HubSpot Alternatives That Keep Your CRM Data Yours
HubSpot tried to use your CRM data to enrich other customers' records. Here are 5 secure HubSpot alternatives where your data stays yours.
Haris Odobasic
5 Secure HubSpot Alternatives That Keep Your CRM Data Yours
"We made a mistake." That is how HubSpot opened its post on the 5th July 2025, pulling back a set of terms changes it had announced four days earlier.
Here is what it walked back. On July 1, HubSpot updated its Product Specific Terms. Section 6.3 now said you agree HubSpot can take enrichment data out of your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, add it to its own commercial dataset, and use it to enrich other customers' records. The switch was set to flip on August 4, timed with a new feature called Contact Discovery, built on exactly that shared pool.
What counts as "enrichment data" here is broad. Business contact details, company data, and behavioral signals: who visited your site and when, which emails got delivered, opened, or clicked. Not your notes, deals, or call recordings. But enough to rebuild a live map of your buyers and hand pieces of it to strangers.
The terms did the clever part quietly. Every version of the enrichment documentation puts the compliance burden on you. You send the notices and collect the consents; if a regulator comes knocking, it is your lawful basis on the line. HubSpot builds the machine, you carry the risk of feeding it.
Then came the backlash, and then the apology. HubSpot says it will not move forward with the July 1 changes.
Did they kill the idea? No. Read the same post again. They still believe in what they call "Trusted Prospecting," and they promise to bring enrichment back as "fully and transparently opt-in." So the idea is alive. They paused the rollout and went back to the drawing board to rebuild it with a cleaner consent screen.
Here is my problem with that, opt-in or opt-out. A CRM is a database. It is your database. The company that hosts it should have no route to use what is inside for its own commercial gain. Not with a checkbox. Not with a better checkbox. The moment there is a switch in the product that turns your customer records into a resale-ready format, the switch is the risk. For a European business under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), that is not a setting you toggle off. It is a reason to leave.
The good news is they handed you a window. While they are "reassessing," nobody is pooling your data. Use the time to plan a migration instead of reacting to the next announcement.
5 HubSpot Alternatives Where Your Data Stays Yours
Attio. Best for a simple, modern sales motion. Best-in-class tooling, and it integrates cleanly with the rest of your stack.
Pipedrive. Less modern than Attio, more stable. Solid for straightforward use cases.
Zoho. The suite is well established. Not sexy, highly customizable, does the job.
Odoo. If your Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) already runs on Odoo, the CRM is the easiest thing you will roll out this year.
Salesforce. Above 5 million dollars in annual recurring revenue (ARR), hire a good admin and make the switch. The case holds for plenty of companies under 5 million too.
Why These HubSpot Competitors Handle Data Differently
HubSpot never made leaving this easy before. The fact that a button to reformat your customer data for someone else's commercial use can exist inside the platform at all is the tell. For a European customer, that is an unacceptable risk.
Bye, HubSpot.
Sources: HubSpot, "We Got This Wrong. And We Are Fixing It," July 5, 2026; HubSpot, "Contact Discovery is Coming Soon + Legal Update," July 1, 2026; HubSpot Privacy Policy, §8.5 on "sale/sharing".
5 Secure HubSpot Alternatives That Keep Your CRM Data Yours
"We made a mistake." That is how HubSpot opened its post on the 5th July 2025, pulling back a set of terms changes it had announced four days earlier.
Here is what it walked back. On July 1, HubSpot updated its Product Specific Terms. Section 6.3 now said you agree HubSpot can take enrichment data out of your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, add it to its own commercial dataset, and use it to enrich other customers' records. The switch was set to flip on August 4, timed with a new feature called Contact Discovery, built on exactly that shared pool.
What counts as "enrichment data" here is broad. Business contact details, company data, and behavioral signals: who visited your site and when, which emails got delivered, opened, or clicked. Not your notes, deals, or call recordings. But enough to rebuild a live map of your buyers and hand pieces of it to strangers.
The terms did the clever part quietly. Every version of the enrichment documentation puts the compliance burden on you. You send the notices and collect the consents; if a regulator comes knocking, it is your lawful basis on the line. HubSpot builds the machine, you carry the risk of feeding it.
Then came the backlash, and then the apology. HubSpot says it will not move forward with the July 1 changes.
Did they kill the idea? No. Read the same post again. They still believe in what they call "Trusted Prospecting," and they promise to bring enrichment back as "fully and transparently opt-in." So the idea is alive. They paused the rollout and went back to the drawing board to rebuild it with a cleaner consent screen.
Here is my problem with that, opt-in or opt-out. A CRM is a database. It is your database. The company that hosts it should have no route to use what is inside for its own commercial gain. Not with a checkbox. Not with a better checkbox. The moment there is a switch in the product that turns your customer records into a resale-ready format, the switch is the risk. For a European business under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), that is not a setting you toggle off. It is a reason to leave.
The good news is they handed you a window. While they are "reassessing," nobody is pooling your data. Use the time to plan a migration instead of reacting to the next announcement.
5 HubSpot Alternatives Where Your Data Stays Yours
Attio. Best for a simple, modern sales motion. Best-in-class tooling, and it integrates cleanly with the rest of your stack.
Pipedrive. Less modern than Attio, more stable. Solid for straightforward use cases.
Zoho. The suite is well established. Not sexy, highly customizable, does the job.
Odoo. If your Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) already runs on Odoo, the CRM is the easiest thing you will roll out this year.
Salesforce. Above 5 million dollars in annual recurring revenue (ARR), hire a good admin and make the switch. The case holds for plenty of companies under 5 million too.
Why These HubSpot Competitors Handle Data Differently
HubSpot never made leaving this easy before. The fact that a button to reformat your customer data for someone else's commercial use can exist inside the platform at all is the tell. For a European customer, that is an unacceptable risk.
Bye, HubSpot.
Sources: HubSpot, "We Got This Wrong. And We Are Fixing It," July 5, 2026; HubSpot, "Contact Discovery is Coming Soon + Legal Update," July 1, 2026; HubSpot Privacy Policy, §8.5 on "sale/sharing".
5 Secure HubSpot Alternatives That Keep Your CRM Data Yours
"We made a mistake." That is how HubSpot opened its post on the 5th July 2025, pulling back a set of terms changes it had announced four days earlier.
Here is what it walked back. On July 1, HubSpot updated its Product Specific Terms. Section 6.3 now said you agree HubSpot can take enrichment data out of your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, add it to its own commercial dataset, and use it to enrich other customers' records. The switch was set to flip on August 4, timed with a new feature called Contact Discovery, built on exactly that shared pool.
What counts as "enrichment data" here is broad. Business contact details, company data, and behavioral signals: who visited your site and when, which emails got delivered, opened, or clicked. Not your notes, deals, or call recordings. But enough to rebuild a live map of your buyers and hand pieces of it to strangers.
The terms did the clever part quietly. Every version of the enrichment documentation puts the compliance burden on you. You send the notices and collect the consents; if a regulator comes knocking, it is your lawful basis on the line. HubSpot builds the machine, you carry the risk of feeding it.
Then came the backlash, and then the apology. HubSpot says it will not move forward with the July 1 changes.
Did they kill the idea? No. Read the same post again. They still believe in what they call "Trusted Prospecting," and they promise to bring enrichment back as "fully and transparently opt-in." So the idea is alive. They paused the rollout and went back to the drawing board to rebuild it with a cleaner consent screen.
Here is my problem with that, opt-in or opt-out. A CRM is a database. It is your database. The company that hosts it should have no route to use what is inside for its own commercial gain. Not with a checkbox. Not with a better checkbox. The moment there is a switch in the product that turns your customer records into a resale-ready format, the switch is the risk. For a European business under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), that is not a setting you toggle off. It is a reason to leave.
The good news is they handed you a window. While they are "reassessing," nobody is pooling your data. Use the time to plan a migration instead of reacting to the next announcement.
5 HubSpot Alternatives Where Your Data Stays Yours
Attio. Best for a simple, modern sales motion. Best-in-class tooling, and it integrates cleanly with the rest of your stack.
Pipedrive. Less modern than Attio, more stable. Solid for straightforward use cases.
Zoho. The suite is well established. Not sexy, highly customizable, does the job.
Odoo. If your Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) already runs on Odoo, the CRM is the easiest thing you will roll out this year.
Salesforce. Above 5 million dollars in annual recurring revenue (ARR), hire a good admin and make the switch. The case holds for plenty of companies under 5 million too.
Why These HubSpot Competitors Handle Data Differently
HubSpot never made leaving this easy before. The fact that a button to reformat your customer data for someone else's commercial use can exist inside the platform at all is the tell. For a European customer, that is an unacceptable risk.
Bye, HubSpot.
Sources: HubSpot, "We Got This Wrong. And We Are Fixing It," July 5, 2026; HubSpot, "Contact Discovery is Coming Soon + Legal Update," July 1, 2026; HubSpot Privacy Policy, §8.5 on "sale/sharing".
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