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Vanta vs Drata
A plain-English comparison to help you choose between them.
The two reference platforms of compliance automation, both rebuilt around AI agents, both sales-led with no public pricing. Vanta's Agentic Trust Platform, 16,000+ customers and a Leader position in Forrester's Q2 2026 GRC Wave make it the category default. Drata answers with agentic vendor security reviews, an early-access MCP connector for querying live compliance data, and AI Agent Governance for the buyer's own agents, a category Vanta has not claimed. Framework fit and roadmap usually decide it.
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Side by side
- Summary
Vanta is a compliance automation platform rebuilt around AI agents. Its Agentic Trust Platform, introduced in November 2025, sets an agent on the recurring grind of governance, risk and compliance: drafting policies, answering security questionnaires, collecting evidence and flagging issues, alongside the continuous control monitoring that made its name.
Frameworks span SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, GDPR, HITRUST, NIST AI RMF, ISO 42001 and FedRAMP, with evidence from hundreds of integrations across cloud, HR and identity systems. Vendor risk, audit preparation and a public trust centre share the platform.
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It is bought rather than tried: no published pricing, no free tier, 16,000+ customers, and a Leader in Forrester's GRC Wave for Q2 2026. It suits companies that want compliance run as a system with human sign-off, not a quarterly scramble.
- Best for
- Automating evidence collection for SOC 2, ISO 27001 and related frameworks
- AI-drafted policies and questionnaire answers routed through human review
- Continuous control monitoring across cloud, HR and identity systems
- Startups needing a first certification to pass enterprise procurement
- Vendor risk management and trust-centre publishing in one platform
- Cost
- Enterprise
- Ease
- Openness
- Hosted service
- Data
- Vanta's whole mechanism is persistent read access to a company's most sensitive systems, cloud infrastructure, HR and identity among them. That makes its own data posture part of the purchase decision. Before connecting core systems, review Vanta's data terms and its published trust centre to confirm data-handling, sub-processor and retention arrangements, applying the same scrutiny to Vanta that it helps you apply to your own vendors. The evidence, policies and questionnaire answers it holds are compliance-sensitive by definition, so access to Vanta itself belongs inside the access reviews it runs.
- Summary
Drata is an agentic trust management platform covering compliance, risk and security assurance, used by more than 8,500 organisations. It collects audit evidence and tests controls continuously across frameworks including SOC 2, ISO 27001, ISO 42001, GDPR, HIPAA and PCI DSS, manages policies and access reviews, runs internal and third-party risk, and publishes security posture through a trust centre built on the SafeBase platform it acquired in 2025.
The 2026 repositioning is the differentiator. Agentic capabilities conduct autonomous vendor security reviews, an early-access MCP connector lets external AI assistants query live compliance data under user-level permissions, and AI Agent Governance extends oversight to the buyer's own AI agents, a category Vanta has not claimed. Purchase is sales-led and quote-based.
- Best for
- Continuous evidence collection and control testing across SOC 2, ISO 27001 and GDPR
- Autonomous vendor security reviews with reasoning and evidence links
- Governing the company's own AI agents with real-time policy enforcement
- Answering customer security reviews through a SafeBase-built trust centre
- Compliance programmes that span multiple frameworks from one platform
- Cost
- Enterprise
- Ease
- Openness
- Hosted service
- Data
- Drata is a closed, hosted platform that connects to a company's most sensitive systems: cloud infrastructure, HR, identity, and with AI Agent Governance the AI-agent estate itself. Scrutinise Drata's own data terms, security documentation and trust centre before connecting core systems, applying the same rigour the platform helps you apply to your own vendors. The accountability boundary matters just as much. Certifications such as SOC 2 and ISO 27001 still require an independent human auditor, and AI-drafted policies, questionnaire answers and agentic assessment outputs need review by an accountable human before auditors, regulators or customers see them.
Pricing
- Vanta
Custom·Custom·Custom·Custom
Prices as of August 2026.
- Essentials
- Price on applicationno list price published
- Plus
- Price on applicationno list price published
- Professional
- Price on applicationno list price published
- Enterprise
- Price on applicationno list price published
- Drata
Custom·Custom·Custom
Prices as of August 2026.
- Foundation
- Price on applicationno list price published
- Advanced
- Price on applicationno list price published
- Enterprise
- Price on applicationno list price published
By area
Where each one pulls ahead, area by area.
| Area | Vanta | Drata |
|---|---|---|
| By job | ||
| Founders & entrepreneurs | Vanta connects to the cloud, HR and identity stack a young company already runs and shows exactly what stands between today and certification, so compliance becomes a background process with a dashboard rather than a quarter-long founder distraction | Drata is the credible rival on the identical startup shortlist, with continuous monitoring, questionnaire drafting and a trust centre from the SafeBase acquisition |
| Legal & compliance | Vanta makes an audit a review of evidence already collected rather than a scramble to reconstruct it, with continuous monitoring across cloud, HR and identity systems and a Risk Graph giving the risk register a live map | Drata pairs the same continuous-monitoring core with autonomous vendor reviews, an MCP connector and the SafeBase trust centre pedigree |
| Operations | Vanta monitors and drafts but does not decide: access removals, risk acceptance and exception approvals stay human calls, so the monitoring can be left running to catch control drift before it becomes an audit finding | Drata runs the vendor security assessments with agentic third-party risk management, and keeps both the internal and third-party risk registers current as they move |
| By task | ||
| Automation & agents | Vanta sells the compliance outcome as a domain agent that arrives pre-trained rather than as a governance layer over other software, and the November 2025 Agentic Trust Platform launch put that agent at the product's centre | Drata governs the buyer's own AI agents as well as running its own, with shadow-agent discovery, real-time policy enforcement and tamper-evident evidence logs |
Common questions
Do they cover the same compliance frameworks?
The core overlaps heavily: SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR and HIPAA sit on both, and both extend into AI-specific ground with ISO 42001. Beyond the shared core they diverge at the edges: Vanta's published span includes HITRUST, NIST AI RMF and FedRAMP; Drata's includes PCI DSS. If a specific framework drives the purchase, confirm current support directly: coverage lists move faster than any directory.
What should a buyer budget for each?
Neither publishes pricing. Vanta has no free tier and no self-serve path: it is bought, not tried. Drata is likewise a sales-led, quote-based purchase. In both cases the evaluation is a procurement exercise: scoping call, quote sized to your organisation, annual agreement. Budget the internal time for that process as part of the decision, and get both quotes: the competition between exactly these two is your best pricing lever.
Which is stronger on AI governance specifically?
They approach it from different ends. Drata has planted the more distinctive flag: AI Agent Governance extends compliance oversight to the AI agents your own organisation deploys, and its MCP connector lets external AI assistants query live compliance data under user-level permissions. Vanta covers AI-relevant frameworks including NIST AI RMF and ISO 42001 within its broader agentic platform. If governing your own agents is the requirement, Drata currently owns that claim.
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Tool facts last checked August 2026