BitsightvsUpGuard

Compare the capabilities and features of Bitsight and .
Also, see how they stack up against UpGuard.

Compare the capabilities and features of Bitsight and UpGuard. See which solution performs best across a range of categories.

Did you know UpGuard was voted #1 on G2 and has been for over two years?

Bitsight vs
Bitsight vs UpGuard

See how they compare side-by-side.
General summary
5 stars
UpGuard is an end-to-end third-party risk management platform with best-in-class time-to-value and scalability from initial implementations to beyond. 
UpGuard delivers powerful, integrated tools for automated third-party monitoring, in-depth risk assessment and remediation, and one-click reporting. 
By combining actionable insights with built-in risk management workflows, UpGuard helps organizations maintain comprehensive oversight of their supply chain security posture and equips them with the necessary tools to shut down emerging risks rapidly.
Bitsight is a cybersecurity ratings platform that continuously monitors organizational and vendor security postures. It collects and analyzes data from multiple sources—including botnet and malware intelligence—to offer evidence-based risk insights. Bitsight also integrates with GRC and TPRM workflows, allowing teams to proactively mitigate threats across their extended supply chain. However, Bitsight’s pricing structure can complicate scalability.
Key strengths
UpGuard excels by completing full vendor scans every 24 hours, which provides near real-time visibility into vendor security postures while seamlessly integrating native end-to-end AI-powered vendor assessment workflows.
UpGuard's licensing model and efficient learning curve offer best-in-class time to value and program efficiency.
In addition to risk monitoring, Bitsight employs analytical forecasting to estimate future security trajectories. It integrates with platforms like ServiceNow, JIRA, and PowerBI to suit more advanced workflows. This network of partnerships, coupled with strong institutional acceptance, reinforces Bitsight’s profile with complex organizations.
Key weaknesses
UpGuard's focus on core frameworks like ISO 27001 and NIST offers robust coverage for most security and compliance needs, though organizations requiring highly specialized or region-specific regulations may choose to augment it with dedicated GRC modules. 
Its strengths in cybersecurity and continuous monitoring ensure strong TPCRM capabilities, but those seeking an all-encompassing governance solution (e.g., covering environmental or privacy regulations) might benefit from additional integrations.
Bitsight's pricing structures can quickly escalate operational expenses for TPRM programs and create complicated decisions regarding the extent of risk visibility that can be deployed for vendors within a supply chain. Customers additionally cite attribution challenges for risks and assets within shared IP and cloud environments, which require support request submissions to address. Monitoring and assessment capabilities are also separately licensed, which may increase purchasing complexity and limit end-to-end coverage to several vendors within supply chains.
Usability and learning curve
UpGuard offers best-in-class time to value for initial implementations. 
UpGuard's platform architecture is designed from the ground up to deliver a quick and shallow adoption curve. UpGuard's clean and intuitive interface ensures ease of ongoing operation and rapid pick-up from new staff members as needed.
Bitsight is generally intuitive for professionals familiar with security ratings, with an interface offering clear vendor risk summaries. However, some advanced features require more expertise and time to leverage effectively, particularly when deploying Bitsight's separate modules for monitoring and risk assessments.
Community support
UpGuard Summit brings together a community of security leaders from leading companies, explores the future of security and helps businesses stay secure. The UpGuard cybersecurity and risk management blog is updated four times a week and our breach research blog has uncovered and secured some of the largest data breaches.
Bitsight provides reputable support, particularly for large enterprises with dedicated account teams. Smaller organizations may experience less responsiveness and find self-service documentation limited.
Release rate
4 stars
UpGuard has adopted DevOps principles internally to develop, test, and release software continuously, ensuring fast, consistent, and safe releases.
Star rating
Bitsight does not publicly disclose product release cycle periods but does provide overviews of significant platform updates via their corporate blog.
Star rating
Pricing and support
5 stars
UpGuard has a transparent pricing model which you can view here. UpGuard pricing starts at $5,999/year and scales with your company.
Star rating
Public pricing is not available. Does not publically offer a free trial.
Star rating
API and extensibility
4 stars
UpGuard offers a standard API to pull data into other enterprise applications.
Star rating
Bitsight integrates with popular platforms like ServiceNow and Splunk, offering APIs for custom reporting and automation. Offers integrations with RSA Archer GRC, CyberGRX, OneTrust Vendorpedia, ProcessUnity, MetricStream, and more.
Star rating
Third-party integrations
4 stars
Connect UpGuard with over 4,000+ apps using our Zapier integration.
Star rating
Offers integrations with RSA Archer GRC, CyberGRX, OneTrust Vendorpedia, ProcessUnity, MetricStream, and more.
Star rating
Predictive capabilities
5 stars
As UpGuard checks for misconfigurations across your Internet footprint, many important breach vectors are covered, including phishing, ransomware susceptibility (like WannaCry), man-in-the-middle attacks, DNSSEC, vulnerabilities, email spoofing, domain hijacking, and DNS issues. Data leaks are automatically surfaced by the platform for your team to assess and close before they become breaches.
Star rating
Bitsight is widely recognized for malware and botnet reporting, though attribution to hosting providers or shared IP ranges can lead to accuracy challenges requiring correction support.
Star rating
Customers
5 stars
The New York Stock Exchange (ICE), Morningstar, TDK, PagerDuty, Hopin, and IAG. Read our customer stories.
Star rating
Major customers include Optus / Singtel, The University of North Florida, Snam, and PROSA.
Star rating
G2 rating
Accurate as of March 2025
5 stars
4.5, based on 383 reviews. Named a G2 Market Leader for Third Party & Supplier Risk Management Software.
Star rating
4.6, based on 44 reviews.
Star rating
Security rating
X
950
/ 950
X
950
/ 950
X
950
/ 950

Bitsight vs product overview

Bitsight vs UpGuard product overview

Learn more about the products and how they compare.

As outsourcing significant business functions is now common practice for most organizations, major third-party data breaches are rapidly taking over news headlines.

Ponemon Institute and IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach Report found the average cost of a breach has increased from $370,000 to $4.35 million, with third-party involvement listed as one of the main reasons. An eSentire survey from the same year highlights that 44% of firms surveyed have experienced a significant data breach caused by a third-party vendor.

With Gartner reporting 60% of organizations as having 1000+ third-party relationships, effectively managing the cybersecurity risks they create and practicing vendor due diligence proves increasingly difficult.

Information security teams often also rely on manual risk reporting methods which are time and labor-intensive. Many organizations are now turning to automated third-party risk management (TPRM) solutions that automate data breach detection capabilities, provide real-time insights, and streamline remediation workflows.

We assess two TPRM solutions, BitSight and UpGuard, to help you make an informed decision before investing in the right solution for your needs.

BitSight Technologies Overview

BitSight Technologies is a Cambridge, MA-based company that aims to quantify the external cybersecurity posture of organizations using publicly accessible data.

BitSight’s security ratings are used by security and cybersecurity risk professionals to conduct due diligence research for Vendor Risk Management programs, private equity, M&A activities, and more.  

Additionally, these security ratings are used for attack surface analytics, industry benchmarking, and the assessment of fourth-party risk.

BitSight UI
BitSight UI. Source: bitsight.com

UpGuard Overview

UpGuard is a third-party risk and attack surface management platform that helps global organizations prevent data breaches, monitor third-party vendors, and improve their security posture. 

UpGuard’s platform uses proprietary security ratings, data leak detection capabilities, and remediation workflows to proactively identify security exposures.

UpGuard’s all-in-one third-party risk and attack surface management software intelligently groups risks into six categories: website risks, email security, network security, phishing & malware, reputation risk, and brand protection. 

Usability & Learning Curve

Minimizing the amount of time and effort in learning to use a new solution is a critical aspect of delivering on any value proposition.

BitSight and UpGuard offer their services via SaaS and are accessible from web-based platforms that can help users monitor and manage vendor risks.

  • BitSight: Intuitive for professionals familiar with security ratings, offering clear vendor risk summaries. However, some advanced features require additional expertise and time, especially when deploying separate modules for monitoring and risk assessments.
  • UpGuard: High-level summation of risk with the ability to drill down into precise technical details. Each risk is prioritized based on extensive research conducted by the in-house security team, and where possible remediation and protection suggestions are provided.

Capabilities

BitSight and UpGuard both help organizations stay informed about their vendors’ information security risks as part of a third-party risk management (TPRM) program.

Predictive capabilities

The main reason organizations invest in security tools is to prevent incidents from happening in the first place.

A solution's ability to prevent data breaches and other cyber attacks before they happen should be front of mind when choosing a security platform.

BitSight and UpGuard both identify risks using passive scans on a third party’s public-facing attack surfaces.

BitSight: Renowned for malware and botnet reporting, incorporating IP reputation analysis to detect active malware. However, attribution accuracy can sometimes suffer from challenges linked to hosting providers or shared IP addresses, necessitating support requests for corrections.

UpGuard: Reviews many important breach vectors to assess the supply chain attack surface, including phishing, ransomware susceptibility, man-in-the-middle attacks, DNSSEC, vulnerabilities, email spoofing, domain hijacking, and DNS issues.

Provides threat and risk intelligence, enabling greater visibility into supply chain data leakages, compromised corporate identities, and brand fraud.

Community Support

Keeping informed on product updates and the latest cyber security developments is paramount, with new vulnerabilities and cyber threats emerging daily.

Customers need up-to-date resources and relevant insights to stay ahead of the curve and protect their organizations from emerging cyber risks.

The frequency of publication and presence of community engagement is a key indicator of a company’s mission, focus, and investment in its users.

BitSight and UpGuard offer comprehensive online resources to educate and inform customers.

BitSight: Offers strong support primarily for large enterprises with dedicated account teams. Smaller organizations might find less responsiveness and limited self-service documentation

UpGuard: UpGuard Summit brings together a community of security leaders from leading companies, explores the future of security, and helps businesses stay secure.

The UpGuard cybersecurity and risk management blog is updated four times a week and the breach research blog has uncovered and secured some of the largest data breaches.

UpGuard’s free weekly Breach Newsletter informs 20,000+ subscribers of the latest global data breaches.

Release rate

Technology is always changing. New vulnerabilities are added to CVE on a daily basis, and attackers are constantly finding new zero-day exploits.

The speed at which a security platform can incorporate changes determines how well it can respond to new threats and customer requests.

Additionally, they should continue to update, adjust, and improve their threat detection methodology to reflect changes to the threat landscape.

BitSight: BitSight maintains regular blog posts and webinars covering security incidents, feature updates, and industry developments.

UpGuard: UpGuard has adopted DevOps principles internally to develop, test, and release software continuously, ensuring fast, consistent, and safe releases. UpGuard has a regular release rate every two weeks, with all features, changes, and improvements listed under UpGuard Release Notes.

Pricing & Support

Cyber risk platforms can be expensive and the common use of opaque pricing policies often takes power away from the purchaser. With most services offering tiered licensing options and add-ons, finding a solution that fits your needs and budget can prove more difficult without transparent pricing.

BitSight: No information about Bitsight's pricing is publicly available, and no free trial is publicly offered.

UpGuard: UpGuard has a fully transparent and publicly accessible pricing model which you can view here. If you have any questions, please email sales@upguard.com.

API & Extensibility

Accessing the information in a cyber risk product outside of its graphical interface is important for integrated business strategies and consolidating data to a preferred system.

BitSight and UpGuard offer APIs.

BitSight: BitSight offers the ability for customers to extend security ratings through a Developer API.

UpGuard: Offers a standard API to pull data from UpGuard’s platform into other enterprise applications.

Third-party integrations

APIs are useful for technical staff, but not all information security teams have access to developers. In this situation, standard third-party integrations are an essential part of decision-making.  

BitSight and UpGuard offer integrations into other platforms.

BitSight: Offers integrations with RSA Archer GRC, CyberGRX, OneTrust Vendorpedia, ProcessUnity, MetricStream, and more.

UpGuard: Integrates with Zapier to enable connections to 3,000+ apps; GRC platforms, ticketing systems like JIRA; VRM solutions like ServiceNow, and more.

Customers

BitSight: Major customers include Optus / Singtel, The University of North Florida, Snam, and PROSA.

UpGuard: Major customers include Accenture, DuPont, Fujitsu, GAP, McAfee.

Customer Reviews

The following external ratings are accurate as of March 2023. All ratings are from 0 to 5 stars.

Gartner Peer Insights

Overall ratings for the IT VRM Solutions market. Accurate as of January 2024
UpGuard logo

Bitsight

Gartner Peer Insights

Overall ratings for the IT VRM Solutions market. Accurate as of January 2024
5 stars
4.4, based on 160 reviews. Named a Representative Vendor in the 2022 Gartner Market Guide for IT VRM Solutions
Star rating
4.5, based on 261 reviews
Star rating
UpGuard logo

Bitsight

Gartner Peer Insights

Overall ratings for the IT VRM Solutions market. Accurate as of January 2024
5 stars
4.4, based on 160 reviews. Named a Representative Vendor in the 2022 Gartner Market Guide for IT VRM Solutions
Star rating
4.5, based on 261 reviews
UpGuard logo
5 stars
4.4, based on 160 reviews. Named a Representative Vendor in the 2022 Gartner Market Guide for IT VRM Solutions
Bitsight
4.5, based on 261 reviews

G2

Accurate as of March 2025
UpGuard logo

Bitsight

G2

Accurate as of March 2025
5 stars
4.5, based on 383 reviews. Named a G2 Market Leader for Third Party & Supplier Risk Management Software.
Star rating
4.6, based on 44 reviews.
Star rating
UpGuard logo

Bitsight

G2
Accurate as of March 2025
5 stars
4.5, based on 383 reviews. Named a G2 Market Leader for Third Party & Supplier Risk Management Software.
Star rating
4.6, based on 44 reviews.
UpGuard logo
5 stars
4.5, based on 383 reviews. Named a G2 Market Leader for Third Party & Supplier Risk Management Software.
Bitsight
4.6, based on 44 reviews.

Glassdoor

Accurate as of January 2024
UpGuard logo

Bitsight

Glassdoor

Accurate as of January 2024
5 stars
4.6
Star rating
3.8, based on 222 reviews.
Star rating
UpGuard logo

Bitsight

Glassdoor
Accurate as of January 2024
5 stars
4.6
Star rating
3.8, based on 222 reviews.
UpGuard logo
5 stars
4.6
Bitsight
3.8, based on 222 reviews.

Security rating

BitSight: BitSight Security Ratings range on a scale of 250-900 with higher ratings indicating better security performance.

UpGuard: Security rating scale of 0-950, ranked as A: 801-950, B: 601-800, C: 401-600, D: 201-400, F: 0-200. You can request your free security rating by clicking here.

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