Who each option is best for, and where either supplier is deliberately narrower.
Vendor comparison
Drata vs Vanta: capability comparison
A side-by-side comparison of Drata and Vanta across RoPA, DPIA, vendor risk, AI governance and evidence workflows. Acompli is shown as a third reference column.
DrataVantaComparison
Which public claims, review signals, caveats and capability rows are evidenced.
How much work it takes to implement, maintain and export the privacy record.
The questions a privacy team should ask before switching or shortlisting.
On this page
Key takeaways
- Drata and Vanta are compared here on public-documentation capability coverage: Drata is publicly documented for 12 of 20 tracked capabilities, Vanta for 14.
- The clearest difference: Vanta adds DPIA/PIA assessments, RoPA / Article 30, which Drata doesn't publicly document.
- Drata's public lane is Trust management, security compliance automation, GRC, assurance, continuous monitoring and third-party risk management; Vanta's public lane is Trust, security, compliance and GRC automation.
- Capability coverage reflects what each vendor publicly documents; confirm current scope, pricing and exports directly with each vendor.
01Short answer
Drata vs Vanta
Drata is positioned as: Trust management, security compliance automation, GRC, assurance, continuous monitoring and third-party risk management. Vanta is positioned as: Trust, security, compliance and GRC automation. On the tracked capabilities Drata and Vanta overlap across core privacy workflows, so the choice turns less on which features exist and more on operating model, depth and fit.
Vanta has broader public-documentation coverage in this comparison (14 of 20 tracked rows, compared with 12 for Drata). Capability coverage below reflects what each vendor publicly documents; Acompli is shown as a third reference column.
02At a glance
Drata vs Vanta at a glance
| Decision question | Drata | Vanta | Acompli |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best fit | Security, compliance and trust teams that need continuous controls, audit evidence, trust documentation and third-party risk workflows | Security-led teams that want automated compliance, continuous GRC, audit evidence, trust centre workflows and security/privacy framework coverage | Privacy teams that need GDPR and AI-governance records with source evidence, reviewer decisions and regulator-ready exports |
| Operating model | Trust management and GRC platform for continuous compliance, risk, assurance, vendor reviews, questionnaires and trust centre operations | A trust-management platform for automated security and compliance (SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI), with privacy-management features for RoPA and assessments | Privacy operations platform across RoPA, DPIA, DSAR, risk, vendors, data mapping, AI governance and evidence packs |
| When to choose it | Choose Drata when SOC 2, ISO 27001, continuous monitoring, audit readiness and trust operations are the primary requirement | Choose Vanta when security compliance, SOC 2 or ISO evidence, GRC and trust operations are the centre of the buying case | Choose Acompli when the buyer needs privacy records, approval workflows and Article 30 outputs rather than security-framework evidence |
- Best for: Security, compliance and GRC teams that need SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI or similar audit evidence and customer-facing trust workflows.
- Deployment: Cloud trust-management and compliance automation platform; public materials do not confirm self-hosted deployment.
- Best for: Cloud-first companies that need SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI, GDPR, vendor risk and audit evidence automation.
- Deployment: Cloud-first compliance automation platform; public materials do not confirm a self-hosted or on-prem option.
05Official source signals
What Drata and Vanta emphasise publicly
This section uses each vendor's own public positioning as the starting point. It is included so customers can see why the two companies may appear in the same shortlist while still solving different problems.
The capability table remains conservative: "Y" means a capability was publicly documented, while "N" means it was not publicly confirmed in the reviewed material.
Drata official product pages
Open the official Drata source used to ground this profile.
ExploreVanta official website
Open the official Vanta source used to ground this profile.
Explore| Signal | Drata | Vanta |
|---|---|---|
| Public positioning | Drata positions itself as a security and compliance automation platform with continuous control monitoring and trust workflows. | Vanta positions itself around trust management, security compliance automation, continuous monitoring and framework readiness. |
| Main public signals | Official pages emphasise automated evidence collection, continuous monitoring, compliance frameworks and audit readiness.; The product lane includes risk management, vendor management and trust centre workflows for security-led compliance teams.; GDPR should be evaluated as a framework within a security-compliance platform, not as a dedicated privacy-record system. | Official pages emphasise automated evidence collection, continuous control monitoring, trust centre workflows and audit readiness.; Vanta's buyer lane is security-led compliance across frameworks such as SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI and GDPR.; Privacy comparison should treat Vanta's privacy features as part of a trust-management platform, not as a dedicated GDPR record system. |
| Best-fit buyer | Security, compliance and GRC teams that need SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI or similar audit evidence and customer-facing trust workflows | Cloud-first companies that need SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI, GDPR, vendor risk and audit evidence automation |
| Buyer verification | Ask Drata to demonstrate the workflows behind the modules that matter to your team, with export evidence and plan scope. | Ask Vanta to demonstrate the workflows behind the modules that matter to your team, with export evidence and plan scope. |
06Sourced 2025-2026 signals
What's new at Drata (2025-2026, sourced)
These sourced updates were researched on 2026-07-05 and are listed separately from the live comparison table so existing profile claims remain unchanged.
Drata announced on its own blog (dated December 2, 2025) that it has achieved ISO 42001 (AI Management System) certification, stating this was reached less than two years after the standard's December 2023 publication and that its existing SOC 2/ISO 27001/privacy work already covered roughly 35-40% of the requirements. This is a vendor-published claim; the underlying certification would normally be issued by an accredited third-party certification body, but no independent auditor confirmation was found in this search.
Drata's blog (dated June 10, 2026) introduced a new 'AI Agent Governance' capability set - Drata Sensor (agent discovery/inventory), Mission Control (real-time policy enforcement on agent actions), Trust Ladder (staged rollout through Training/Recommendation/Active stages), Drift Detection, and Chain of Custody (tamper-evident audit logs) - aimed specifically at governing autonomous AI agents rather than AI tools generally. This is more granular than the existing capability table's generic 'AI governance: Y' entry for Drata. It is a vendor product announcement, not yet reviewed independently.
G2 shows Drata at 4.8/5 across roughly 1,100+ reviews as of Q2 2026 (one search result specifically cited 1,153 reviews), a materially larger independent review sample than the Capterra figure already cited in the existing profile (4.8/5 from 5-6 reviews). Recurring positive themes in G2 reviews are customer-success responsiveness and compliance-dashboard visibility; recurring criticism is renewal price increases and reduced automation coverage for non-standard or on-prem infrastructure.
Secondary-market data aggregator TrueUp reports Drata's most recent secondary valuation at approximately $1.2 billion as of June 16, 2026, described as roughly a 40% decline from its $2 billion Series C valuation set in December 2022. CB Insights and PitchBook independently corroborate the $1.8-2.0 billion December 2022 baseline but were not accessible to confirm the 2026 secondary figure directly. This is unconfirmed by any Drata press statement, reflects private secondary-market pricing rather than a primary funding round, and should be treated as a market signal rather than a confirmed current company valuation.
07Sourced 2025-2026 signals
What's new at Vanta (2025-2026, sourced)
These sourced updates were researched on 2026-07-05 and are listed separately from the live comparison table so existing profile claims remain unchanged.
Vanta raised a $150M Series D in July 2025 led by Wellington Management at a $4.15B valuation (up from $2.45B a year earlier), with estimated ARR of about $220M (up from $100M in January 2024), serving over 12,000 customers with 1,000+ employees. This is a vendor/press-reported figure, not independently audited.
Alongside the Series D, Vanta made its first disclosed acquisition, buying Israel-based startup Riskey (undisclosed sum, July 2025) to add AI-driven continuous risk-monitoring capability, as CEO Christina Cacioppo signalled a push toward becoming a multi-product platform.
Vanta introduced an 'Agentic Trust Platform' (marketed as AI Agent 2.0) in late 2025/early 2026, adding autonomous policy drafting mapped to control gaps, AI-generated responses to inbound security questionnaires, automated vendor-risk evidence collection/scoring, and a 'Risk Graph' that visualises control dependencies -- a substantive product expansion beyond the automated-evidence-collection description currently on file.
Gartner Peer Insights lists Vanta at 4.4/5 from 278 reviews -- an independent review source not currently cited on the comparison page (which cites only Capterra and G2).
G2's own review page currently shows Vanta at 4.6/5 from about 2,424 reviews (Q2 2026) -- essentially unchanged from the 2,458-review figure already on file -- and G2 lists Vanta among its 2026 Best Software Awards winners in the Governance, Risk & Compliance category (a vendor-reported claim of '#1 in Security Compliance for 14 consecutive quarters through Spring 2026' should be treated as Vanta-sourced pending direct G2 confirmation).
In May-June 2025, Vanta disclosed (and published its own root-cause analysis for) a product code-change bug that exposed a subset of customer data -- employee names/roles and security-tool configuration metadata (not credentials, financial or health data) -- across tenants, affecting under 4% of its then ~10,000+ customers; the issue was found May 26 and remediated by June 4, 2025. This is factual, dated context relevant to a platform whose core positioning is 'trust management,' not currently reflected anywhere in the comparison page.
08Overlap and gaps
Drata vs Vanta: what the public data actually shows
Feature count is only a starting point. A customer should separate shared coverage from unique public signals, then test whether the vendor can run the required workflow end to end.
| Decision point | Public signal | Buyer interpretation |
|---|---|---|
| Shared evidenced coverage | Data mapping; Vendor risk; Privacy risk; AI governance; Policy/notice management; Training module; Approval workflows; plus 5 more | If your requirement sits here, compare workflow depth, implementation effort, evidence quality and price. |
| Only Drata publicly confirmed | Drata has no unique tracked public capability against Vanta in this dataset. | Keep Drata on the shortlist for these requirements, but ask Vanta whether the same capability exists in current product scope. |
| Only Vanta publicly confirmed | DPIA/PIA assessments; RoPA / Article 30 | Keep Vanta on the shortlist for these requirements, but ask Drata whether the same capability exists in current product scope. |
| Acompli reference column | Retention management | Use this as a third reference point where a narrower evidence-first privacy workflow may be preferable to a broader platform. |
09Capability comparison
Drata vs Vanta: capability by capability
Each capability is marked Y or N for Drata and Vanta based on what each vendor publicly documents, with Acompli shown in the final column.
| Capability | Drata | Vanta | Acompli |
|---|---|---|---|
| DPIA/PIA assessments | N | Y | Y |
| RoPA / Article 30 | N | Y | Y |
| DSAR / privacy rights | N | N | N |
| Data mapping | Y | Y | Y |
| Vendor risk | Y | Y | Y |
| Privacy risk | Y | Y | Y |
| AI governance | Y | Y | Y |
| Consent management | N | N | N |
| Cookie/tracker scanning | N | N | N |
| Breach/incident management | N | N | N |
| Retention management | N | N | Y |
| Policy/notice management | Y | Y | N |
| Training module | Y | Y | N |
| Approval workflows | Y | Y | Y |
| Audit trail | Y | Y | Y |
| Role-based access control | Y | Y | Y |
| Multi-entity support | Y | Y | Y |
| Spreadsheet import | Y | Y | Y |
| PDF/CSV/Excel export | Y | Y | Y |
| Public pricing | N | N | N |
10Where each is stronger
Drata vs Vanta: the differences that matter
On the tracked capabilities, Drata and Vanta overlap on most rows; the differences that matter are the capabilities only one of them evidences, plus the depth and focus each brings to them.
- Only Vanta (not Drata) is evidenced for: DPIA/PIA assessments, RoPA / Article 30.
- Drata: Continuous control monitoring and audit-readiness workflows for security frameworks are Drata's natural lane.
- Drata: Trust centre, security questionnaire and assurance workflows are strong fits for Drata.
- Vanta: Automated security-framework compliance - SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI - with continuous control monitoring and evidence collection.
- Vanta: A trust centre and a large integration and automation network for security and GRC evidence.
11Customer due diligence
Questions customers should ask before choosing Drata or Vanta
A useful comparison should move beyond a product page checklist. Customers should ask each supplier to prove the same live workflow, with the same assumptions, so the difference between platform breadth and usable evidence becomes visible.
Run one real workflow
Ask Drata and Vanta to process the same example: new activity, assessment, RoPA update, supplier evidence, risk record, review and export.
Check evidence provenance
Confirm whether each important field in Drata and Vanta has a source, owner, review date and change history, not just a completed form.
Validate exports
Ask both vendors for a regulator-readable export for one legal entity, including controller and processor records where relevant.
Confirm commercial scope
Verify which modules, integrations, service hours, data residency options and support commitments are included in the quoted Drata or Vanta package.
12Shortlisting notes
Choosing between Drata and Vanta
Assess Drata and Vanta against the workflow you actually need to run - RoPA, DPIA, vendor and risk records - and how defensibly each exports its evidence.
- Shortlist Drata when SOC 2, ISO 27001, continuous monitoring, audit readiness and trust operations are the primary requirement.
- Shortlist Vanta when security compliance, SOC 2 or ISO evidence, GRC and trust operations are the centre of the buying case.
- Ask Drata and Vanta to each demonstrate the same workflow end to end: a new processing activity, its assessment, the RoPA update, supplier evidence, the privacy risk and an exportable audit trail.
13Ireland & UK
Drata vs Vanta: Article 30 records for Irish and UK teams
Both Drata and Vanta are weighed by Irish and UK privacy teams against the same fixed obligation: a record of processing activities under GDPR Article 30 - a controller record under Article 30(1) and a separate processor record under Article 30(2). In Ireland the Data Protection Commission (DPC) publishes Article 30 guidance; in the UK the ICO sets out what UK GDPR requires.
Whichever of Drata or Vanta an Irish or UK team weighs, the questions are the same: how deep is the Article 30 record, is EU and UK GDPR distinguished on one register, and can each legal entity produce a self-contained export its own supervisory authority can read?
| Article 30 check | Drata | Vanta | Why customers care |
|---|---|---|---|
| Controller record | Ask Drata to show the Article 30(1) controller fields for one processing activity, including purposes, categories, recipients, transfers, retention and security measures. | Ask Vanta to show the Article 30(1) controller fields for one processing activity, including purposes, categories, recipients, transfers, retention and security measures. | A controller record must stand on its own when a regulator or auditor asks for it. |
| Processor record | Ask Drata to show Article 30(2) processor records separately from controller records, scoped to the controller on whose behalf processing is carried out. | Ask Vanta to show Article 30(2) processor records separately from controller records, scoped to the controller on whose behalf processing is carried out. | Many tools capture controller records more clearly than processor records; customers should verify both. |
| Ireland and UK fit | Ask Drata how EU GDPR and UK GDPR records are separated or tagged for Irish and UK entities. | Ask Vanta how EU GDPR and UK GDPR records are separated or tagged for Irish and UK entities. | Irish DPC and UK ICO expectations are close, but entity scope, local law references and export format still matter. |
| Standalone export | Ask Drata for a complete export that a legal entity could provide without giving the regulator product access. | Ask Vanta for a complete export that a legal entity could provide without giving the regulator product access. | A defensible record should be readable outside the platform, with enough context to explain the processing activity. |
- Article 30(1) and 30(2) - does each of Drata and Vanta model controller and processor records separately, scoped by legal entity?
- DPC (Ireland) and ICO (UK) - is EU and UK GDPR distinguished on one register for Drata or Vanta?
- Export - can Drata or Vanta let each legal entity produce a self-contained record its own supervisory authority can read?
Comparison FAQ
Drata vs Vanta questions answered
Acompli answers
Acompli: the focused alternative to both
Acompli overlap
Related Acompli workflows
Drata vs Acompli
Compare Drata directly with Acompli across RoPA, DPIA, risk and vendor records.
Open moduleVanta vs Acompli
Compare Vanta directly with Acompli across RoPA, DPIA, risk and vendor records.
Open moduleRisk management
Extract candidate risks from approved evidence, assign treatment plans and report on current exposure.
Open moduleThird-party risk
Record suppliers and processors once, then reference them across assessments, RoPA, risk and data mapping.
Open moduleCompare Drata and Vanta against a real workflow.
Bring one RoPA, DPIA, vendor, risk or AI-governance requirement and map which parts Drata covers, which Vanta covers, and where each option fits.
Acompli architecture
One governed foundation. Five connected modules.
Imported systems, suppliers, policies, DPIAs and RoPA spreadsheets become the shared evidence model for assessments, risk, records, third-party oversight and data mapping.
- OnboardingImport DPIAs, RoPA spreadsheets, suppliers, systems, policies and documents.
- AssessmentsRun DPIAs, LIAs, TIAs, processor reviews and AI Act assessments with human approval.
- RiskExtract candidate risks from approved evidence and assign treatment plans.
- RoPAMaintain Article 30 records linked to assessments, systems, suppliers and transfers.
- Third-PartyRecord suppliers once, then reference them across assessments, RoPA, risk and maps.
- Data MappingBuild a living view of systems, suppliers, locations, categories and transfers.
Point tools create records. Acompli connects them.