OneTrust vs Vanta

OneTrust and Vanta are both data privacy platforms. They aim to provide compliance with a list of data security standards. There are many similarities between these two cloud-based platforms and the two systems compete against each other for customers.  

The main difference between OneTrust and Vanta is that OneTrust offers a holistic platform for governance, risk, and compliance while Vanta focuses on security and trust management solutions. However, there are overlapping features which we will discuss in this article. 

The market for data privacy services is very crowded, but where do OneTrust and Vanta stand on the league table? How to the two platforms compare and which will have more success in 2024? We assess these two systems head to head.

What are OneTrust and Vanta?

Both OneTrust and Vanta are software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions that help companies take charge of organizational compliance. Before we get into the nitty-gritty details, let’s take a look at where each of these companies began.

OneTrust was launched in 2016 by CEO Kabir Barday, a former privacy attorney. Barday saw that emerging mandates like the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) would require companies to rethink the way they handle user data. The company has grown to provide a governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) platform. It is now the most successful data privacy system provider in the world.

Vanta was founded in 2018 to fill a growing need in compliance solutions—to provide continuous security that goes beyond point-in-time checks. Vanta’s founder, Christina Cacioppo, started the company in response to a number of high-profile data breaches. The company’s central concept is the creation of a Trust Center. This involves examining the risk to data – as implemented by sensitive data identification, vulnerability management, and third-party risk assessments.

OneTrust Pros and Cons

OneTrust excels in its extensive range of security and compliance features. It attracts leading industry brands such as Deloitte, GVC Group, and World Bank Group because of its extensive list of modules. Its strength lies in its adaptability and capacity for customization. 

Unlike other platforms that often focus on only one or two core processes, OneTrust provides specialized modules for data governance, sustainability, ethics, and security assurance. The platform’s list of services is separated into four sections, which are called “clouds.” However, the division between these sections is not rigid and buyers can select modules from several clouds to create a custom package. Customers aren’t forced to take on a cloud in its entirety. 

The four clouds are:

1. Privacy and Data Governance

OneTrust's leading service is its Privacy and Data Governance Cloud. This unit provides sensitive data management and meets the requirements of most data privacy standards, such as GDPR and CPRA. Its modules are:

• Privacy Management
• Data Discovery and Security
• Consent and Preferences
• Responsible AI

2. ESG and Sustainability

OneTrust’s Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) Cloud is ideal for companies that want to get a handle on their green initiatives. The ESG Cloud makes it easy to support long-term change with simple metric analyses, progress tracking, and automated reports. Its modules are:

• ESG Program Management
• Supplier Sustainability and Responsibility

3. GRC and Security Assurance

OneTrust’s GRC and Security Assurance Cloud boasts a comprehensive suite for third-party risk reviews, technology assessments, and audits. Users benefit from detailed security reviews that help them prepare for the unexpected, both in 2023 and beyond.

These are the functions of the OneTrust platform with which the Vanta system directly competes. Its modules are:

• Technology Risk and Compliance
• Third-Party Risk
• Internal Audit Management

4. Ethics and Compliance

The Ethics and Compliance Cloud on the OneTrust platform guides businesses that want to engage customers, employees, and the general public with a corporate mission. The service also includes a module that sets up protection for whistleblowers – knowledge of this possibility should keep senior management dedicated to the ethics goal. This cloud’s modules are:

• Ethics Program Management
• Speak-Up Program Management
• Third-Party Due Diligence

Pros of OneTrust:

• Many features, customizations, and options for enterprises
• A broader range of compliance and data management functions than most rival platforms offer
• Compliance templates for a long list of data privacy standards
  
  

Cons of OneTrust:

• High costs for deployment and ongoing management, usually requiring the input of expensive consultants
• Lengthy contracts
• High technical complexity; users must invest substantial effort into platform management

Overall Thoughts on OneTrust

OneTrust proves to be an excellent choice for companies that are willing to invest in the onboarding process. While OneTrust offers a comprehensive solution, it does come with certain trade-offs, including its high price and extended contract terms. Furthermore, a few users have noted that managing OneTrust can be a challenge, both in complexity and in a lack of user support post-purchase.

Despite mixed reviews, OneTrust stands as a go-to choice for medium to large enterprises that can dedicate both time and resources to the platform. It's important to remember that typical OneTrust contracts can exceed $50,000 and cost a company hundreds of thousands over the long term. 

As companies contemplate a lasting partnership with OneTrust, they should conduct a thorough evaluation of their compliance requirements to make sure it aligns with their growth objectives.

👉 Read our in-depth review of OneTrust to see if it aligns with your enterprise requirements

Vanta Pros and Cons

Vanta is a risk-management solution for companies of any size. Its tools help companies manage risk, validate their security measures, and purportedly automate as much as 90% of the workload associated with security and privacy frameworks. 

Vanta prioritizes continuous security as one of its top selling points and aims to give companies more control—and visibility—into their compliance objectives. The platform has integrations with more than 300 third-party systems, such as Salesforce. These enable the service to extract activity data for security monitoring. 

Vanta offers three plans and they all include modules from the platform’s five divisions of services. Those divisions are: 

1. Automated Compliance

This division of service provides data governance and compliance frameworks. Its task is to support the creation of a data governance system for compliance and controls to ensure that the company stays within the rules. Its modules include:

• Compliance framework
• Policy template library
• Controls library
• Continuous monitoring of controls
• Complete test set for CIS Benchmark of AWS EKS
• AI suggestions to map existing tests and policies to relevant controls
• Automated notifications for failed tests
• Bi-directional task tracker integration
• Personnel policy acceptance tracking
• Executive reporting
• Custom executive reporting
• Auditing

2. Trust Center

The Trust Center is a central dashboard of proof of compliance. This section provides a library of data that customers will need to know. For example, if customers are running their own third-party risk assessment process, they would receive their necessary information from this unit. The system has a strong interaction with the Salesforce platform. Its units are:

• Security Questionnaire Automation
• Salesforce integration to automate customer access requests and sync NDA status
• ROI reporting tied to Salesforce account data
• DocuSign integration to sync and use your own signed NDA

3. Risk Management

The Risk Management section is where all of the risk assessment work is done, including third-party risk management. Vanta doesn’t include any sensitive data management functions in its service, which is the main aim of compliance management in the OneTrust platform. This section provides a Risk dashboard. Its modules are:

• Risk register and risk assessment
• Risk library, including common risk scenarios and suggested controls
• Task assignment and tracking
• Risk treatment plans
• Vendor inventory
• Risk Assessment report

4. Asset Management

The Asset Management section of Vanta services is concerned with system security. It provides preventative scanning in its vulnerability management service and compiles asset inventories. Companies will need to buy extra cybersecurity systems in order to fully protect their systems. 

• Asset inventory of software, hardware, and custom resources
• Vulnerability management
• Vulnerability history
• Vanta Agent for device encryption, lockscreen, and AV monitoring

5. Employee Security

The Employee Security section deals with access rights management and security awareness training for employees. Its modules are:

• Identity provider group import
• Identity provider-controlled scoping
• Security awareness training
• Personnel onboarding and offboarding
• Visibility for third-party tool access
• Automated access reviews

Pros of Vanta

• Powerful features for security and risk management
• Prepares a business to pass third-party risk assessments
• Many customization options
  
  

Cons of Vanta

• No price list
• No data privacy management features
• Challenging onboarding process that takes a “best practices” approach

Overall Thoughts on Vanta

Like comparable compliance solutions, Vanta does a good job with its core offering. Its core feature set is powerful, and better yet, isn’t limited to high-value enterprise clients. Vanta offers options for startups to enterprises and everything in between.

Vanta includes preventative security scanning but doesn’t include ongoing security monitoring or features to fix vulnerabilities, such as a patch manager. So, businesses that are attracted by the security features of Vanta will have to keep looking for more tools in order to protect systems and data. 

In terms of drawbacks, users report that Vanta comes with high costs and a steep learning curve that make onboarding a challenge. Past customers note that standard implementations take a “best practices” approach that require in-house support to fine tune.

While some can optimize Vanta to their industries, others struggle with this obstacle:

Regardless, Vanta’s forward-thinking approach to continuous monitoring is certainly a positive, and its steep learning curve is common among compliance solutions. For companies that want to gain true visibility into their risk profiles and compliance objectives, Vanta stands as a solid entry.

OneTrust vs Vanta: What's the Better Choice?

Both OneTrust and Vanta are strong privacy options, but which one comes out ahead? Let’s do a head-to-head comparison of the features most vital to a SaaS solution: UX, cost, features, and product roadmap.

UX & Onboarding

Many (though not all) compliance platforms struggle with usability. Both OneTrust and Vanta fall short here. Users on both sides report significant challenges in setting up and managing the platforms. Users can expect to spend substantial time with each provider’s support team to get things up and running. As such, there's no clear winner here.

Features

Although Vanta’s risk management and monitoring features are powerful, it's hard to top OneTrust in this regard. One of the biggest selling points of OneTrust is its diverse feature set, and in this area, the platform shines as a clear winner.

Pricing

Cost is another area where both platforms struggle. It’s well known that OneTrust’s varied feature set comes with high implementation costs, and as it turns out, users report the same for Vanta. In particular, some reviews note that Vanta is quite expensive for what you get. However, keep in mind that OneTrust’s lengthy contractual obligations will extend a company’s total investment in the platform as well. Because of these unfavorable contract terms, we’re giving the point to Vanta.

Product Roadmap

Future product releases are another area where OneTrust is hard to beat. While Vanta is a newer entry on the market with more room to grow, OneTrust’s diverse line of solutions offers more out-of-the-box 

OneTrust vs. Vanta: Is There a Better Option?

Both Vanta and OneTrust are powerful, useful tools for organizational compliance, and both have their strengths and weaknesses. OneTrust acts as an all-purpose approach while Vanta fills the niche of dedicated risk management and monitoring.

If you’re still on the fence about the right data privacy partner, we'd like to show you why you should consider Enzuzo:  

1. Robust Enterprise Features

Enzuzo's enterprise plan covers advanced needs, such as cookie consent management, compliance dashboards, data mapping, data governance, and other data privacy features. Enzuzo was recently picked by global conglomerate Lucy Group to power its international data privacy needs and it can more than hold its own against other data privacy companies.

For those looking to migrate away from OneTrust or Vanta, Enzuzo offers premium white-glove onboarding, migration assistance for consent settings, and privacy engineers on staff to assist with any technical issues.  

2. Fast Onboarding and Friendly UX

Enzuzo was designed with a focus on speed, efficiency, and ease of installation. Its onboarding process is simple and can be installed in minutes with a few lines of Javascript. In other words, Enzuzo lets you spend less time deploying and more time setting up the core functions that save you time. Users report that this quick setup process is a platform highlight:

3. Affordable Pricing (No Credit Card Required)

There’s no way around the high costs of Vanta and OneTrust. While they’re powerful compliance solutions, their excessive price tags may make them unsuitable for many companies. Instead, consider that Enzuzo’s essential Growth Plan for compliance solutions starts at just $29/month. Better yet, Enzuzo requires no long-term contracts or obligations. Users are free to cancel any time should their needs change.

👉 Start building privacy and compliance workflows for free 

4. Google Certified Consent Management Platform

Enzuzo's consent management software is compliant with Google Consent Mode v2 — giving you unrestricted access to run ads in Europe or earn Adsense revenue. What's more, it ships with world-class features including consent logs, consent analytics, multi-domain consent, consent grouping, and more. 

5. Legal Agreements Built by Human Lawyers

Skip the expensive lawyers and retainer fees with Enzuzo's tools. All major legal agreements required for software companies and ecommerce stores such as privacy policies, terms of service documents, end user license agreements, and more are available inside the Enzuzo app for a small monthly fee.

The foundation of the generators was developed by expert lawyers in their field and each agreement is designed to be specific to your business. During our onboarding questionnaire, we ask clients a few simple questions that are fed into our generator. From there, the tool outputs personalized legal documents tailored to your company’s exact specifications.

Combine this with Enzuzo’s other great features, such as our cookie banner generator and privacy compliance scanner, and you’ll see why we’ve become a trusted name in compliance management.  

Learn more about how Enzuzo can power your data privacy and compliance requirements. Book a no-obligation, strategy call with a privacy expert👇