General summary
Vanta is a trust management platform focused on compliance automation. The platform unifies compliance and TPRM workflows under a single dashboard, reducing the time and complexity of achieving and maintaining alignment with popular standards like SOC 2 and ISO 27001. Its AI-driven features and API extensibility support varied organizational needs, from startups to large enterprises.
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.
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.
SecurityScorecard is a cybersecurity ratings platform that monitors external-facing vendor networks. It aggregates risk signals from various sources to produce vendor security ratings. SecurityScorecard integrates with SIEM and GRC tools and provides insights that mitigate supply chain attacks. However, risk assessment workflows are managed separately via the Atlas module, which can lead to fragmented processes that could delay vendor assessment delivery and impact program efficiency
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.
Black Kite is a third-party cyber risk management platform emphasizing external risk visibility, financial impact modeling, and compliance automation. Black Kite uses non-intrusive OSINT-based scans to discover assets and vulnerabilities, presenting findings as easy-to-read letter grades. However, by excluding critical TPRM workflows, Black Kite’s potential for effective third-party risk management is significantly limited.
Key strengths
Vanta's standout strengths include its broad compliance automation capabilities—covering 35+ frameworks—and its robust library of integrations for automatically collecting evidence. Its AI technology accelerates tasks like document reviews and security questionnaires. These combined capabilities reduce manual overhead, providing a unified risk and compliance posture.
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.
UpGuard's licensing model and efficient learning curve offer best-in-class time to value and program efficiency.
SecurityScorecard covers an extensive range of cyber intelligence, drawing from open, proprietary, and dark web sources to identify vendor security risks and assess IP reputation risks. SecurityScorecard’s well-known A–F letter grade system makes it approachable for executives and large enterprises.
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.
Black Kite takes a diverse approach to cyber risk quantification with a methodology heavily based on the Open FAIR™ standard. This allows Black Kite to derive their varying cyber risk insights from a consistent quantification base.
Key weaknesses
Vanta is focused on automating evidence collection, documentation management, and monitoring policy-based controls. As a result, customers will need to deploy additional solutions where real-time attack surface visibility, asset discovery, and external threat intelligence capabilities are required. Additionally, licensing can become more complex as organizations add frameworks or grow vendor portfolios.
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.
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.
SecurityScorecard's staggered scan cycles disrupts real-time vendor security posture visibility. IP attribution issues are also cited as common scanning problems.
Additionally, vendor monitoring and risk assessments are licensed separately, which may increase purchasing complexity and limit coverage of end-to-end visibility of supply chain vendors
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.
Black Kite does not offer vendor questionnaires or risk assessments as part of their solution offerings. While Black Kite's quantification-forward approach may be sufficient for some, customers with requirements for vendor security reviews and assurance documents for compliance needs will likely require an additional solution for this capability.
Usability and learning curve
Vanta's prescriptive setup and ready-made policy templates keep the initial learning curve manageable. Its AI-driven assistance and guided workflows reduce the onboarding effort for core compliance frameworks. However, larger teams integrating many custom apps or requiring intricate multi-entity management (via Vanta "Workspaces") may need extra configuration time before fully realizing a streamlined experience.
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.
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.
SecurityScorecard's dashboards and clear A-F grading help non-technical stakeholders quickly grasp vendor risk exposure. However, some users report multiple drill-down steps required to reach specific risk insights, which could lengthen new user learning curves
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.
Black Kite's interface is designed around letter-grade dashboards and detailed risk findings for its range of quantification options offered. However, insights for each focused rating are not clearly segmented by audience and often bleed across the entire platform. This can make the relevance of platform insights less consistent for specialized users, even within teams.
Cyber risk data accuracy
Vanta relies primarily on data from third-party integrations to deliver external risk insights. As such, the reliability of this data hinges on the quality of the information provided by external solutions. Organizations seeking more direct, real-time visibility into third-party risks must supplement Vanta with specialized external monitoring solutions.
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.
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.
SecurityScorecard offers extensive data collection across public-facing and dark web sources, though users occasionally report inaccurate attribution or misflagged IPs requiring support.
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.
The platform gathers data from a large set of OSINT feeds and uses standards-based scoring (MITRE, NIST, Open FAIR™) to reduce false positives. However, some users note occasional duplication or outdated issues that require manual dispute or re-validation
Vendor risk management features
Vanta offers VRM workflows for automating security questionnaires and document requests. These workflows are supported by AI for faster analysis of SOC 2 reports and DPAs. Automatic vendor discovery helps uncover 4th party relationships, reducing potential blind spots in the supply chain. Still, the platform's VRM relies on gathered documentation rather than continuous external scanning, limiting the depth of real-time visibility into vendor security postures.
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.
SecurityScorecard's VRM workflow requires a separate module named Atlas for security questionnaire and risk assessment processes. This can introduce complexity into this process.
Bitsight supports third-party monitoring and risk workflows, including vendor onboarding, but relies on a separately licensed module for vendor risk assessments and workflows.
Although Black Kite offers document analysis features, the platform can be seen as primarily geared toward detecting and quantifying cyber risks rather than offering fully integrated VRM workflows.
Attack surface management features
Vanta includes external asset scanning integrated into its compliance platform, enabling ongoing monitoring of known external-facing assets. However, it doesn't provide the same breadth of unknown asset discovery or extensive threat intelligence that specialized external attack surface management solutions offer. As a result, organizations with large or rapidly changing external footprints—or those needing deep, real-time telemetry—may benefit from pairing Vanta with a dedicated ASM platform.
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.
SecurityScorecard offers views into an organization's attack surface by leveraging IP scanning and attribution of identified domains and assets. The platform's approach helps users identify potential weaknesses in their digital footprint that an attacker might exploit.
Bitsight's External Attack Surface Management module is designed to discover hidden assets, provide detailed digital asset insights, and detect vulnerabilities such as unsupported product versions. .
Black Kite uses OSINT data spanning domain records, subdomains, SSL certificates, and more to deliver visibility into a vendor's external footprint.
Security ratings
Vanta does not provide security ratings for measuring and understanding an organization's external cyber risk posture. As a result, customers will require a supplemental solution to leverage letter-grade or numerical representations of internal and external security postures.
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.
UpGuard's objective and transparent approach helps CISOs, security teams, and stakeholders reliably gauge a vendor’s actual security posture in near-real time.
Employs an A-F rating with a 0–100 scale, penalizing breaches and factoring patching cadences, though some risk categories could have a disproportional impact on scoring. Large-scale data collection across the clear and dark web ensures broad coverage, updated roughly every 10 days for IPv4.
Offers a respected rating system correlated with breach likelihood and is used widely by insurers and financial institutions. Observed security events influence scores, but shared IP misattribution can occasionally skew results.
Uses an A–F letter-grade rating based on standardized models (e.g., MITRE CTSA). The score is supplemented by a separate financial risk metric that ties vulnerabilities to potential financial impact, a key differentiator for stakeholders concerned with breach damage costs.
Customer support
Vanta provides in-app chat, comprehensive documentation, and access to subject matter experts, especially for customers with higher-scale or complex deployments. Users typically report fast, helpful responses. As programs become complex, dedicated implementation support—often via Vanta's partner network—can be crucial for advanced customizations or specialized frameworks.
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.
Generally supportive for enterprise levels, with a community of free users. However, customers at lower licensing tiers report slower responses and less personalized support.
Bitsight provides reputable support, particularly for large enterprises with dedicated account teams. Smaller organizations may experience less responsiveness and find self-service documentation limited.
Black Kite's users report mixed support experiences: some find support teams responsive with weekly check-ins, while others cite slower resolution times and inconsistent follow-up on false positives and duplicate findings.
Workflow automation
Vanta provides rule-based triggers and AI suggestions to reduce manual effort for evidence collection, security questionnaires, and compliance management tasks. Vanta integrates with ticketing systems and supports automated workflows (such as automatically assigning remediation tasks), enabling users to focus on higher-value activities.
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.
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.
SecurityScorecard’s workflow automation features let users create rule-based triggers that automatically respond to security events, such as score drops, new high-severity issues, or breaches. Users can choose from a range of automated response actions, including alert activation, report sharing, and reassigning scorecards for further review
Bitsight integrates with SOAR platforms, allowing users to automate responses to newly discovered risks. However, advanced automation requirements, such as those addressing Vendor Risk Management workflows, require add-on services or third-party tools for complete automation.
Black Kite's Bridge™ module lets users automate vendor outreach and gather risk data during major security events, such as global-scale data breaches.
Artificial intelligence features
Vanta leverages AI to map policies to compliance controls and process evidence documentation, ultimately resulting in accelerated questionnaire completion times. Vanta additionally uses AI to enable efficient navigation of evidence and drill-downs into specific findings.
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.
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.
SecurityScorecard offers a branded AI capability named HEID. HEID’s operational workflows are primarily geared toward SecurityScoreCard’s MAX managed service offering, with claims that AI can generate automated remediation and questionnaire requests as risks arise.
SecurityScorecard claims that HEID AI is available as a backend capability for customers with non-service plans, and it is used in its algorithms for risk scoring and classification of issue criticality.
Bitsight offers a branded AI capability named Groma.
Groma is primarily built to support improved risk scoring, identification and attribution of digital assets, and enhanced criticality classification of risk findings.
Bitsight is additionally investing in AI development for TPRM workflows and threat detection capabilities. However, whether this will add to their Groma-branded capability or be released as integrated, separate offerings is unclear.
Black Kite offers an AI-based document scanner aimed at reducing manual questionnaire reviews and accelerating compliance mapping of vendor security postures. However, connectivity to workflows supporting other assessment operations (such as requesting further evidence via questionnaires or other documentation) is not supported without integrating with a separately deployed TPRM solution.
API and Integrations
Vanta's API and pre-built integrations allow organizations to extend coverage to additional solutions and pull data from proprietary systems. This includes common cloud providers, HRIS platforms, and project management tools.
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.
Streamlines remediation and monitoring by natively integrating with Jira, Service Now, and Slack.
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.
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.
While no exhaustive list of native integrations is publicly available, Black Kite generally supports exporting scan results to external systems.
Purchasing & Licensing Transparency
While Vanta does not publicly disclose exact pricing, its tiered plans can be tailored to support the needs of smaller organizations as well as larger, more established businesses. Licensing costs may scale as additional frameworks or large vendor counts are added.
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.
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.
Public pricing information is not available. Offers a free plan and a 14-day free trial for paid plans.
Public pricing is not available. Does not publically offer a free trial.
Public pricing details are limited. Costs typically rise based on the number of monitored vendors, which can become significant for large supply chains. Some organizations report that the step up in licensing for “critical” vendors can be expensive.
Customers
Major customers include Duolingo, Intercom, Atlassian, and NYU Langone Health.
Major customers include The New York Stock Exchange (ICE), Morningstar, TDK, PagerDuty, Hopin, and IAG.
To learn more, read UpGuard’s customer stories.
To learn more, read UpGuard’s customer stories.
Major customers include Symantec, Pepsico, Two Sigma, and Stony Brook University.
Major customers include Optus / Singtel, The University of North Florida, Snam, and PROSA.
Major customers include Morgan Lewis, Healthfirst, Navy Federal, and Maersk.
G2 rating
Accurate as of March 2025
4.6, based on 859 reviews.
4.5, based on 383 reviews. Named a G2 Market Leader for Third Party & Supplier Risk Management Software.
4.2, based on 75 reviews.
4.6, based on 44 reviews.
Currently not rated.
Security rating
950
/ 950
950
/ 950
950
/ 950
950
/ 950
950
/ 950
General summary
Vanta is a trust management platform focused on compliance automation. The platform unifies compliance and TPRM workflows under a single dashboard, reducing the time and complexity of achieving and maintaining alignment with popular standards like SOC 2 and ISO 27001. Its AI-driven features and API extensibility support varied organizational needs, from startups to large enterprises.
Key strengths
Vanta's standout strengths include its broad compliance automation capabilities—covering 35+ frameworks—and its robust library of integrations for automatically collecting evidence. Its AI technology accelerates tasks like document reviews and security questionnaires. These combined capabilities reduce manual overhead, providing a unified risk and compliance posture.
Key weaknesses
Vanta is focused on automating evidence collection, documentation management, and monitoring policy-based controls. As a result, customers will need to deploy additional solutions where real-time attack surface visibility, asset discovery, and external threat intelligence capabilities are required. Additionally, licensing can become more complex as organizations add frameworks or grow vendor portfolios.
Usability and learning curve
Vanta's prescriptive setup and ready-made policy templates keep the initial learning curve manageable. Its AI-driven assistance and guided workflows reduce the onboarding effort for core compliance frameworks. However, larger teams integrating many custom apps or requiring intricate multi-entity management (via Vanta "Workspaces") may need extra configuration time before fully realizing a streamlined experience.
Cyber risk data accuracy
Vanta relies primarily on data from third-party integrations to deliver external risk insights. As such, the reliability of this data hinges on the quality of the information provided by external solutions. Organizations seeking more direct, real-time visibility into third-party risks must supplement Vanta with specialized external monitoring solutions.
Vendor risk management features
Vanta offers VRM workflows for automating security questionnaires and document requests. These workflows are supported by AI for faster analysis of SOC 2 reports and DPAs. Automatic vendor discovery helps uncover 4th party relationships, reducing potential blind spots in the supply chain. Still, the platform's VRM relies on gathered documentation rather than continuous external scanning, limiting the depth of real-time visibility into vendor security postures.
Attack surface management features
Vanta includes external asset scanning integrated into its compliance platform, enabling ongoing monitoring of known external-facing assets. However, it doesn't provide the same breadth of unknown asset discovery or extensive threat intelligence that specialized external attack surface management solutions offer. As a result, organizations with large or rapidly changing external footprints—or those needing deep, real-time telemetry—may benefit from pairing Vanta with a dedicated ASM platform.
Security ratings
Vanta does not provide security ratings for measuring and understanding an organization's external cyber risk posture. As a result, customers will require a supplemental solution to leverage letter-grade or numerical representations of internal and external security postures.
Customer support
Vanta provides in-app chat, comprehensive documentation, and access to subject matter experts, especially for customers with higher-scale or complex deployments. Users typically report fast, helpful responses. As programs become complex, dedicated implementation support—often via Vanta's partner network—can be crucial for advanced customizations or specialized frameworks.
Workflow automation
Vanta provides rule-based triggers and AI suggestions to reduce manual effort for evidence collection, security questionnaires, and compliance management tasks. Vanta integrates with ticketing systems and supports automated workflows (such as automatically assigning remediation tasks), enabling users to focus on higher-value activities.
Artificial intelligence features
Vanta leverages AI to map policies to compliance controls and process evidence documentation, ultimately resulting in accelerated questionnaire completion times. Vanta additionally uses AI to enable efficient navigation of evidence and drill-downs into specific findings.
API and Integrations
Vanta's API and pre-built integrations allow organizations to extend coverage to additional solutions and pull data from proprietary systems. This includes common cloud providers, HRIS platforms, and project management tools.
Purchasing & Licensing Transparency
While Vanta does not publicly disclose exact pricing, its tiered plans can be tailored to support the needs of smaller organizations as well as larger, more established businesses. Licensing costs may scale as additional frameworks or large vendor counts are added.
Customers
Major customers include Duolingo, Intercom, Atlassian, and NYU Langone Health.
G2 rating
Accurate as of March 2025
4.6, based on 859 reviews.
Security rating
950
/ 950
General summary
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Streamlines remediation and monitoring by natively integrating with Jira, Service Now, and Slack.
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.
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.
Customers
Major customers include The New York Stock Exchange (ICE), Morningstar, TDK, PagerDuty, Hopin, and IAG.
To learn more, read UpGuard’s customer stories.
To learn more, read UpGuard’s customer stories.
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.
Security rating
950
/ 950
General summary
SecurityScorecard is a cybersecurity ratings platform that monitors external-facing vendor networks. It aggregates risk signals from various sources to produce vendor security ratings. SecurityScorecard integrates with SIEM and GRC tools and provides insights that mitigate supply chain attacks. However, risk assessment workflows are managed separately via the Atlas module, which can lead to fragmented processes that could delay vendor assessment delivery and impact program efficiency
Key strengths
SecurityScorecard covers an extensive range of cyber intelligence, drawing from open, proprietary, and dark web sources to identify vendor security risks and assess IP reputation risks. SecurityScorecard’s well-known A–F letter grade system makes it approachable for executives and large enterprises.
Key weaknesses
SecurityScorecard's staggered scan cycles disrupts real-time vendor security posture visibility. IP attribution issues are also cited as common scanning problems.
Additionally, vendor monitoring and risk assessments are licensed separately, which may increase purchasing complexity and limit coverage of end-to-end visibility of supply chain vendors
Usability and learning curve
SecurityScorecard's dashboards and clear A-F grading help non-technical stakeholders quickly grasp vendor risk exposure. However, some users report multiple drill-down steps required to reach specific risk insights, which could lengthen new user learning curves
Cyber risk data accuracy
SecurityScorecard offers extensive data collection across public-facing and dark web sources, though users occasionally report inaccurate attribution or misflagged IPs requiring support.
Vendor risk management features
SecurityScorecard's VRM workflow requires a separate module named Atlas for security questionnaire and risk assessment processes. This can introduce complexity into this process.
Attack surface management features
SecurityScorecard offers views into an organization's attack surface by leveraging IP scanning and attribution of identified domains and assets. The platform's approach helps users identify potential weaknesses in their digital footprint that an attacker might exploit.
Security ratings
Employs an A-F rating with a 0–100 scale, penalizing breaches and factoring patching cadences, though some risk categories could have a disproportional impact on scoring. Large-scale data collection across the clear and dark web ensures broad coverage, updated roughly every 10 days for IPv4.
Customer support
Generally supportive for enterprise levels, with a community of free users. However, customers at lower licensing tiers report slower responses and less personalized support.
Workflow automation
SecurityScorecard’s workflow automation features let users create rule-based triggers that automatically respond to security events, such as score drops, new high-severity issues, or breaches. Users can choose from a range of automated response actions, including alert activation, report sharing, and reassigning scorecards for further review
Artificial intelligence features
SecurityScorecard offers a branded AI capability named HEID. HEID’s operational workflows are primarily geared toward SecurityScoreCard’s MAX managed service offering, with claims that AI can generate automated remediation and questionnaire requests as risks arise.
SecurityScorecard claims that HEID AI is available as a backend capability for customers with non-service plans, and it is used in its algorithms for risk scoring and classification of issue criticality.
API and Integrations
SecurityScoreCard offers an extensive marketplace of integrations with security, GRC, and workflow platforms. However, integrations tend to primarily focus on score visibility in other platforms rather than workflow extensibility. Offers integrations with several third-party platforms, such as RSA Archer, ServiceNow, and more.
Purchasing & Licensing Transparency
Public pricing information is not available. Offers a free plan and a 14-day free trial for paid plans.
Customers
Major customers include Symantec, Pepsico, Two Sigma, and Stony Brook University.
G2 rating
Accurate as of March 2025
4.2, based on 75 reviews.
Security rating
950
/ 950
General summary
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
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
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
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.
Cyber risk data accuracy
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.
Vendor risk management features
Bitsight supports third-party monitoring and risk workflows, including vendor onboarding, but relies on a separately licensed module for vendor risk assessments and workflows.
Attack surface management features
Bitsight's External Attack Surface Management module is designed to discover hidden assets, provide detailed digital asset insights, and detect vulnerabilities such as unsupported product versions. .
Security ratings
Offers a respected rating system correlated with breach likelihood and is used widely by insurers and financial institutions. Observed security events influence scores, but shared IP misattribution can occasionally skew results.
Customer support
Bitsight provides reputable support, particularly for large enterprises with dedicated account teams. Smaller organizations may experience less responsiveness and find self-service documentation limited.
Workflow automation
Bitsight integrates with SOAR platforms, allowing users to automate responses to newly discovered risks. However, advanced automation requirements, such as those addressing Vendor Risk Management workflows, require add-on services or third-party tools for complete automation.
Artificial intelligence features
Bitsight offers a branded AI capability named Groma.
Groma is primarily built to support improved risk scoring, identification and attribution of digital assets, and enhanced criticality classification of risk findings.
Bitsight is additionally investing in AI development for TPRM workflows and threat detection capabilities. However, whether this will add to their Groma-branded capability or be released as integrated, separate offerings is unclear.
API and Integrations
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.
Purchasing & Licensing Transparency
Public pricing is not available. Does not publically offer a free trial.
Customers
Major customers include Optus / Singtel, The University of North Florida, Snam, and PROSA.
G2 rating
Accurate as of March 2025
4.6, based on 44 reviews.
Security rating
950
/ 950
General summary
Black Kite is a third-party cyber risk management platform emphasizing external risk visibility, financial impact modeling, and compliance automation. Black Kite uses non-intrusive OSINT-based scans to discover assets and vulnerabilities, presenting findings as easy-to-read letter grades. However, by excluding critical TPRM workflows, Black Kite’s potential for effective third-party risk management is significantly limited.
Key strengths
Black Kite takes a diverse approach to cyber risk quantification with a methodology heavily based on the Open FAIR™ standard. This allows Black Kite to derive their varying cyber risk insights from a consistent quantification base.
Key weaknesses
Black Kite does not offer vendor questionnaires or risk assessments as part of their solution offerings. While Black Kite's quantification-forward approach may be sufficient for some, customers with requirements for vendor security reviews and assurance documents for compliance needs will likely require an additional solution for this capability.
Usability and learning curve
Black Kite's interface is designed around letter-grade dashboards and detailed risk findings for its range of quantification options offered. However, insights for each focused rating are not clearly segmented by audience and often bleed across the entire platform. This can make the relevance of platform insights less consistent for specialized users, even within teams.
Cyber risk data accuracy
The platform gathers data from a large set of OSINT feeds and uses standards-based scoring (MITRE, NIST, Open FAIR™) to reduce false positives. However, some users note occasional duplication or outdated issues that require manual dispute or re-validation
Vendor risk management features
Although Black Kite offers document analysis features, the platform can be seen as primarily geared toward detecting and quantifying cyber risks rather than offering fully integrated VRM workflows.
Attack surface management features
Black Kite uses OSINT data spanning domain records, subdomains, SSL certificates, and more to deliver visibility into a vendor's external footprint.
Security ratings
Uses an A–F letter-grade rating based on standardized models (e.g., MITRE CTSA). The score is supplemented by a separate financial risk metric that ties vulnerabilities to potential financial impact, a key differentiator for stakeholders concerned with breach damage costs.
Customer support
Black Kite's users report mixed support experiences: some find support teams responsive with weekly check-ins, while others cite slower resolution times and inconsistent follow-up on false positives and duplicate findings.
Workflow automation
Black Kite's Bridge™ module lets users automate vendor outreach and gather risk data during major security events, such as global-scale data breaches.
Artificial intelligence features
Black Kite offers an AI-based document scanner aimed at reducing manual questionnaire reviews and accelerating compliance mapping of vendor security postures. However, connectivity to workflows supporting other assessment operations (such as requesting further evidence via questionnaires or other documentation) is not supported without integrating with a separately deployed TPRM solution.
API and Integrations
While no exhaustive list of native integrations is publicly available, Black Kite generally supports exporting scan results to external systems.
Purchasing & Licensing Transparency
Public pricing details are limited. Costs typically rise based on the number of monitored vendors, which can become significant for large supply chains. Some organizations report that the step up in licensing for “critical” vendors can be expensive.
Customers
Major customers include Morgan Lewis, Healthfirst, Navy Federal, and Maersk.
G2 rating
Accurate as of March 2025
Currently not rated.
Security rating
950
/ 950
Competitor Comparison Guide
A transparent comparison of top solutions
Vanta pricing overview
Vanta's pricing is generally determined by factors such as the number of frameworks you need, the complexity of your vendor portfolio, and additional features (e.g., automated questionnaire responses and Trust Center modules).
Vanta does not publicly disclose pricing information. Prospects must request a demo with sales to obtain a quote.
Here's an overview of Vanta's plans and services:
No free plan
Vanta does not offer a permanent free tier.
No free trial
There is no standard free trial available. Prospective customers typically explore the platform via a demo or consultation with Vanta's sales team.
Vanta for startups
An entry-level package that includes one framework (e.g., SOC 2). Ideal for smaller companies needing to achieve baseline compliance with a single standard.
Core, plus, & growth
These tiers expand compliance coverage and automation, introducing more frameworks, questionnaire automation, and integrations. Suited for mid-sized organizations needing broader internal controls and some vendor risk capabilities.
Scale & enterprise
Large-scale plans supporting multiple workspaces, AI features, increased questionnaire capacity, and more advanced requirements. Typically involves complex integrations or advanced compliance modules.
Add-ons and additional costs
The following premium features and modules can potentially increase overall costs with Vanta:
- Additional Frameworks: While Vanta supports numerous compliance standards out of the box, expanding to specialized frameworks beyond the defaults may involve extra licensing or subscription fees.
- Advanced Questionnaire Automation: Organizations requiring high-volume questionnaires or advanced AI-driven features for security reviews may pay more for extended usage.
- Trust Center & Custom Branding: Features such as enhanced Trust Center displays or branded compliance portals can be billed separately from core subscriptions.
- Multiple Workspaces: Configuring Vanta to manage compliance across multiple business units or distinct entities may incur added costs, depending on the tier or plan.
- Pen Test & Audit Bundles: Certain plans bundle in a penetration test or internal audit for frameworks like SOC 2 or ISO 27001, but additional audits, scope expansions, or specialized assessments typically increase licensing fees.
How does Vanta's pricing compare to its competitors?
UpGuard
UpGuard's packages start at around USD 1,599 per month. The platform maximizes value by natively integrating end-to-end TRPM workflows, removing the need to purchase additional solutions to fill workflow gaps.
The platform offers a free plan for monitoring up to five vendors (which includes access to risk ratings, assessment, and remediation tools) and unlimited free use of its vendor questionnaire and trust management tool, Trust Exchange.
A free 14-day trial is also available for its paid tiers.
For more details, see UpGuard's pricing page.
Bitsight
Bitsight does not publicly disclose its pricing. Unlike some competitors, It does not offer a free plan or standard trial, though it does provide a free security rating and industry benchmark report as a preliminary snapshot.
As usage grows, costs can escalate due to optional add-ons like advanced analytics, third-party risk enhancements, exposure management modules, and API access.
See how Bitsight structures its pricing.
SecurityScorecard
SecurityScorecard's pricing is not publicly disclosed. A free plan is available, but it is limited to self-monitoring. To experience its vendor monioring capabilities, prospects can sign up for a 14-day trial of its Business Plan features, which includes monitoring up to five companies, daily alerts, and integrations—after the trial, the service reverts to limited self-monitoring unless upgraded.
Costs can escalate with optional add-ons such as monitoring additional scorecards, advanced analytics, enhanced threat intelligence, extra API capacity, and specialized modules like Attack Surface Intelligence (ASI).
See how SecurityScorecard structures its pricing.
RiskRecon
RiskRecon's pricing model is directly tied to the number of vendors and the required depth of assessments, making it potentially more budget-friendly for organizations with smaller ecosystems.
Although the company does not publicly disclose costs, a 30-day free trial allows monitoring of up to 50 vendors, offering a hands-on preview of its portal and security ratings. Beyond this trial, there is no permanent free plan, and packages scale with an organization's needs—from basic coverage for small businesses to more extensive frameworks for larger enterprises requiring advanced compliance mapping, custom risk policies, or risk assessment workflow integrations.
These add-ons and upgraded features can increase total costs, and annual subscription fees may rise by at least 3% or the Consumer Price Index (CPI) after the first year, which could surprise customers as vendor counts grow or mid-contract adjustments come into play.
See how RiskRecon structures its pricing.
OneTrust
OneTrust's pricing is not publicly disclosed. There is no free plan and free trial is not publicly offered. OneTrust offers tiered packages serving organizations from small businesses to large enterprises, with costs varying according to the number of modules, users, and integrations.
Implementation fees are usually included, adding to the overall investment required for setup and training.
See how OneTrust structures its pricing.
Black Kite
Black Kite does not publicly disclose its pricing, but it aims to minimize surprises by including onboarding, configuration, and user licenses at no additional charge. Although the company does not offer a free plan or standard trial, it does provide a free cyber risk assessment as an initial snapshot.
Pricing is tiered and designed to suit different TPRM requirements—from standard monitoring (reportedly higher-priced than some competitors) to enterprise-level options that bundle vendors at slightly discounted rates.
Reviews of the SecurityScoreard platform and its top competitors, based on indendant third-party sources and customer insights.
Gartner Peer Insights
Overall ratings for the IT VRM Solutions market. Accurate as of January 2024
4, based on 3 reviews.
4.4, based on 160 reviews. Named a Representative Vendor in the 2022 Gartner Market Guide for IT VRM Solutions
4.5, based on 259 reviews.
4.5, based on 261 reviews
4.8, based on 159 reviews
G2 rating
Accurate as of March 2025
4.6, based on 859 reviews.
4.5, based on 383 reviews. Named a G2 Market Leader for Third Party & Supplier Risk Management Software.
4.2, based on 75 reviews.
4.6, based on 44 reviews.
Currently not rated.
Glassdoor
Accurate as of March 2025
4.2
4.4, based on 95 reviews.
2.7, based on 306 reviews.
3.8, based on 222 reviews.
4.8, based on 19 reviews.
Gartner Peer Insights
Overall ratings for the IT VRM Solutions market. Accurate as of January 2024
4, based on 3 reviews.
G2 rating
Accurate as of March 2025
4.6, based on 859 reviews.
Glassdoor
Accurate as of March 2025
4.2
Gartner Peer Insights
Overall ratings for the IT VRM Solutions market. Accurate as of January 2024
4.4, based on 160 reviews. Named a Representative Vendor in the 2022 Gartner Market Guide for IT VRM Solutions
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.
Glassdoor
Accurate as of March 2025
4.4, based on 95 reviews.
Gartner Peer Insights
Overall ratings for the IT VRM Solutions market. Accurate as of January 2024
4.5, based on 259 reviews.
G2 rating
Accurate as of March 2025
4.2, based on 75 reviews.
Glassdoor
Accurate as of March 2025
2.7, based on 306 reviews.
Gartner Peer Insights
Overall ratings for the IT VRM Solutions market. Accurate as of January 2024
4.5, based on 261 reviews
G2 rating
Accurate as of March 2025
4.6, based on 44 reviews.
Glassdoor
Accurate as of March 2025
4.2
Gartner Peer Insights
Overall ratings for the IT VRM Solutions market. Accurate as of January 2024
4.8, based on 159 reviews
G2 rating
Accurate as of March 2025
Currently not rated.
Glassdoor
Accurate as of March 2025
4.8, based on 19 reviews.
A transparent comparison of top solutions
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