-5M in revenue with no VC funding, which means no growth-at-all-costs pressure to monetize your data. The main competitor, Flourish, was acquired by Canva in February 2022 — meaning your data viz tool now reports to an ad-tech-adjacent company. Datawrapper remains founder-controlled and independent. ISO 27001 certified, annual pen tests, all data stays in the EEA. For journalism, this is the right tool.

Best for

Charts, maps, and tables for publication. Election results, data journalism, any story that needs a visual. Quick turnaround data viz. PowerPoint presentations via the Microsoft add-in. Small multiples for comparative analysis.

Not for

Complex interactive storytelling (Flourish has more creative chart types like timelines and bubble visualizations). Datawrapper is a visualization tool — it doesn't store or analyze sensitive datasets. If you're working with sensitive data, the concern is what you upload to create the chart, not Datawrapper itself. No native data connectors — CSV upload or API only.

Security & Privacy

Encryption in transit Yes

Data is scrambled while being sent to their servers

Encryption at rest Yes

Data is scrambled when stored on their servers

Data jurisdiction European Economic Area. Two AWS datacenters: Frankfurt, Germany and Stockholm, Sweden. User data never leaves the EEA.

Where servers are located — affects which governments can request your data

Security rating Strong

One of the strongest privacy postures in our evaluation set. Embedded visualizations set zero cookies, run zero trackers, use zero third-party scripts — DNT by default. GDPR and CCPA compliant. Data controller is Mirko Lorenz (Berlin). Datawrapper processes but does not store end-user IP addresses when viewing charts (standard HTTP behavior). Payment data retained 10 years per German tax law, restricted to compliance-only processing after 2 years. Internal data protection officer reviews processes quarterly.

How to protect yourself:

Datawrapper's data practices are reasonable for most use cases. If you're creating charts from sensitive datasets: (1) upload only the columns needed for the visualization, not the full dataset, (2) delete charts you no longer need, (3) be aware that published charts are publicly accessible by URL, (4) use the PowerPoint add-in to create visualizations that stay private and never publish to the web, (5) Enterprise tier offers self-hosting for maximum data control.

ISO 27001 certified with annual audits. Annual third-party penetration testing. All code peer-reviewed. German-based, GDPR-compliant, all data in EEA. Zero cookies, zero trackers, zero third-party scripts on embedded charts. No VC funding means no data monetization pressure. Upgraded from 'adequate' to 'strong' based on verified ISO 27001 certification, pen testing program, and exceptional embed privacy posture.

Who Owns This

Owner Datawrapper GmbH (Berlin, Germany). Founded 2011. Data controller: Mirko Lorenz.

Funding Bootstrapped and profitable. Originally incubated at ABZV (German journalism training institute). Zero VC funding. ~$3-5M annual revenue from ~25-30 employees. An M&A offer was reported in April 2025, but the company remains independent and founder-controlled as of April 2026.

Business model Freemium SaaS. Free tier for individual journalists and small newsrooms. Revenue from Custom tier ($599/month for newsroom branding, exports) and Enterprise tier (SSO, SLAs, self-hosting). No advertising, no data selling, no tracker monetization. The absence of VC funding is a meaningful trust signal — no board pressure to extract value from user data.

Known issues

No security breaches or privacy incidents on record. No CVEs. Main limitations are cosmetic and functional: free tier shows Datawrapper branding on charts. No native data connectors — all data must be uploaded via CSV or pushed via API. The April 2025 M&A offer is worth monitoring; an acquisition could change the privacy calculus (as it did when Canva acquired competitor Flourish in 2022).

Pricing

Free (unlimited charts with Datawrapper branding, PNG export, full API access). Custom: $599/month or $5,990/year (custom branding, themes, PDF/SVG export, 10 user licenses, additional seats $21/user/month). Enterprise: custom pricing (SSO, SLAs, self-hosting option). 20% discount on Custom plans for NGOs. Free PDF/SVG export for students, teachers, and academic researchers.

The free tier is effectively the journalist tier — fully functional with no feature gating. NGOs get 20% off Custom plans. Academic users get free PDF/SVG export.

This is an editorial assessment based on publicly available information as of 2026-04-02, using our published methodology. Independent security review is pending. Security posture can change at any time. This is not a guarantee of safety.

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