Grip Security vs Living Security: 2026 Comparison

Grip Security vs Living Security
Category	UpGuard	Grip Security	Living Security
General summary	UpGuard manages cyber risk everywhere it lives: your vendors, your internet-facing attack surface, and your workforce. You get one platform that connects all three risk areas instead of separate tools and spreadsheets stitched together. A risk in one surfaces in the others automatically. A breached vendor flags your own exposure. A leaked employee credential links straight to the account and the vendor involved. AI handles the repetitive work of triaging alerts, reviewing vendor evidence, and completing questionnaires. That means lean security teams can run programs that would otherwise need much bigger teams. UpGuard fits mid-market teams, deploys quickly, and slots in without replacing what you already have.	Grip Security is an identity-centric SaaS security platform that consolidates SSPM, SaaS security, and ITDR into a single control plane to manage SaaS and AI sprawl risk. By analyzing email flows, browser activity, and IdP/SSO data, it continuously inventories all apps, including unsanctioned shadow IT, to prioritize and remediate risks such as exposed credentials, risky OAuth scopes, missing MFA/SSO, and misconfigurations using built-in workflows or existing tools. Purpose-built specifically for the SaaS and identity layer, Grip does not provide external attack surface management, vendor risk management, or security ratings.	Living Security is an AI-native human risk management (HRM) platform that continuously measures, prioritizes, and reduces cybersecurity risk across an organization's workforce, including employees, contractors, and AI agents. Its Intelligence Engine correlates 300+ behavioral, identity, and threat signals from an organization's existing security stack, and its Human Risk Index (HRI) sorts individuals and groups into five distinct risk levels. Teams use these insights to focus on the small share of users driving most of the exposure and to trigger targeted action plans such as training, nudges, and automated controls. Because the platform is an analytics-and-orchestration layer that depends on integrations to generate signals, visibility is only as complete as the connected stack, and it does not provide external attack surface, vendor risk, or security ratings capabilities of its own.
Key strengths	UpGuard unifies vendor, attack surface, and workforce risk in one console. Customers describe finally seeing the whole picture, rather than paying for three tools that each cover only part of it. UpGuard also surfaces exposures that ratings tools and scanners miss, without the multi-week delay of a typical scan cycle. Lean teams can run the entire program without expanding headcount or adding a managed service.	Grip excels at comprehensive SaaS and AI discovery, combining email, browser, and IdP/SSO signals to surface the full long tail of shadow applications. By mapping every app to access identities and credentials, it streamlines least-privilege enforcement, credential rotation, SSO/MFA extension, and user offboarding. Consolidating SSPM, SaaS security, and ITDR into a single platform reduces tool sprawl, enabling teams to discover, prioritize, and remediate risks through built-in workflows and core integrations with Okta, SailPoint, and ServiceNow.	Living Security's core strength is data correlation. Its Intelligence Engine aggregates siloed signals from across an organization's existing security, identity, and training tools and connects them into a single, individual-level risk picture. The Human Risk Index translates that data into prioritized risk tiers, allowing teams to focus effort on the small percentage of users who drive the majority of exposure. The company also pairs this analytics layer with gamified and AI-personalized training content, which it positions as a driver of stronger completion and behavior-change rates. Backing all of this is a large, multi-year behavioral dataset drawn from 100+ enterprises and independently analyzed by the Cyentia Institute.
Key weaknesses	UpGuard focuses on managing live, connected risk, not heavy, standalone compliance software. Full governance features, including policy and controls management, arrive later this year. Teams that need a mature governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) system of record today can run UpGuard alongside one for now. UpGuard also doesn’t translate risk into dollar figures. If financial risk quantification is a must-have, factor that into your evaluation.	Reviewers note that the initial setup and configuration of Grip can be complex, with a learning curve before teams become fully proficient. Another reviewer notes that the reporting center is limited in its ability to build custom reports. And because Grip's value hinges on comprehensive discovery, full coverage depends on feeding it the right telemetry, email flows, IdP/SSO data, and its browser extension, so deployments that omit parts of that data will see reduced visibility.	The most significant consideration is that Living Security depends on integrations with an organization's existing security tools to generate its risk signals, so its insights are only as complete as the connected stack. Organizations with a thin or poorly integrated toolset will see reduced value. Some users have also noted reporting limitations, such as the lack of an out-of-the-box view for tracking metrics against an exact training start date.
Usability and learning curve	Teams deploy quickly and get up and running without an extended onboarding period. New employees can learn the interface without lengthy training. A single console consolidates workflows that would otherwise require multiple tools, reducing the ongoing burden of learning and maintaining separate systems. Operating the platform doesn’t require a professional services engagement.	Grip is designed for fast time-to-value: discovery is largely agentless, drawing on email, IdP/SSO, and API connections to surface an organization's full SaaS and AI footprint within days of a proof of concept. Onboarding is typically guided, with Grip's security team helping prioritize the highest-value risks in the first weeks of deployment. That said, some reviewers describe the initial setup and configuration as complex and requiring a learning curve. Overall, the platform reaches useful visibility quickly, but teams should expect some ramp-up to operate it proficiently and tailor it to their environment.	Living Security emphasizes a low-friction onboarding experience, with a quick-start path to get a tenant up and running in minutes, along with a step-by-step guide for setting up an organization. The interface centers on visual, real-time dashboards that present risk at the organization, segment, department, and individual levels, and an embedded AI assistant (Livvy) is available throughout the platform to answer questions and surface insights, which lowers the learning curve for new users. The onboarding effort is the upfront integration work of connecting identity, training, phishing, and email security tools so the platform has the data to begin correlation.
Cyber risk data accuracy	UpGuard’s data remains current. Vendor postures refresh continuously, and users can initiate a scan on demand instead of waiting for a fixed cycle. UpGuard attributes findings accurately, so teams do not spend weeks correcting assets assigned to the wrong company, a common issue with ratings tools. Threat Monitoring scans the open, deep, and dark web, along with social media, for leaked data, exposed credentials, and brand impersonation. AI filters out noise so the alerts that reach your team are worth acting on.	For SaaS and identity risk, Grip's data quality is a core strength. Because it correlates multiple signals rather than relying on a single feed, it builds a comprehensive inventory of known and unknown (shadow) SaaS and AI apps, and emphasizes high accuracy with minimal false positives. It continuously monitors for risks such as exposed credentials, excessive permissions, and misconfigurations, assigning risk levels to prioritize action. This accuracy, however, is specific to the SaaS and identity domain and depends on the telemetry an organization connects; it is not a measure of external attack surface or overall security posture.	Living Security's data accuracy is anchored in its Human Risk Index, a dynamic score (1–1000, each identity starting at 500) built from both risky and vigilant user behaviors plus external threat signals. Rather than an additive tally, the HRI is a probabilistic model that weighs risks and correlations across 250+ measured behaviors drawn from three pillars: employee actions (phishing and training results), identity and access signals, and real-time threat intelligence. Because these signals are pulled directly from an organization's own systems of record through integrations, the data tends to be high-fidelity for behavioral and user-risk context, though it is behavior- and identity-based rather than independent external scanning, and the exact HRI weighting is proprietary.
Vendor risk management features	UpGuard runs the complete third-party risk management (TPRM) process in one platform: onboarding, assessing, remediating, monitoring, and reporting on vendors. Each vendor’s live external exposure and any linked leaked credentials appear directly within the vendor program, so teams can act on verified risk instead of relying on paperwork. AI-powered security questionnaires read vendor evidence and complete assessments automatically, cutting completion time by up to 95%. Instant risk assessments return a point-in-time report in under a minute, mapped to frameworks like ISO 27001 and NIST CSF 2.0.	Grip is not a dedicated third-party/vendor risk management (TPRM) platform, and it lacks the core VRM workflows found in purpose-built tools. However, there is partial overlap: because Grip discovers and risk-scores every third-party SaaS and AI application in use, it provides teams with visibility into a slice of third-party risk at the application layer and can enrich that view by integrating external security ratings (for example, through its SecurityScorecard integration). For organizations needing full vendor due diligence and lifecycle management, a dedicated VRM solution would still be required.	Dedicated vendor (third-party) risk management is outside Living Security's scope. While the platform extends its human-risk monitoring to contractors and other extended-workforce identities, this coverage applies to individuals, not to company-level third-party risk management. It does not provide the core TPRM workflows (vendor security questionnaires, compliance assessments, remediation tracking, or continuous vendor monitoring) that define a dedicated VRM platform, so organizations needing third-party risk management would require a separate tool.
Attack surface management features	UpGuard continuously monitors your internet-facing footprint. It maps assets, flags exposures such as misconfigurations, expired certificates, and open ports, and ranks remediation priorities. The UpGuard platform also detects typosquatting and lookalike domains set up to impersonate your brand before they’re used for phishing. Because attack surface monitoring runs alongside vendor and workforce risk, an exposed asset or leaked credential automatically links to the person and vendor involved. This gives teams visibility into both external exposure and vendor risk in a single view.	Grip does not perform traditional external attack surface management; it does not scan, inventory, or monitor internet-facing assets such as domains, IPs, exposed services, or certificates. Its relevance to the attack surface lies in the SaaS and identity layers. By continuously discovering shadow SaaS and AI apps, risky OAuth grants, and other exposures, Grip helps teams find and shrink the identity-driven attack surface those apps create. Organizations looking for conventional, internet-facing ASM would need a dedicated tool.	Attack surface management is not a function of Living Security. The platform does not discover, inventory, or monitor an organization's external-facing digital assets (domains, IPs, exposed services, or certificates) the way a dedicated ASM or security-ratings tool does. Its Intelligence Engine ingests public OSINT and external threat-intelligence signals, but these serve as contextual inputs for individual human risk scoring rather than for mapping or continuously monitoring an external attack surface. Organizations requiring ASM capabilities would need a separate solution.
Customer support	UpGuard supports every customer across all plan tiers, from the smallest plan to the largest. Support teams assist with both technical setup and larger program decisions. Customers frequently cite responsive, hands-on support as a reason they continue with UpGuard.	Grip pairs customers with a Customer Success/Technical Customer Success Manager who helps prioritize risks, build governance habits, and turn findings into operational controls, reflected in its hands-on, guided onboarding. Day-to-day support is delivered through a customer support portal and a help center/documentation site, with support and maintenance governed by a defined SLA that Grip may fulfill directly or through certified third-party providers. Additional engagements, such as deployment, configuration, integration, and training, are available as professional services.	Self-service options include the "Support Garden" knowledge base, a ticket-based support request system, and a customer community for submitting ideas and feedback. Support is structured around an always-on AI chat assistant that serves as the first line of help and escalates unresolved issues to the support team, backed by a standard ticket queue that aims to respond within 48 business hours. For time-sensitive issues, a separate critical-support path handles urgent needs outside standard business hours (Monday–Friday, 8 am–5 pm CT). In-product guidance is delivered through an embedded Resource Center offering walkthroughs and quick access to the knowledge base and community.
Workflow automation	Risk Automations turns a risk signal into action across the platform, with no code and no engineering ticket. On the vendor side, it automates onboarding from questionnaire data, triages vendor score drops, schedules recurring vendor reports, and opens remediation tickets in ServiceNow or Jira. On the threat side, a Breach Risk detection can trigger a workflow that alerts Teams or Slack and runs a system-level fix, like blocking a malicious IP or forcing a credential reset. This is the difference between a tool that reports on risk and one that resolves it.	Workflow automation is central to how Grip operationalizes SaaS risk. After discovery and prioritization, teams can remediate using built-in automated workflows or by orchestrating actions within existing tools such as ServiceNow ITSM and identity providers. Common automated plays include enforcing policies on newly discovered shadow SaaS, extending SSO/MFA coverage, and revoking risky access or OAuth grants. Its browser extension and ITDR capabilities support near-real-time response to identity threats. Bear in mind that the reach of automated enforcement depends on the SaaS apps and downstream tools an organization has connected to.	Living Security's Actions framework lets teams build playbooks that trigger automatically when an individual's risk rises, deploying targeted training, nudges, manager alerts, access-control changes, and ITSM tickets without manual intervention. The company positions this as automating 60–80% of remediation while keeping a human in the loop for oversight, with just-in-time coaching delivered directly in Slack and Teams. Tailored, risk-based action plans are generated and executed from within the platform itself. As with its risk signals, the reach of automated controls depends on the upstream and downstream tools an organization has integrated.
Artificial intelligence features	UpGuard’s AI performs specific, defined tasks, rather than vague “AI-powered” work. The AI Threat Analyst sorts and scores incoming threats across your attack surface, the dark web, and social media. It clears out approximately 60% of alerts as noise, so your team only reviews what matters. The same triage logic extends to vendor and workforce signals as well. Every AI result carries a citation back to the source, so your team can verify it before acting.	Rather than featuring a proprietary generative AI assistant, Grip focuses entirely on AI governance, ensuring how an organization uses AI across its SaaS estate. The platform discovers shadow AI apps, agents, and embedded capabilities, maps them to human and non-human identities (NHIs), and classifies risks based on authentication, data sensitivity, and OAuth scopes. Teams can then use these insights to recommend and automate remediation actions through Grip's built-in, no-code workflows.	Artificial intelligence is central to Living Security's current positioning as an "AI-native" platform. Its AI engine, branded Livvy, is trained on what is described as the industry's largest HRM dataset and unifies 300+ behavioral, identity, and threat signals into a Human Risk Index for every identity. Livvy spans prediction (flagging risk before it becomes an incident), guidance (surfacing prioritized recommendations with stated reasoning, confidence scores, and predicted impact), and action (driving automated remediation playbooks). AI is also applied to content creation, generating risk-aligned, hyper-personalized training.
API and integrations	A well-documented REST API and webhooks let teams pull risk data into their own tools and trigger actions programmatically, without waiting on engineering support. For no-code work, Risk Automations adds more than 100 native integrations, including Jira, ServiceNow, Microsoft Entra, Slack, and Cloudflare. A Universal API Connector Node extends its reach to any open API.	Tailored specifically for identity and SaaS security rather than a broad, general-purpose marketplace, Grip connects directly to core IdPs and IAM systems (Okta, Microsoft Entra, Google Workspace, SailPoint) and major platforms like Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Slack, and Zoom, while capturing the long tail of SaaS via email and browser signals. For orchestration and risk enrichment, it integrates with ServiceNow (ITSM and CMDB) and SecurityScorecard, utilizes a browser extension for near-real-time policy enforcement, and exposes an API for programmatic access.	Through its Technology Alliance Program, Living Security maintains pre-built connectors to dozens of widely used security, identity, and HR systems, including Microsoft (Azure, Defender, Intune), Okta, SailPoint, CrowdStrike, Proofpoint, Mimecast, Abnormal, Cofense, KnowBe4, Netskope, Zscaler, Rapid7, and Workday. Its Entity Graph unifies identity data across HRIS, SSO, endpoint, and email sources into a single user profile, and integrations also support outbound actions such as ITSM ticketing and access-control changes. Living Security publishes technical documentation that includes APIs for programmatic access, though detailed API references are gated.
Purchasing & licensing transparency	UpGuard publishes its pricing rather than hiding it behind a sales call. A free tier lets teams monitor up to five vendors and use Trust Exchange, UpGuard’s AI-powered questionnaire tool, at no cost. Paid Vendor Risk plans start at USD 1,750 per month, billed annually. Teams can start with one product and add others as they scale. One license covers both monitoring and assessments, so pricing doesn’t fragment across separate products.	Grip uses a transparent, per-human-user pricing model billed annually, with final costs determined by employee count, feature choices, and contract length. For organizations with fewer than 1,000 employees, published pricing starts at $8 per user per month and covers AI and SaaS discovery, identity-driven security, threat detection, and governance, while larger organizations receive custom enterprise quotes. Although there is no advertised free plan or free trial, a one-off AI Governance Assessment is available on request, and a proof of concept can be arranged through a product demo.	Living Security publishes its packaging structure but not its prices. The platform is sold as a required base (the "Living Security Platform") plus one of three Action Packages: Train, Engage, or Adapt. Buyers are directed to "contact us for enterprise pricing." Several capabilities (phishing simulations, Cybersecurity Awareness Month, CyberEscape Online, AI content generation, and professional services) are priced separately as add-ons. There is no free plan or free trial; evaluation runs through a sales-led demo environment.
Customers	UpGuard customers include Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE: ICE), Morningstar, TDK, PagerDuty, Hopin, and IAG. Read UpGuard’s customer stories to learn more.	Grip publicly lists a range of enterprise and mid-market customers and claims to protect more than 125 million SaaS users. Examples cited include Interpublic Group (IPG), NFP, Alera Group, Pacific Dental Services (PDS Health), and Findlay. The customer base skews toward insurance, professional services, advertising, healthcare, and finance, though it also includes large organizations, such as a Fortune 300 advertising firm with roughly 90,000 employees.	Living Security publicly references a roster of large, recognizable enterprise customers across multiple regulated industries. Examples include Verizon, JPMorgan, CVS Health, Lockheed Martin, and Ford. The customer base skews toward Fortune 500 and large enterprises in finance, healthcare, technology, and manufacturing.
G2 rating Accurate as of March 2025	More than 700 verified reviews give UpGuard a 4.5 out of 5 rating on G2. UpGuard also holds G2’s top ranking as the leader in Third-Party & Supplier Risk Management for 15 consecutive quarters. The 2026 G2 Best Software Awards recognized UpGuard as one of the Top 100 Global Software Companies. Among verified reviewers, 98% give UpGuard four- or five-star ratings, and 94% approve of its product direction.	4.4, based on 5 reviews.	4.8, based on 6 reviews.
Security ratings	944 / 950	815 / 950	834 / 950

General summary

UpGuard manages cyber risk everywhere it lives: your vendors, your internet-facing attack surface, and your workforce. You get one platform that connects all three risk areas instead of separate tools and spreadsheets stitched together. A risk in one surfaces in the others automatically. A breached vendor flags your own exposure. A leaked employee credential links straight to the account and the vendor involved. AI handles the repetitive work of triaging alerts, reviewing vendor evidence, and completing questionnaires. That means lean security teams can run programs that would otherwise need much bigger teams. UpGuard fits mid-market teams, deploys quickly, and slots in without replacing what you already have.

Grip Security is an identity-centric SaaS security platform that consolidates SSPM, SaaS security, and ITDR into a single control plane to manage SaaS and AI sprawl risk. By analyzing email flows, browser activity, and IdP/SSO data, it continuously inventories all apps, including unsanctioned shadow IT, to prioritize and remediate risks such as exposed credentials, risky OAuth scopes, missing MFA/SSO, and misconfigurations using built-in workflows or existing tools. Purpose-built specifically for the SaaS and identity layer, Grip does not provide external attack surface management, vendor risk management, or security ratings.

Living Security is an AI-native human risk management (HRM) platform that continuously measures, prioritizes, and reduces cybersecurity risk across an organization's workforce, including employees, contractors, and AI agents. Its Intelligence Engine correlates 300+ behavioral, identity, and threat signals from an organization's existing security stack, and its Human Risk Index (HRI) sorts individuals and groups into five distinct risk levels. Teams use these insights to focus on the small share of users driving most of the exposure and to trigger targeted action plans such as training, nudges, and automated controls. Because the platform is an analytics-and-orchestration layer that depends on integrations to generate signals, visibility is only as complete as the connected stack, and it does not provide external attack surface, vendor risk, or security ratings capabilities of its own.

Key strengths

UpGuard unifies vendor, attack surface, and workforce risk in one console. Customers describe finally seeing the whole picture, rather than paying for three tools that each cover only part of it. UpGuard also surfaces exposures that ratings tools and scanners miss, without the multi-week delay of a typical scan cycle. Lean teams can run the entire program without expanding headcount or adding a managed service.

Grip excels at comprehensive SaaS and AI discovery, combining email, browser, and IdP/SSO signals to surface the full long tail of shadow applications. By mapping every app to access identities and credentials, it streamlines least-privilege enforcement, credential rotation, SSO/MFA extension, and user offboarding. Consolidating SSPM, SaaS security, and ITDR into a single platform reduces tool sprawl, enabling teams to discover, prioritize, and remediate risks through built-in workflows and core integrations with Okta, SailPoint, and ServiceNow.

Living Security's core strength is data correlation. Its Intelligence Engine aggregates siloed signals from across an organization's existing security, identity, and training tools and connects them into a single, individual-level risk picture. The Human Risk Index translates that data into prioritized risk tiers, allowing teams to focus effort on the small percentage of users who drive the majority of exposure. The company also pairs this analytics layer with gamified and AI-personalized training content, which it positions as a driver of stronger completion and behavior-change rates. Backing all of this is a large, multi-year behavioral dataset drawn from 100+ enterprises and independently analyzed by the Cyentia Institute.

Key weaknesses

UpGuard focuses on managing live, connected risk, not heavy, standalone compliance software. Full governance features, including policy and controls management, arrive later this year. Teams that need a mature governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) system of record today can run UpGuard alongside one for now. UpGuard also doesn’t translate risk into dollar figures. If financial risk quantification is a must-have, factor that into your evaluation.

Reviewers note that the initial setup and configuration of Grip can be complex, with a learning curve before teams become fully proficient. Another reviewer notes that the reporting center is limited in its ability to build custom reports. And because Grip's value hinges on comprehensive discovery, full coverage depends on feeding it the right telemetry, email flows, IdP/SSO data, and its browser extension, so deployments that omit parts of that data will see reduced visibility.

The most significant consideration is that Living Security depends on integrations with an organization's existing security tools to generate its risk signals, so its insights are only as complete as the connected stack. Organizations with a thin or poorly integrated toolset will see reduced value. Some users have also noted reporting limitations, such as the lack of an out-of-the-box view for tracking metrics against an exact training start date.

Usability and learning curve

Teams deploy quickly and get up and running without an extended onboarding period. New employees can learn the interface without lengthy training. A single console consolidates workflows that would otherwise require multiple tools, reducing the ongoing burden of learning and maintaining separate systems. Operating the platform doesn’t require a professional services engagement.

Grip is designed for fast time-to-value: discovery is largely agentless, drawing on email, IdP/SSO, and API connections to surface an organization's full SaaS and AI footprint within days of a proof of concept. Onboarding is typically guided, with Grip's security team helping prioritize the highest-value risks in the first weeks of deployment. That said, some reviewers describe the initial setup and configuration as complex and requiring a learning curve. Overall, the platform reaches useful visibility quickly, but teams should expect some ramp-up to operate it proficiently and tailor it to their environment.

Living Security emphasizes a low-friction onboarding experience, with a quick-start path to get a tenant up and running in minutes, along with a step-by-step guide for setting up an organization. The interface centers on visual, real-time dashboards that present risk at the organization, segment, department, and individual levels, and an embedded AI assistant (Livvy) is available throughout the platform to answer questions and surface insights, which lowers the learning curve for new users. The onboarding effort is the upfront integration work of connecting identity, training, phishing, and email security tools so the platform has the data to begin correlation.

Cyber risk data accuracy

UpGuard’s data remains current. Vendor postures refresh continuously, and users can initiate a scan on demand instead of waiting for a fixed cycle. UpGuard attributes findings accurately, so teams do not spend weeks correcting assets assigned to the wrong company, a common issue with ratings tools. Threat Monitoring scans the open, deep, and dark web, along with social media, for leaked data, exposed credentials, and brand impersonation. AI filters out noise so the alerts that reach your team are worth acting on.

For SaaS and identity risk, Grip's data quality is a core strength. Because it correlates multiple signals rather than relying on a single feed, it builds a comprehensive inventory of known and unknown (shadow) SaaS and AI apps, and emphasizes high accuracy with minimal false positives. It continuously monitors for risks such as exposed credentials, excessive permissions, and misconfigurations, assigning risk levels to prioritize action. This accuracy, however, is specific to the SaaS and identity domain and depends on the telemetry an organization connects; it is not a measure of external attack surface or overall security posture.

Living Security's data accuracy is anchored in its Human Risk Index, a dynamic score (1–1000, each identity starting at 500) built from both risky and vigilant user behaviors plus external threat signals. Rather than an additive tally, the HRI is a probabilistic model that weighs risks and correlations across 250+ measured behaviors drawn from three pillars: employee actions (phishing and training results), identity and access signals, and real-time threat intelligence. Because these signals are pulled directly from an organization's own systems of record through integrations, the data tends to be high-fidelity for behavioral and user-risk context, though it is behavior- and identity-based rather than independent external scanning, and the exact HRI weighting is proprietary.

Vendor risk management features

UpGuard runs the complete third-party risk management (TPRM) process in one platform: onboarding, assessing, remediating, monitoring, and reporting on vendors. Each vendor’s live external exposure and any linked leaked credentials appear directly within the vendor program, so teams can act on verified risk instead of relying on paperwork. AI-powered security questionnaires read vendor evidence and complete assessments automatically, cutting completion time by up to 95%. Instant risk assessments return a point-in-time report in under a minute, mapped to frameworks like ISO 27001 and NIST CSF 2.0.

Grip is not a dedicated third-party/vendor risk management (TPRM) platform, and it lacks the core VRM workflows found in purpose-built tools. However, there is partial overlap: because Grip discovers and risk-scores every third-party SaaS and AI application in use, it provides teams with visibility into a slice of third-party risk at the application layer and can enrich that view by integrating external security ratings (for example, through its SecurityScorecard integration). For organizations needing full vendor due diligence and lifecycle management, a dedicated VRM solution would still be required.

Dedicated vendor (third-party) risk management is outside Living Security's scope. While the platform extends its human-risk monitoring to contractors and other extended-workforce identities, this coverage applies to individuals, not to company-level third-party risk management. It does not provide the core TPRM workflows (vendor security questionnaires, compliance assessments, remediation tracking, or continuous vendor monitoring) that define a dedicated VRM platform, so organizations needing third-party risk management would require a separate tool.

Attack surface management features

UpGuard continuously monitors your internet-facing footprint. It maps assets, flags exposures such as misconfigurations, expired certificates, and open ports, and ranks remediation priorities. The UpGuard platform also detects typosquatting and lookalike domains set up to impersonate your brand before they’re used for phishing. Because attack surface monitoring runs alongside vendor and workforce risk, an exposed asset or leaked credential automatically links to the person and vendor involved. This gives teams visibility into both external exposure and vendor risk in a single view.

Grip does not perform traditional external attack surface management; it does not scan, inventory, or monitor internet-facing assets such as domains, IPs, exposed services, or certificates. Its relevance to the attack surface lies in the SaaS and identity layers. By continuously discovering shadow SaaS and AI apps, risky OAuth grants, and other exposures, Grip helps teams find and shrink the identity-driven attack surface those apps create. Organizations looking for conventional, internet-facing ASM would need a dedicated tool.

Attack surface management is not a function of Living Security. The platform does not discover, inventory, or monitor an organization's external-facing digital assets (domains, IPs, exposed services, or certificates) the way a dedicated ASM or security-ratings tool does. Its Intelligence Engine ingests public OSINT and external threat-intelligence signals, but these serve as contextual inputs for individual human risk scoring rather than for mapping or continuously monitoring an external attack surface. Organizations requiring ASM capabilities would need a separate solution.

Customer support

UpGuard supports every customer across all plan tiers, from the smallest plan to the largest. Support teams assist with both technical setup and larger program decisions. Customers frequently cite responsive, hands-on support as a reason they continue with UpGuard.

Grip pairs customers with a Customer Success/Technical Customer Success Manager who helps prioritize risks, build governance habits, and turn findings into operational controls, reflected in its hands-on, guided onboarding. Day-to-day support is delivered through a customer support portal and a help center/documentation site, with support and maintenance governed by a defined SLA that Grip may fulfill directly or through certified third-party providers. Additional engagements, such as deployment, configuration, integration, and training, are available as professional services.

Self-service options include the "Support Garden" knowledge base, a ticket-based support request system, and a customer community for submitting ideas and feedback. Support is structured around an always-on AI chat assistant that serves as the first line of help and escalates unresolved issues to the support team, backed by a standard ticket queue that aims to respond within 48 business hours. For time-sensitive issues, a separate critical-support path handles urgent needs outside standard business hours (Monday–Friday, 8 am–5 pm CT). In-product guidance is delivered through an embedded Resource Center offering walkthroughs and quick access to the knowledge base and community.

Workflow automation

Risk Automations turns a risk signal into action across the platform, with no code and no engineering ticket. On the vendor side, it automates onboarding from questionnaire data, triages vendor score drops, schedules recurring vendor reports, and opens remediation tickets in ServiceNow or Jira. On the threat side, a Breach Risk detection can trigger a workflow that alerts Teams or Slack and runs a system-level fix, like blocking a malicious IP or forcing a credential reset. This is the difference between a tool that reports on risk and one that resolves it.

Workflow automation is central to how Grip operationalizes SaaS risk. After discovery and prioritization, teams can remediate using built-in automated workflows or by orchestrating actions within existing tools such as ServiceNow ITSM and identity providers. Common automated plays include enforcing policies on newly discovered shadow SaaS, extending SSO/MFA coverage, and revoking risky access or OAuth grants. Its browser extension and ITDR capabilities support near-real-time response to identity threats. Bear in mind that the reach of automated enforcement depends on the SaaS apps and downstream tools an organization has connected to.

Living Security's Actions framework lets teams build playbooks that trigger automatically when an individual's risk rises, deploying targeted training, nudges, manager alerts, access-control changes, and ITSM tickets without manual intervention. The company positions this as automating 60–80% of remediation while keeping a human in the loop for oversight, with just-in-time coaching delivered directly in Slack and Teams. Tailored, risk-based action plans are generated and executed from within the platform itself. As with its risk signals, the reach of automated controls depends on the upstream and downstream tools an organization has integrated.

Artificial intelligence features

UpGuard’s AI performs specific, defined tasks, rather than vague “AI-powered” work. The AI Threat Analyst sorts and scores incoming threats across your attack surface, the dark web, and social media. It clears out approximately 60% of alerts as noise, so your team only reviews what matters. The same triage logic extends to vendor and workforce signals as well. Every AI result carries a citation back to the source, so your team can verify it before acting.

Rather than featuring a proprietary generative AI assistant, Grip focuses entirely on AI governance, ensuring how an organization uses AI across its SaaS estate. The platform discovers shadow AI apps, agents, and embedded capabilities, maps them to human and non-human identities (NHIs), and classifies risks based on authentication, data sensitivity, and OAuth scopes. Teams can then use these insights to recommend and automate remediation actions through Grip's built-in, no-code workflows.

Artificial intelligence is central to Living Security's current positioning as an "AI-native" platform. Its AI engine, branded Livvy, is trained on what is described as the industry's largest HRM dataset and unifies 300+ behavioral, identity, and threat signals into a Human Risk Index for every identity. Livvy spans prediction (flagging risk before it becomes an incident), guidance (surfacing prioritized recommendations with stated reasoning, confidence scores, and predicted impact), and action (driving automated remediation playbooks). AI is also applied to content creation, generating risk-aligned, hyper-personalized training.

API and integrations

A well-documented REST API and webhooks let teams pull risk data into their own tools and trigger actions programmatically, without waiting on engineering support. For no-code work, Risk Automations adds more than 100 native integrations, including Jira, ServiceNow, Microsoft Entra, Slack, and Cloudflare. A Universal API Connector Node extends its reach to any open API.

Tailored specifically for identity and SaaS security rather than a broad, general-purpose marketplace, Grip connects directly to core IdPs and IAM systems (Okta, Microsoft Entra, Google Workspace, SailPoint) and major platforms like Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Slack, and Zoom, while capturing the long tail of SaaS via email and browser signals. For orchestration and risk enrichment, it integrates with ServiceNow (ITSM and CMDB) and SecurityScorecard, utilizes a browser extension for near-real-time policy enforcement, and exposes an API for programmatic access.

Through its Technology Alliance Program, Living Security maintains pre-built connectors to dozens of widely used security, identity, and HR systems, including Microsoft (Azure, Defender, Intune), Okta, SailPoint, CrowdStrike, Proofpoint, Mimecast, Abnormal, Cofense, KnowBe4, Netskope, Zscaler, Rapid7, and Workday. Its Entity Graph unifies identity data across HRIS, SSO, endpoint, and email sources into a single user profile, and integrations also support outbound actions such as ITSM ticketing and access-control changes. Living Security publishes technical documentation that includes APIs for programmatic access, though detailed API references are gated.

Purchasing & licensing transparency

UpGuard publishes its pricing rather than hiding it behind a sales call. A free tier lets teams monitor up to five vendors and use Trust Exchange, UpGuard’s AI-powered questionnaire tool, at no cost. Paid Vendor Risk plans start at USD 1,750 per month, billed annually. Teams can start with one product and add others as they scale. One license covers both monitoring and assessments, so pricing doesn’t fragment across separate products.

Grip uses a transparent, per-human-user pricing model billed annually, with final costs determined by employee count, feature choices, and contract length. For organizations with fewer than 1,000 employees, published pricing starts at $8 per user per month and covers AI and SaaS discovery, identity-driven security, threat detection, and governance, while larger organizations receive custom enterprise quotes. Although there is no advertised free plan or free trial, a one-off AI Governance Assessment is available on request, and a proof of concept can be arranged through a product demo.

Living Security publishes its packaging structure but not its prices. The platform is sold as a required base (the "Living Security Platform") plus one of three Action Packages: Train, Engage, or Adapt. Buyers are directed to "contact us for enterprise pricing." Several capabilities (phishing simulations, Cybersecurity Awareness Month, CyberEscape Online, AI content generation, and professional services) are priced separately as add-ons. There is no free plan or free trial; evaluation runs through a sales-led demo environment.

Customers

UpGuard customers include Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE: ICE), Morningstar, TDK, PagerDuty, Hopin, and IAG. Read UpGuard’s customer stories to learn more.

Grip publicly lists a range of enterprise and mid-market customers and claims to protect more than 125 million SaaS users. Examples cited include Interpublic Group (IPG), NFP, Alera Group, Pacific Dental Services (PDS Health), and Findlay. The customer base skews toward insurance, professional services, advertising, healthcare, and finance, though it also includes large organizations, such as a Fortune 300 advertising firm with roughly 90,000 employees.

Living Security publicly references a roster of large, recognizable enterprise customers across multiple regulated industries. Examples include Verizon, JPMorgan, CVS Health, Lockheed Martin, and Ford. The customer base skews toward Fortune 500 and large enterprises in finance, healthcare, technology, and manufacturing.

G2 rating Accurate as of March 2025

More than 700 verified reviews give UpGuard a 4.5 out of 5 rating on G2. UpGuard also holds G2’s top ranking as the leader in Third-Party & Supplier Risk Management for 15 consecutive quarters. The 2026 G2 Best Software Awards recognized UpGuard as one of the Top 100 Global Software Companies. Among verified reviewers, 98% give UpGuard four- or five-star ratings, and 94% approve of its product direction.

4.4, based on 5 reviews.

4.8, based on 6 reviews.

Security ratings

944 / 950

815 / 950

834 / 950

Grip Security vs Living Security product overview

Learn more about the products and how they compare.

We assess three user risk solutions — Grip Security, Living Security, and UpGuard — to help you make an informed decision before investing in the right solution for your needs.

Grip Security Overview

Grip Security is an identity-centric SaaS security platform that consolidates SaaS security posture management (SSPM), SaaS security, and Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) into a single control plane to manage SaaS and AI sprawl risk. It analyzes email flows, browser activity, and IdP/SSO data to continuously inventory every app, including unsanctioned shadow IT, then prioritizes and remediates risks like exposed credentials, risky OAuth scopes, missing MFA/SSO, and misconfigurations. Purpose-built for the SaaS and identity layer, it doesn’t provide external attack surface management, vendor risk management, or security ratings.

Living Security Overview

Living Security is an AI-native human risk management (HRM) platform that measures and reduces risk across an organization’s workforce, including employees, contractors, and AI agents. Its Intelligence Engine correlates 300+ behavioral, identity, and threat signals from a customer’s existing security stack into a Human Risk Index (HRI) that sorts individuals into five risk tiers. It backs this with a multi-year behavioral dataset from 100+ enterprises, analyzed by the Cyentia Institute. It pairs that with gamified, AI-personalized training and an embedded assistant, Livvy.

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 and the learning curve

Grip Security: Discovery is largely agentless, drawing on email, IdP/SSO, and API connections to surface an organization’s full SaaS and AI footprint within days of a proof of concept. Onboarding is typically guided, with Grip’s security team helping prioritize the highest-value risks in the first weeks of deployment, though some reviewers describe initial setup and configuration as complex, with a learning curve before teams become fully proficient.

Living Security: Onboarding centers on a quick-start path that stands up a tenant in minutes, with visual dashboards at the organization, segment, department, and individual level. An embedded AI assistant (Livvy) lowers the learning curve, though most of the effort is upfront: connecting identity, training, phishing, and email security tools so the platform has data to correlate.

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

Grip Security: Grip works from outside the app itself, correlating email flows, browser activity, and IdP/SSO signals into a single inventory that covers sanctioned and unsanctioned SaaS and AI apps alike. Its strength is breadth of discovery: mapping every app to the identities and credentials behind it streamlines least-privilege enforcement, credential rotation, and offboarding. Its most cited limitation is a reporting center that reviewers describe as limited for building custom reports, on top of a setup process some find complex.

Living Security: Living Security works from the inside out, correlating signals from an organization’s existing security, identity, and training tools into a per-person risk score, then driving targeted training, nudges, and automated controls at the individuals who account for most exposure. Its value depends entirely on the integrations connected to it; a thin toolset limits what it can see, and it doesn’t address vendor risk or external attack surface.

UpGuard: Offers real-time visibility into any third-party vendor’s risk posture and security rating along with total automation for managing vendor due diligence and remediation programs.

Community support

Grip Security: A Customer Success or Technical Customer Success Manager works with customers directly, prioritizing risks and turning findings into operational controls as part of hands-on, guided onboarding. Day-to-day support runs through a customer support portal and a help center, governed by a defined SLA that Grip fulfills directly or through certified third-party providers; deployment, configuration, integration, and training are available as separate professional services.

Living Security: Day-to-day support runs on an always-on AI chat assistant that escalates to a ticket queue targeting a 48-business-hour response, with a separate critical-support path for urgent issues outside standard hours.

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

Grip Security: Release news lives in blog posts tagged “Product Innovations,” including the ITDR 2.0 launch and new customizable workflow features. There’s no version-by-version changelog or fixed release schedule.

Living Security: Does not maintain a public changelog or version-by-version release notes. Product news surfaces instead through its blog and Newsroom, including milestone announcements like the launch of its AI-native platform, and it publishes no fixed release schedule.

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 and support

Grip Security: The SMB tier is priced at $8 per user per month for organizations under 1,000 employees, covering AI and SaaS discovery, identity-driven security, threat detection, and governance. Organizations over 1,000 employees get custom enterprise quotes, since enterprise pricing isn’t published. There’s no free plan or trial, though a proof of concept is available, deploying in roughly 10 minutes via API and surfacing an organization’s full SaaS/AI footprint within about five days. See Grip Security’s pricing.

Living Security: Pricing isn’t published. It’s sold as a required base subscription plus one of three Action Packages (Train, Engage, Adapt), with phishing simulations, AI content generation, and professional services priced as separate add-ons. There’s no free plan or trial; evaluation runs through a sales-led demo. See Living Security’s pricing.

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 and extensibility

Grip Security: An API exposes programmatic access to Grip’s data for teams that want to pull it into their own tools, while a browser extension supports near-real-time policy enforcement directly at the point of risk. Integrations with ServiceNow (ITSM and CMDB) and SecurityScorecard extend orchestration and risk enrichment beyond the core platform.

Living Security: Technical documentation covers APIs for programmatic access to risk data and platform actions, though detailed references are gated behind a customer login. Its Entity Graph unifies identity data pulled from HRIS, SSO, endpoint, and email sources into a single profile per person, and integrations extend to outbound actions like opening ITSM tickets or triggering access-control changes based on a person’s risk score.

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

Third-party integrations

Grip Security: Connects directly to core identity providers and IAM systems: Okta, Microsoft Entra, Google Workspace, and SailPoint. It also connects to major platforms like Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Slack, and Zoom, capturing the long tail of SaaS through email and browser signals.

Living Security: Its Technology Alliance Program connects the platform to Microsoft (Azure, Defender, Intune), Okta, SailPoint, CrowdStrike, Proofpoint, Mimecast, KnowBe4, Netskope, Zscaler, Rapid7, and Workday.

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

Customers

Grip Security: Interpublic Group (IPG), NFP, Alera Group, Pacific Dental Services (PDS Health), and Findlay.

Living Security: Verizon, JPMorgan, CVS Health, Lockheed Martin, and Ford.

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

Grip Security vs Living Security

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