Finding the perfect cybersecurity SaaS solution can be difficult considering the numerous factors that must be considered, such as the industry your organization operates in, the number of vendors your organization manages, the budget available to find a suitable security solution, and the specific use cases for your organization.
Part of the selection process is to trial many different products so you can compare multiple services and find the best solution for your organization’s needs. Ultimately, it comes down to how your organization decides to utilize the software, which means understanding all the possible alternatives in the same VRM/ASM space.
Learn more about UpGuard's vendor risk management product >
Vanta Offerings & Features
Vanta is a startup based in San Francisco, CA, specializing in security monitoring, cybersecurity risk assessment, and compliance management services. Vanta helps organizations achieve compliance with auditing standards and security frameworks through automated processes in their security compliance software.
Vanta’s main offerings are:
- Helping businesses establish and demonstrate compliance with security regulations and frameworks, such as SOC 2, HIPAA, GDPR, ISO 27001, and USDP
- Vendor risk management using acquired third-party service, TrustPage, to ensure third parties are also meeting compliance requirements
- Automated questionnaire, documentation, and security review management
- Vanta Trust Reports demonstrating current security postures and security compliance progress to prospective and existing customers and vendors
Top 10 Vanta Alternatives
We’ll focus on the top Vanta competitors so that you can find the best alternative that matches your organization’s needs.
1. UpGuard
UpGuard is a leader in third-party risk and attack surface management and helps hundreds of global organizations prevent data breaches, monitor third-party vendors, improve their security postures, and manage 1st and 3rd-party compliance. They offer two main products: UpGuard BreachSight and UpGuard Vendor Risk as their attack surface and vendor risk management services.
Pros
- Comprehensive, end-to-end risk management workflows
- Managed services for vendor assessments
- Provides risk scoring for an organization’s complete risk posture (not just individual risks)
- Can generate executive summaries and reports through the platform to assist in executive decision-making processes
- Instant security ratings for 1st and 3rd-parties to monitor cybersecurity postures
- Easy-to-use, intuitive dashboards within the platform
- Real-time updates and notifications for risk exposures
- 5000+ app integrations
Cons
- No automation for the security certification process
- Smaller shared assessment library
Pricing
- UpGuard has a fully transparent and publicly accessible pricing model, which you can view here. For any questions, please email sales@upguard.com.
UpGuard vs. Vanta
UpGuard and Vanta have similar use cases for security compliance and Vendor Risk Management (VRM). However, the main difference is that UpGuard is more heavily focused on providing visibility and documentation of the risk postures of third-party vendors that can be used to make executive decisions. This involves a combination of instant security ratings, data leak detection, external attack surface scanning, and continuous monitoring of internet-facing assets against 70+ attack vectors that can ultimately be used to determine vendor compliance.
UpGuard also offers managed services for businesses should they feel the need to offload the vendor assessment and questionnaire completion process, which Vanta does not currently provide.
On the other hand, Vanta provides a more established process designed to help businesses and their vendors reduce the time and labor needed to attain certain security certifications or meet certain compliance regulations. Vanta’s TPRM program is also powered by its most recent third-party acquisition of Trustpage, which uses a shared assessment library approach to automate security assessments and reviews.
However, one drawback of Vanta is that it does not provide as much risk visibility into third-party vendors or offer any external scanning and monitoring capabilities to prevent potential data breaches or leaks proactively. Businesses looking for a more comprehensive cybersecurity solution may want to consider looking beyond Vanta to manage their security programs.
For more information, check out our in-depth, side-by-side comparison page: https://www.upguard.com/compare/vanta-vs-upguard.
2. Drata
Drata is a San Diego, CA-based security and compliance automation platform that monitors a company’s security controls to streamline its compliance workflows and ensure audit readiness.
Pros
- Simple, easy-to-use, intuitive interface
- Strong customer support
- Comprehensive policy builder
- Beginner-friendly
Cons
- Lack of integration options
- No asset discovery
Pricing
- Public pricing information is not available. Many features are sold as add-ons, which can add to the final cost.
Vanta vs. Drata
Due to the primary use cases in compliance and security certification automation, Drata is more of a direct competitor to Vanta than UpGuard. Drata currently streamlines 14 pre-built compliance frameworks in their automated process with options to create custom frameworks. Comparatively, Vanta maintains 21 pre-built security and privacy frameworks and also has custom controls to build custom frameworks.
However, according to reviews, Drata seems to have a stronger customer support department and more consistent feature updates than Vanta. Some customers have also noted that Drata has limited integration capability, which is in development.
3. Scrut Automation
Scrut Automation is an automated compliance platform that helps businesses comply with various regulatory frameworks and auditing standards. Scrut helps keep track of all the security controls of a company and also monitors business applications, data, and cloud environments for immediate risks.
Pros
- Experienced technical team
- Easy-to-use platform
- Excellent customer success team
Cons
- Features are still developing
Pricing
Public pricing information is not available. However, compliance automation packages have been noted to be lower than Drata and Vanta.
Vanta vs. Scrut Automation
Scrut Automation is still a relatively new company, being founded in 2021. Although they have made enormous strides to compete directly with other leaders in the Compliance Automation and Security Compliance categories, many features or processes still require refinement. However, Scrut combats this with a fantastic customer support team and an internal security team that can also provide guidance.
Both Vanta and Scrut manage vendor risks through risk assessments and questionnaires. It’s important to note that identified risks for both platforms are mapped against compliance standards, but only Scrut provides continuous 24/7 risk monitoring. In contrast, Vanta offers an automated security questionnaire process for faster security reviews, whereas Scrut uses prebuilt questionnaires that vendors have to respond to in a web-based portal.
4. OneTrust Vendorpedia
OneTrust is a US-based company with primary operating offices in Atlanta and London. The OneTrust Vendorpedia platform helps users assess and manage cyber risk from third-party vendors in their digital supply chain and covers many global regulatory and compliance frameworks. OneTrust Vendorpedia also leverages security questionnaires and remediation workflows through exchange and ad-hoc models to help customers reduce risk and improve due diligence efficiency across vendor relationships.
Pros
- Offers pre-built questionnaires in an automated process
- Easy to integrate with other platforms
- Simple, easy-to-use interface
- Covers global regulatory compliance
Cons
- Too many features with an additional cost for guided implementation
- No external security monitoring available
- No data leak detection or monitoring
- No vendor risk remediation workflows
- Poor customer service
- Limited reporting functionality
Pricing
- Offers largely transparent pricing for their multiple offerings via their website, with flexible pricing & billing options for small & growing businesses.
Vanta vs. OneTrust Vendorpedia
One of OneTrust’s main selling points is an extensive library of global compliance frameworks that organizations can map their risks against. This means that OneTrust can have a deeper presence in many markets such as EMEA, which has strict cyber regulations. However, only Vanta has compliance and security certification automation. It’s important to note that businesses can create custom frameworks through Vanta’s platform to map their risks.
Both Vanta and OneTrust do not have continuous security monitoring, nor do they provide security rating services. However, like Vanta, OneTrust leans heavily into the compliance, regulatory, and auditing standards space and less so on the data security side. One difference is that OneTrust Vendorpedia has the ability to assess the third-party risk of vendors but does not have an established vendor risk management process that Vanta can provide.
5. SecurityScorecard
SecurityScorecard is a New York-based security ratings platform that uses traffic and other publicly accessible data to build security ratings to evaluate vendors and manage cyber risk. SecurityScoreCard also monitors "hacker chatter" and other public data feeds for indicators of compromise.
Pros
- Simple-to-use, intuitive interface
- Customizable dashboard options
- Detailed security ratings
- Easily accessible reports
- Free account access
- Consistent new feature release
Cons
- Expensive pricing model
- Too many false positives (for data leaks)
- ATLAS (risk assessments and questionnaires) does not integrate with the SSC platform
- Slow security scanning and risk visibility updates (up to one week)
- Security ratings can take 90+ days to update
- Use third-party service to conduct data leak monitoring
- Outsourced third-party risk management services (TPRMS)
Pricing
- Public pricing information is not available. Reports say pricing starts at $16,500 for self-assessment plus five vendors, and additional vendors cost $1,500-$2,000 per vendor per year.
Vanta vs. SecurityScorecard
While SecurityScorecard is primarily a security rating and vendor risk management service (including questionnaires), part of their product also helps organizations and their vendors manage compliance and ensure compliance with various frameworks. However, the vendor compliance feature can only be accessed as part of SecurityScorecard’s Business and Enterprise plans.
SecurityScorecard has additional functions in summary reports, risk monitoring, cyber risk quantification, and automated alerts about any security score changes that Vanta does not offer currently. It’s important to note that SSC does not manage their TPRM in-house and outsources the work to ATLAS, which does not integrate with the SSC management platform.
Prospective customers may choose Vanta for their automated security certification process if they only want to attain specific certifications. However, businesses looking to grow their TPRM programs while gaining visibility into vendors’ security performances and risk quantification may want to consider SecurityScorecard.
However, because SecurityScorecard is well-known within the security ratings and assessment space, its services are also one of the most expensive options on the market and may not be ideal for SMEs or businesses just looking to get certifications or meet audit standards. Additionally, SecurityScorecard has been met with poor reviews on their customer service, poor data leak detection triggering too many false positives, and inaccurate data.
6. Secureframe
Secureframe is a San Francisco-based company that was founded in 2020, operating primarily in the compliance and security automation space.
Pros
- Good customer support
- Clear checklists for compliance completion
- Good integrations
Cons
- Unintuitive, confusing user interface that is hard to navigate
- Incomplete features that still need development
- Buggy platform
- Poor onboarding process
- Poor TPRM services
Pricing
Public pricing information is not available. However, user reviews mention that Secureframe pricing is higher than Vanta.
Vanta vs. Secureframe
Secureframe is similar to Vanta because both platforms provide security certification automation services for frameworks like CCPA or PCI DSS. One of Secureframe’s best features is that it fully lays out each step required to comply with a framework or regulation. Additionally, Secureframe offers seamless app integrations with many common services that make it easy to use.
However, Secureframe often runs into bugs in the platform and has an unintuitive UI that is poorly explained during the onboarding process or in-platform. Secureframe seems to be a product that still requires lots of development and refining to become a more complete compliance automation solution, whereas Vanta has a more extensive pre-built framework library and a less buggy platform.
Although Secureframe does offer third-party risk management (TPRM) services, it is not a selling point for the platform and is noted as one of its weaker features.
7. AuditBoard
AuditBoard is a cloud-based platform specializing in audit, risk, and compliance management that is commonly used by professional auditors. AuditBoard is also a fully-integrated GRC platform that provides vendor risk management solutions.
Pros
- Very responsive customer support
- Great for all auditing standards
- Easy implementation
Cons
- Lack of integrations
- Limited or lacking functionality
- Steep learning curve
Pricing
Public pricing information is not available.
Vanta vs. AuditBoard
The main difference between Vanta and AuditBoard is that AuditBoard does not have an automated process for attaining security certifications. AuditBoard also provides vendor risk management through risk assessments and ongoing monitoring. More importantly, AuditBoard is cloud-based, giving businesses more room to scale their compliance programs.
AuditBoard also has products for internal auditing, TPRM, and an ESG (environmental, social, and corporate governance) approach for businesses. An ESG approach allows companies to view their risks in an environmental and social context and address those risks as part of an overall growth strategy.
While AuditBoard has a more comprehensive product set, Vanta’s automation for security compliance certifications may be all an organization needs. However, AuditBoard does utilize a streamlined workflow to achieve compliance.
8. Responsive (formerly RFPIO)
Responsive is a response management software that aims to help customers organize vendor responses for faster compliance, evidence gathering, and risk assessments, including managing RFPs, RFIs, RFXs, security questionnaires, and due diligence questionnaires.
Pros
- Easy-to-use, organized platform
- Seamless workflow
- Can manage multiple projects simultaneously
- Customizable dashboards for better visibility
Cons
- New users may get confused in the content library
- Steep learning curve for some features
- Users may encounter some bugs and system glitches
- Lack of integrations
Pricing
Public pricing information is not available.
Vanta vs. Responsive
Responsive has a very strong content library and knowledge base to help businesses take control of their project management and documentation. In doing so, businesses can confirm compliance much faster using Responsive’s content and response management platform.
Vanta has a similar feature in using a shared assessment library to deliver vendor security reviews and establish 1st and 3rd-party compliance states. Vanta is heavily dependent on collaboration but also has a strong knowledge base for step-by-step compliance achievement.
Vanta’s main selling point is its automated process to attain security certifications much more quickly and cut down a typically months-long process to just a few weeks. Although Responsive uses its own streamlined security questionnaire process, they don’t offer a risk management product or provide risk visibility into its vendors. They are primarily proposal and document management software to improve response times and accuracy.
