Drata VS Tugboat: Compare All Key Differences 

If you have landed here, you need a compliance and risk management tool and have narrowed down to these two candidates. While their capabilities are pretty similar, it is critical to understand the minor differences that can make a huge difference. We have also added another player in the field of security compliance—Sprinto. 

This article covers how these tools fare in common categories like evidence collection, risk assessment, control monitoring, and more—a total of ten features. Read on to see who wins!

Round 1: Introduction

Drata is a compliance and security automation tool that streamlines security compliance processes by automating the monitoring of businesses’ cloud environments to gather control evidence. It significantly enhances efficiency and effectiveness and streamlines compliance workflows across various security frameworks. You can check their top five competitors and alternatives based on features, pros, and cons. 

Tugboat (now acquired by OneTrust GRC & Security Assurance Cloud) is a data privacy, risk management, and governance tool that offers comprehensive risk and compliance management solutions. It helps companies improve their risk posture and ensure audit readiness. You can check a detailed feature analysis for their top competitors. 

Sprinto is an all-in-one risk management, data governance, and security compliance management solution that provides businesses with a comprehensive toolkit designed to mitigate cyber risks and effortlessly meet regulatory requirements. It helps ensure that compliance and audits never impede growth, allowing businesses to focus on their growth with confidence. 

Round 2: Major considerations 

	Tugboat	Drata	Sprinto
Who is it for?	Tugboat is suitable for organizations of all sizes. The majority of their market segment are enterprise level orgs.	Drata is suitable for medium to large organizations whose main goal is to improve their existing compliance programs.	Sprinto’s platform is built to support orgs of all sizes. The compliance modules are highly responsive, to accommodate complex activities as you grow.
AI capabilities	Claims to use AI models to ensure fairness, mitigate risks, and ensure transparency. No data to understand how well this works.	Drata does not have AI capabilities. However, the tool is advanced enough to handle complex programs.	Currently does not have AI capabilities. The intelligent workflows and magic mapping of checks to controls are the closest capabilities to AI features.
User feedback	Positive: “Compliance and Risk Management in Comprehensive package.” “Best support team ever I found we needed lot of help in integration” “Comprehensive and Very good security Feature””Tugboat Helpful Tool for Saving Time on Information Security Questions and SOC2 certification Critical:  “A real disappointment since onetrust took over” “The main screen is so complex. There should be some examples such as image or pdf format as a reference.” “The auditor’s view is hidden and it is nice to see the tool from their perspective.”	Positive: “Easy mode Compliance””Drata support is fantastic” “Drata’s platform makes compliance easier” “An effective tool to assist with SOC2 compliance” Critical:  “Their platform was not honest about what it was doing until I called them on it.” “Slow to process integration requests or fixes” “Connection to background checks requires a lot of manual interaction	Positive:  “We went from zero to ISO 27001 in weeks not years” “Exceptional compliance solution with unmatched ease and support” “Simple & highly automated security compliance platform” “A Game-Changer in security compliances” Critical:  “Sometimes simple can be oversimplified” “One possible area of improvement is to integrate a Chat GPT feature into a virtual assistant” “As a user there should some more tips on usage”
Pricing module	Starts from $12,400. Will increase depesing on complexity, number of frameworks, and employee strength	Starting from $9,000 for one 1 framework (10 – 50 employees). Each additional framework would cost $1,000 extra	Starts from $4,000 for one 1 framework (10 – 50 employees). Each additional framework would cost $1,000 extra.

Round 3: supported frameworks 

Drata	Tugboat	Sprinto
SOC 2 ISO 27001 HIPAA GDPR PCI DSS Cyber Essentials NIST AI RMF CCPA CMMC Microsoft SSPA NIST CSF NIST SP 800-53 NIST SP 800-171 ISO 27701 FFIEC CCM FedRAMP ISO 27017 ISO 27018 Custom frameworks	CCPA  CDPA CMMC 2.0 CPA CPRA  CTDPA  FFIEC GDPR HIPAA IAB TCF 2.2 ISO 27701 LGPD LkSG Nevada Privacy Law PCI DSS PDPA  PIPEDA POPIA  SAPIN II Schrems II SOC 2 SOX UCPA	SOC 2 ISO 27001 GDPR HIPAA PCI-DSS ISO 27017 FCRA CIS OFDSS NIST CSF NIST SP 800-53 NIST SP 800-171 PIPEDA CCPA CSA Star FedRAMP Custom frameworks

Apart from the ones above, Sprinto supports all custom frameworks. The BYOF (Bring Your Own Framework) that allows you to run and manage any program of your choice. You can reuse controls from an existing framework to launch new programs faster and with minimal effort. 

Round 4: Key Features

Drata	Tugboat	Sprinto
Compliance Monitoring Anomaly Detection Cloud Gap Analytics Monitoring And Alerts Sensitive Data Compliance Policy Enforcement Auditing Workflow Management Centralized Vendor Catalog User Access Control Questionnaire Templates Access Control  Risk Scoring Risk assessment  Monitoring And Alerts	Data Subject Access Requests Privacy Impact Assessments Data Mapping – survey based and automated Data Classification Breach notification Consent management Website tracking scanning Ethics training GRC operationalization Data access governance Policy and incident management Tracking Templates Workflow management Reporting and analytics Audit preparation  Risk management	Compliance Monitoring Anomaly Detection Data Loss Prevention Cloud Gap Analytics Policy Enforcement  Audit readiness Workflow Management Access Control Vulnerability management Sensitive Data Compliance Data governance  Vendor risk management  People ops Change management  Security questionnaire Evidence collection Magic mapping  Risk scoring Compliance zoning Smart alerting

Round 5: Audit and evidence collection

Tugboat 

Customers note that Tugboat simplifies, automates, and organizes processes to meet audit internal and external requirements. It offers efficient workflows and compartmentalized processes tailored to specific cases. The tool adequately prepares users by collecting evidence needed to pass security audits. Users appreciate the way it connects policies to control and evidence. 

Only drawbacks noted by an insignificant number of users include the need for manual intervention to complete repetitive evidence tasks. 

Drata

Drata offers a robust audit hub that is generally appreciated for eliminating cumbersome and repetitive tasks. Auditors can review evidence directly without the need to send multiple requests, which adds efficiency to the audit process, saves time, and significantly reduces effort. It adequately prepares organizations for external auditor reviews by automatically collecting, organizing, and simplifying the end-to-end process. 

A number of users mentioned minor inconveniences like the inability to add asset exceptions and edge cases – creating an undesirable number of false positives. 

Sprinto

Sprinto’s audit preparation module helps users run and manage auditor-grade security programs using automated workflows. The tool fully prepares users for audit readiness by testing controls, automatically collecting evidence in an audit-friendly manner, and triaging alerts. 

The centralized audit dashboard streamlines evidence review, auditor collaboration, and editing or uploading of evidence. 

It facilitates running multiple audits simultaneously by allowing users to define a specific monitoring window separated from other activities. 

How Neurosynaptic embraced automation to complete HIPAA and ISO27001 audits

Round 6: Control Monitoring

Tugboat 

Continuously monitors compliance status against multiple frameworks. Its automation capability has significantly streamlined the monitoring processes, reducing manual efforts and adding efficiency. The tool is sufficiently flexible to allow users to tailor it to their specific environment. Smooth integration with existing systems facilitates control management from an unified environment. 

Drata

The compliance dashboard offers real-time visibility into the control health status to help users troubleshoot control failures to ensure quick resolution. It centralizes and streamlines the overall process to support external audits and manage compliance activities. The controls testing and automated monitoring capabilities drastically reduces the cognitive load required for a compliance program. 

Some drawbacks include the lack of functionality to record incidents and map them against control failures from a centralized dashboard. Users also noted that the tool could use a feature to add checks to custom controls. 

Sprinto 

Sprinto’s integrates with existing systems to continuously, comprehensively, and correctly capture compliance evidence and monitor controls. It automatically tests controls against a framework and manages controls that cannot be automated using intelligent workflows. The tool provides tiered, context-rich, and time-bound alerts if a control is failing and tracks control health from a central dashboard. 

Round 7: Risk Assessment

Tugboat 

Offers intuitive and efficient workflows to automate risk management processes using a suite of tools. Its centralized risk activities in one location makes it easy for users to find what they are looking for without much navigation. The module eliminates tedious and painful processes by linking it to compliance to facilitate functionality and audit efficiency. 

Some areas of improvement include standardizing the risk format and reducing the lack of connectedness between the reporting dashboard and generic compliance management dashboard. While adequate for most users, the level of automation could still be improved to eliminate manual intervention. 

Drata

Drata empowers IT teams to manage and mitigate compliance risks proactively by showing the real-time status of compliance. The risk assessment module consists of a comprehensive dashboard and risk library that help users visualize vulnerabilities across the environment. It automates the process of risk assessment and management, significantly reducing manual efforts. 

However, Drata’s approach to risk assessment is somewhat based on intuition rather than realistic metrics like industry benchmarks. Apart from the lack of an objective way of measuring risks, 

Sprinto

Sprinto’s integrated risk management solution helps users assess risks, understand their impact, prioritize based on criticality, and manage them systematically using industry-trusted benchmarks. Build powerful resilience and a detailed risk inventory using Sprinto’s risk library. Add custom risks, assign impact scores, adjust the depth of mitigating actions, and decentralize the risk management activities. Map risks to the right compliance control. 

Round 8: Integrations 

Tugboat 

The integration catalog of Tugboat covers a wide range of popular applications. The team is continuously adding new applications to streamline privacy and security workflows. 

Some common concerns expressed by users include the engineering team’s lack of understanding of how to integrate the Google workspace correctly. 

Drata

Drata boasts an impressive array of 90+ integrations covering essential functions, including background checks, security awareness training, HRIS, and more. In general, these integrations are highly responsive and have overwhelmingly positive feedback. 

However, they fall short of expectations in a few instances. For example, the AWS integration operates on an account level rather than an organizational level. This results in users needing to invest manual effort to conduct regular checks. Additionally, the custom APIs provided by Drata are fairly basic and often necessitate manual adjustments to ensure optimal performance.

Sprinto

Sprinto connects seamlessly with over 200+ commonly used applications with one tap integration. It supports custom APIs to build a centralized repository of everything you need to run a compliance program—cloud-hosted applications, infrastructure, code repositories, endpoint devices, and people. 

Round 9: Support 

Tugboat

Users praise the responsiveness and proactiveness of the knowledgeable support team, which guides them throughout the process. Overall, the support service is rated 9.1/10. 

Drata 

Drata’s outstanding support is apparent from its impressive rating of 9.9/10. Users appreciate the exceptional quality of support, dedicated account managers, and proactive teams who offer personalized guidance throughout the compliance process. The team takes user feedback positively and incorporates it into their product through regular updates. 

Expert support, from day 1

From the beginning of your compliance journey, Sprinto’s dedicated support team offers exceptional and proactive support at every step. Whether it’s onboarding, certification, or ongoing compliance, Sprinto ensures that the process never feels confusing or overwhelming. You resolve your queries within an hour, ensuring timely assistance and peace of mind. 

Round 10: Grand Finale – And The Winner Is….

Hope this helped you make the right decision. 

At the risk of sounding biased, we’d have to pick Sprinto. Our tool has helped thousands of businesses successfully navigate the complexities of compliance at a flexible price. With flexible, advanced, and customizable features, we make sure you are dull and ready to pass audits with flying colors and without any of the heavy lifting. 

If you are still unsure, spend 20 minutes to talk to our compliance experts to discuss the best solution for your business. 

FAQs

Which solution is better between Drata and Tugboat?

The answer boils down to your needs. If you are looking to improve your existing programs, Drata is a better solution. For enterprise businesses looking to run a more complex program, Tugboat is the answer. 

Who are Tugboat’s competitors?

Some of the core competitors Tugboat are Vanta, Sprinto, Secureframe, Tugboat, AuditBoard, Wiz, and Hyperproof

Who are Drata’s competitors?

Some of Drata’s core competitors are Vanta, Sprinto, Secureframe, Tugboat, AuditBoard, Wiz, and Hyperproof.