RiskIQvsWhisticUpGuard

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

Compare the capabilities and features of RiskIQ 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?

RiskIQ vs Whistic
RiskIQ 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.
Primarily focuses on first-party risk rather than taking a holistic view of cybersecurity.
Relies on standardized security questionnaires.
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.
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.
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.
Its threat intelligence tool maps internet-facing assets and provides insights and prioritized remediation recommendations based on asset criticality, context, and threat severity.
Risks detailed on each point-in-time vendor assessment, which means new risks are only detected during the next assessment process. Remediation requests are not available. Their risk assessments are aligned to the VSA questionnaire, CAIQ, SIG, NIST Cybersecurity Framework, CIS Security Controls, and Privacy Shield Framework.
Cyber risk data accuracy
UpGuard's real-time data refresh rate ensures up-to-date and accurate vendor security posture calculations while also allowing users to initiate scans on demand.
Cybersecurity experts manually review all internal and vendor data leaks to remove false positives. Data leak insights are also supported with comprehensive contextualization for targeted and timely remediation responses.
Relies on first-party attack surface management by monitoring your digital footprint (websites, domains, public-facing assets, as well as javascript resources, and typosquatted domains), as well as external threats like phishing, deep and dark web discussions, email spoofing, and other cyber threats.
Relies on risk assessments which can quickly become out of date as new zero-day exploits are discovered and new IT infrastructure is used. The truth is that questionnaires, much like penetration testing, can be subjective and become inaccurate over time as new security issues emerge. Additionally, Whistic provides no controls for capturing data loss incidents.
Vendor risk management features
UpGuard offers a natively integrated end-to-end workflow addressing the complete Third-party Risk Management lifecycle—from onboarding to risk management and ongoing monitoring.
Attack surface management features
UpGuard provides continuous attack surface monitoring, identifying exposed assets, misconfigurations, and vulnerabilities. It maps internet-facing infrastructure, detects risks like expired certificates and open ports, and prioritizes threats for remediation. Clear, actionable insights help organizations reduce exposure and strengthen their external security posture.
Security ratings
Uses a proprietary scoring model from 0–950, updated daily, emphasizing current, empirical data. 
UpGuard's objective and transparent approach helps CISOs, security teams, and stakeholders reliably gauge a vendor’s actual security posture in near-real time.
Customer support
Known for world-class support across all tiers and customer-friendly guidance, UpGuard delivers proactive and prompt engagement to resolve customer issues quickly. Dedicated teams assist with both technical and strategic TPRM challenges.
Offers a company and product blog.
Offers a company and product blog.
Workflow automation
UpGuard’s AI-powered Security Profile automatically identifies risks and control gaps, then generates contextualized, point-in-time assessment reports in minutes. It also provides a pre-configured (and adjustable) set of controls for two leading security frameworks: ISO 27001:2022 and NIST CSF 2.0.
Custom notifications simplify tracking of critical events and prompting of important follow-up actions.
The platform also facilitates automatic vendor tiering, labeling, and custom attributes based on questionnaire responses for faster vendor onboarding and improved TPRM scalability.
Artificial intelligence features
UpGuard’s AI-powered platform streamlines the entire vendor assessment process.
AI evidence analysis combined with automated scanning immediately uncovers control gaps and risks. Each finding is accompanied by transparent, traceable citations so security teams can quickly verify sources and take action.
AI-generated risk assessment reports, which are typically produced in under a minute, help organizations rapidly communicate risks with stakeholders. This results in faster decision-making, more accurate and consistent reporting, and significantly reduced manual workloads.
API and Integrations
4 stars
UpGuard provides a well-documented API enabling custom integrations, webhooks, and automation across common security and GRC tools. Its extensibility is straightforward, designed for rapid deployment and minimal setup friction. UpGuard also connects with over 4,000+ apps through a dedicated Zapier integration.
Streamlines remediation and monitoring by natively integrating with Jira, Service Now, and Slack.
Integrates with Cloudflare, Splunk, Crowdstrike, Qualys, Rapid7, ServiceNow, and more.
Integrates with RiskRecon, Active Directory, Okta, and OneLogin.
Purchasing & Licensing Transparency
UpGuard offers a freemium package for monitoring up to 5 vendors.
Also provides free access to an AI-powered vendor questionnaire management tool, Trust Exchange.
Pricing starts at USD 1,599 / month.
A 14-day free trial for paid plans is also available.
Pricing not available on the website.
Public pricing information is not available.
Customers
Major customers include The New York Stock Exchange (ICE), Morningstar, TDK, PagerDuty, Hopin, and IAG. 
To learn more, read UpGuard’s customer stories.
Major customers include Amazon, Disney, Box, Facebook, McKesson, Toyota, United, Pepsi, Rackspace, DocuSign, and American Express.
Customers include Betterment, Invision, Airbnb, Zynga, and Robinhood
G2 rating
Accurate as of March 2025
4.5, based on 383 reviews. Named a G2 Market Leader for Third Party & Supplier Risk Management Software.
4.8, based on 4 reviews.
4.5, based on 46 reviews.
Security rating
X
950
/ 950
X
950
/ 950
X
950
/ 950

RiskIQ vs Whistic product overview

RiskIQ vs UpGuard product overview

Learn more about the products and how they compare.

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

RiskIQ Overview

RiskIQ is a cybersecurity company based in San Francisco, California. RiskIQ provides cloud-based software as a service for organizations to manage their attack surface and detect phishing, fraud, malware, and other online security threats.

RiskIQ was founded in 2009 by Lou Manousos, Chris Kiernan, and David Pon.

RiskIQ Dashboard User Interface
RiskIQ UI. Source: riskiq.com

Whistic Overview

Whistic is based in Salt Lake City, Utah and aims to help companies hold each other accountable for protecting their shared data. Customers can use Whistic's workflows to conduct security reviews and respond to security reviews in one platform.

Whistic expedites the risk assessment process by making vendor security information available to prospective partners through its Whistic Trust Catalog. Their platform has tools to help you onboard, assess, and track vendors by allowing you to compare third parties against a set of predefined criteria based on vendor questionnaires, documentation, and metadata.

Vendors can assess themselves against one of the top vendor questionnaires and publish it to their profile, along with supporting documentation, including audits and certifications. These profiles can be made available to existing and prospective business partners to expedite the risk assessment process.

Whistic UI
Whistic UI. Source: whistic.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

RiskIQ, Whistic, and UpGuard help organizations stay informed about their vendors’ information security risks as part of third-party risk management (TPRM) and vendor due diligence programs.

  • RiskIQ: Focuses on first-party attack surface management and does not provide a real solution for third-party risk management.
  • Whistic: Relies on point-in-time risk assessments that can become outdated until the next assessment process.
  • UpGuard: Offers real-time visibility into any third-party vendor’s risk posture & security rating along with total automation for managing vendor due diligence and remediation programs.

Capabilities

RiskIQ, Whistic, and UpGuard help organizations stay informed about their vendors’ information security risks as part of third-party risk management (TPRM) and vendor due diligence programs.

  • RiskIQ: Focuses on first-party attack surface management and does not provide a real solution for third-party risk management.
  • Whistic: Relies on point-in-time risk assessments that can become outdated until the next assessment process.
  • UpGuard: Offers real-time visibility into any third-party vendor’s risk posture & security rating along with total automation for managing vendor due diligence and remediation programs.

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.

RiskIQ: Relies on first-party attack surface management by monitoring your digital footprint (websites, domains, public-facing assets, as well as javascript resources, and typosquatted domains), as well as external threats like phishing, deep and dark web discussions, email spoofing, and other cyber threats. 

Whistic: Relies on risk assessments which can quickly become out of date as new zero-day exploits are discovered and new IT infrastructure is used. The truth is that questionnaires, much like penetration testing, can be subjective and become inaccurate over time as new security issues emerge. Additionally, Whistic provides no controls for capturing data loss incidents.

UpGuard: UpGuard scans the digital footprints of organizations and their vendors to ensure all breach vectors are covered and secured. Threats such as phishing, ransomware, MitM attacks, vulnerabilities, email spoofing, typosquatted domains, network security, DNS issues, and more are part of 70+ attack vectors that are monitored consistently. In addition, UpGuard scans millions of pages daily to quickly detect data leaks so organizations can secure their data exposures.

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.

RiskIQ, Whistic, and UpGuard offer comprehensive online resources to educate and inform customers.

RiskIQ: Company and product blog.

Whistic: Company and product blog.

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

Keeping customers and the cybersecurity community informed on the latest cyber security developments is paramount, with new vulnerabilities and threats emerging daily. 

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.

  • RiskIQ: The frequency of RiskIQ's updates is not stated on the website.
  • Whistic: The release model for Whistic is unknown.
  • 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.

  • RiskIQ: Rumored to start at $35 per 1,000 analyzed pages per year or $150,000 per analyzed brand plus cumulative consumer downloads per year for mobile products.
  • Whistic: Reported to start at $25,000 and is based on the number of vendors managed in the platform or the number of security questionnaires to which you're responding.
  • 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

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.  

RiskIQ, Whistic, and UpGuard offer APIs.

  • RiskIQ: Provides a standard API.
  • Whistic: Offers standard APIs facilitating integrations with other internal software solutions.
  • UpGuard: Offers a standard API to pull data from UpGuard’s platform into other enterprise applications.

Third-party integrations

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.

RiskIQ, Whistic, and UpGuard offer integrations into other platforms.

Customers

  • RiskIQ: Customers include Amazon, Disney, Box, Facebook, McKesson, Toyota, United, Pepsi, Rackspace, DocuSign, and American Express.
  • Whistic: Customers include Betterment, Invision, Airbnb, Zynga, and Robinhood.
  • UpGuard: Major customers include Accenture, New York Stock Exchange, Tech Mahindra, IAG, Hopin, NSW Government, and Morningstar.

Security rating

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