What is the difference between compliance software and compliance as a service?

Compliance software (Vanta, Drata, Secureframe, Sprinto, Scrut) gives you a dashboard that tracks controls and surfaces findings. Closing the findings is your team's work or a separate consultant's. Compliance as a service (HSD) bundles the platform with engineers who write the policies, harden the cloud accounts, roll out the MDM, and close the findings as part of the same engagement.

Which compliance vendor has the most G2 reviews?

Vanta crossed 1,000 G2 reviews in 2024 and holds the #1 position in G2's Security Compliance Grid. Drata is second, with hundreds of reviews. Secureframe and Sprinto each have several hundred. New entrants including HSD are still building review volume.

Do any of these vendors actually do the audit?

Most do not. ISO/IEC 17021-1 §5.2.7 requires a two-year cooling-off period between consulting and certifying the same management system, which is why Vanta, Drata, Secureframe, Sprinto, Scrut, and HSD all coordinate independent CPA firms and certification bodies. Thoropass is an exception: it operates as a single firm doing both audit and software for SOC 2, which the AICPA framework permits but creates conflicts in ISO engagements.

Which vendor is best for an early-stage SaaS startup?

Sprinto and Scrut Automation are priced for early-stage budgets and have lighter onboarding. Vanta is the most polished self-service experience for teams with at least one security engineer in-house. HSD makes sense if the team does not want to staff compliance work and prefers a fixed-scope program team.

Which vendor includes penetration testing?

None of Vanta, Drata, Secureframe, Sprinto, or Scrut perform penetration tests. They refer customers to partner pentesters as separate engagements. HSD operates an internal AI-augmented pentest team for ongoing coverage and a partner network of CREST and OSCP certified human pentesters for formal certification engagements.

What does each vendor cost?

Public pricing is sparse. Typical SOC 2 software subscriptions run from 7,500 USD to 25,000 USD per year (Vanta, Drata, Secureframe at the higher end; Sprinto and Scrut lower). Customers usually add a remediation consultant at 30,000 USD to 80,000 USD per framework. Thoropass bundles audit and software at typically 25,000 USD to 50,000 USD. HSD's bundled program lands in roughly the same total range as software-plus-consultant.

Which vendor covers India's DPDP Act?

Sprinto and Scrut Automation, both India-based, offer DPDP Act 2023 coverage. HSD includes it in standard scope. As of April 2026, Vanta, Drata, Secureframe, and Thoropass do not list DPDP among their supported frameworks.

Can I switch from Vanta or Drata to HSD mid-engagement?

Yes. Existing controls, evidence, and policies migrate over. The typical transition adds two to four weeks at the front of the program for evidence reimport and gap re-assessment, then HSD's engineering team picks up remediation work directly.

Which vendor has the best auditor partner network?

Vanta has the broadest CPA firm network from six years of category leadership. Drata is second. Secureframe, Sprinto, and Scrut have respectable networks. HSD coordinates per engagement based on customer geography and industry, drawing from the same accredited CPA and certification body pools.

Which vendor wins on continuous monitoring?

Vanta and Drata are tied for the most polished continuous monitoring with the deepest integration catalogs. Secureframe is close behind. Sprinto and Scrut are functional but with smaller integration libraries. HSD's platform covers the same ground; the engineering team differentiates more than the dashboards do.

Compared · April 2026

HSD vs Vanta. Honestly.

Vanta is a software platform with optional managed services. HSD is a service with the platform included. Same frameworks, very different delivery model. Pick the one that fits how your team actually wants to spend its hours.

TL;DR

Vanta sells you a dashboard that lists what is wrong. HSD sells you a team that closes what is wrong. The total cost is similar. Vanta has six more years of brand and review history. HSD bundles penetration testing and remediation that Vanta charges for separately or sends to a partner.

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Side by side

Capability	Vanta	HSD
Frameworks: SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI DSS, GDPR
India DPDP Act 2023
Evidence collection and control mapping
Continuous control monitoring
Engineers who write policies for you
Engineers who close audit findings for you
MDM rollout to existing fleet
AI-augmented continuous penetration testing
Auditor coordination through report delivery
Auto-remediation pull requests for cloud findings
Self-service trust report sharing
G2 review footprint (signal of maturity)	1,000+	Building
Years in market	2018	2024

Verified against Vanta's public pricing and feature pages, April 2026. Vanta review counts via G2.

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Where Vanta wins

Largest review footprint in the category

Vanta crossed 1,000 G2 reviews in 2024 and has held the top spot in G2's Security Compliance Grid for six consecutive quarters. If review volume is your purchasing signal, Vanta is the safest pick.

Most mature self-service product

Vanta's onboarding, integration catalog, and dashboard ergonomics have had six years of polish. For a company that wants software and is ready to do its own remediation work, the product experience is hard to beat.

Audit partner network is broad

Vanta has relationships with a wide list of CPA firms and certification bodies. Choice of auditor matters when geography or industry-specific experience is a constraint.

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Where HSD wins

Engineers ship the work, not just the dashboard

Software vendors surface findings on a dashboard. Closing them is the customer's problem, or a consultant's at additional cost. HSD's engineers write the policies, ship the IAM changes, harden the cloud accounts, and roll out the MDM. The audit passes because the work was done, not because the dashboard says so.

One total bill that matches what you would pay anyway

A typical Vanta deployment for SOC 2 runs 7,500 to 25,000 USD per year for the platform, plus 30,000 to 80,000 USD per framework for a consultant to do remediation. HSD's program lands in roughly that same total range with everything bundled. No PO surprises mid-engagement.

AI-augmented internal pentesting included

Vanta does not run penetration tests; you bring your own pentester. HSD operates an AI-augmented internal pentest team for ongoing coverage and a partner network of CREST and OSCP certified human pentesters for formal certification engagements.

DPDP Act 2023 covered out of the box

If your customers or regulators require India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act compliance, that is in HSD's standard scope. It is not in Vanta's framework list as of April 2026.

Auto-remediation that writes pull requests

S3 buckets opened to the world, IAM users with stale keys, TLS misconfigurations, and a long list of similar findings can be closed automatically through pull requests into your repos. Reviewable, reversible, and faster than a Jira ticket.

Vanta got us through SOC 2 Type 1, but the policy work and IAM cleanup ate three engineering months. We did not buy software to learn what an audit feels like; we bought it to skip that part. We hired a consultant for Type 2.

Anonymized engineering lead, paraphrased from public G2 review patterns

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Who should pick which

Pick Vanta if

You have a security engineer in-house who wants software, not a service
Review volume and brand recognition are your primary purchase signals
You already have a consulting partner you trust for remediation
You want the most polished self-service onboarding in the category

Pick HSD if

You do not want to hire a compliance person to run the program
Remediation work is the bottleneck, not the dashboard
You need multiple frameworks delivered by one team in one engagement
DPDP Act 2023 is on your list
You want pentests bundled with the compliance program

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FAQ

Is HSD a Vanta replacement?+

HSD covers the same frameworks as Vanta and ships a comparable platform, so yes for the software layer. The bigger difference is delivery model: HSD's engineers close findings as part of the engagement. Vanta requires the customer or a separate consultant to do that work.

Does HSD perform the audit like Vanta's audit partners?+

No. ISO/IEC 17021-1 §5.2.7 requires a two-year cooling-off period between consulting and certifying the same management system, so HSD coordinates independent CPA firms and accredited certification bodies. Vanta operates the same way for its audit partner network.

How does HSD pricing compare to Vanta plus consultants?+

Public Vanta pricing typically runs from 7,500 USD to 25,000 USD per year for SOC 2, with separate consulting engagements adding 30,000 USD to 80,000 USD per framework. HSD's bundled program lands in roughly the same total range as the software-plus-consultant combination, scoped per program.

Which frameworks does each cover?+

Vanta supports SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI DSS, GDPR, and several others. HSD covers the same set plus India's DPDP Act 2023.

When should I pick Vanta over HSD?+

Pick Vanta when you have a security engineer in-house who wants a software dashboard and is ready to own remediation. Vanta has the largest review footprint (over 1,000 G2 reviews) and the most mature self-service workflow.

When should I pick HSD over Vanta?+

Pick HSD when you do not want to staff a compliance person, when remediation work is the bottleneck, or when you need multiple frameworks delivered by one team. The included engineering hours collapse the standard software-plus-consultant arrangement into a single fixed-scope engagement.

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