Top 8 GRC platforms in 2024

July 30, 2022

Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) is a comprehensive framework that helps you manage and align your operations with regulatory requirements, risk management protocols, and internal policies.

Today’s fast-paced business world calls for effective GRC strategies that ensure compliance with regulations, effectively mitigate risks, and consistently maintain effective governance structures. This is non-negotiable for sustaining business integrity and longevity.

We’ve curated a list of top GRC platforms in 2024 to help you pick the right one for your company. This compilation aims to empower you with the information necessary to make informed decisions and fortify your GRC framework for enduring success.

Key capabilities to look for in a GRC platform

When evaluating GRC platforms, it’s essential to consider the following key capabilities that can significantly enhance your compliance and risk management efforts:

1. Automation

Automation is a cornerstone feature of modern GRC platforms, offering several advantages:

a. Faster evidence collection

Automated processes streamline the collection of evidence required for compliance audits and assessments, reducing manual effort and accelerating the overall process.

b. Accurate cloud test remediations

With automated remediation workflows, organizations can swiftly address vulnerabilities and non-compliance issues in cloud environments, ensuring that remediation actions are carried out promptly and accurately.

c. Better collaboration workflows

Automation fosters collaboration among cross-functional teams by providing centralized workflows and real-time notifications, facilitating seamless communication and coordination in addressing compliance challenges.

2. Visibility

A GRC platform should provide comprehensive visibility into various aspects of compliance and risk management:

a. Compliance progress and dependencies

Real-time dashboards and reporting capabilities offer insights into the organization’s compliance status, dependencies between different compliance requirements, and progress toward meeting regulatory obligations.

b. Upcoming audits, ongoing audits, audit readiness

Visibility into audit schedules, ongoing audit activities, and preparedness levels enable organizations to proactively manage audit processes, identify potential gaps, and ensure readiness for regulatory inspections.

c. Effective communication with leadership

Transparent reporting and executive dashboards empower leadership teams to make informed decisions by providing clear visibility into compliance performance, risk exposure, and the effectiveness of mitigation efforts.

3. Integrations

Seamless integrations with other systems and tools are essential for maximizing the value of a GRC platform:

a. Better intelligence

Integration with threat intelligence feeds and security analytics tools enhances the platform’s capabilities to detect and respond to emerging threats and vulnerabilities proactively.

b. Task management

Integration with project management and task-tracking tools enables efficient assignment, tracking, and monitoring of compliance-related tasks and activities.

c. Device security

Integration with endpoint security solutions and device management platforms strengthens the organization’s overall security posture by ensuring that compliance requirements are enforced across all endpoints and devices.

4. Ease of use

The ease of use of a GRC platform is crucial for user adoption and efficiency. An intuitive interface and user-friendly design can minimize the learning curve, enabling users to quickly adapt to the platform and perform tasks efficiently.

5. Scalability

Scalability is vital to ensure the GRC platform can grow with the organization’s needs.

The platform should be flexible enough to adapt to changing regulatory landscapes and security standards, ensuring ongoing compliance.

Scalability extends beyond regulatory concerns to accommodate the growth of the organization, providing support for an expanding workforce.

As data volumes increase, the platform should scale seamlessly to handle the additional workload without sacrificing performance or security.

6. Employee training

Employee training is essential for building a culture of security awareness and compliance. Comprehensive training modules educate employees on security best practices, instilling a proactive approach to security throughout the organization.

7. Expertise

Access to expertise is critical for navigating complex compliance and security challenges. The platform should provide access to expert support and resources to assist with compliance interpretation, implementation, and decision-making.

8. Customization

Customization capabilities allow organizations to tailor the platform to their specific needs. Flexible customization options enable organizations to align the platform with their unique workflows, compliance requirements, and security policies, maximizing its effectiveness and relevance.

Top 8 GRC platforms in 2024

1. Scrut Automation

Scrut believes in prioritizing security over certification, offering a comprehensive platform that not only facilitates compliance but also strengthens your organization’s information security posture. With over 50 years of combined expertise and a global clientele of over 1000 customers, Scrut is your trusted partner in navigating the complex realm of compliance and security.

Pros

Real-time view

Scrut provides a centralized view of the progress status of policies, evidence, and tests, highlighting areas that require immediate action. This feature enables organizations to monitor compliance efforts effectively and ensure timely completion of tasks.

The platform facilitates the evaluation of the effectiveness of risk treatment strategies. By analyzing real-time data on risk mitigation measures, organizations can assess the impact of their actions and make informed decisions to optimize risk management processes.

Scrut alerts users to warning and danger items within their cloud environment, allowing organizations to proactively address potential security threats. This real-time monitoring capability helps mitigate risks associated with cloud infrastructure and enhances overall security posture.

It enables organizations to track corrective actions in a systematic manner. By providing visibility into the status of corrective measures, Scrut streamlines the process of addressing compliance issues and ensures accountability throughout the remediation process.

Faster and more accurate compliance

Scrut’s Unified Compliance Framework (UCF) enables users to seamlessly map existing controls with newer frameworks. This streamlines the compliance process by ensuring alignment between established controls and evolving regulatory requirements.

The platform facilitates quicker acceptance of policies by employees, leading to accelerated organizational compliance readiness. Through comprehensive security training modules, Scrut empowers organizations to educate and engage employees effectively, fostering a culture of compliance across the entire organization.

It empowers users to generate compliance and cloud summary reports on-the-go, providing real-time insights for auditors. This capability ensures that organizations can readily demonstrate their compliance posture, enabling smoother and more efficient audit processes.

Pre-built templates

Scrut provides a comprehensive library of pre-built templates, including policies, out-of-the-box frameworks, and vendor questionnaires. These templates offer organizations a head start in their compliance efforts by providing ready-to-use resources that align with industry standards and regulatory requirements. With Scrut’s pre-built templates, organizations can efficiently establish foundational compliance frameworks and streamline vendor assessment processes.

Smoother evidence collection

Scrut automates over 65% of evidence-collection tasks by seamlessly integrating with a variety of tools such as cloud service providers, identity providers, HRMS (Human Resource Management Systems), DevOps platforms, and more.

This integration streamlines the process of gathering evidence required for compliance audits, saving valuable time and resources for organizations. By leveraging Scrut’s automation capabilities, organizations can focus on strategic initiatives while ensuring comprehensive compliance coverage.

Streamlined audits

Unlike other platforms, Scrut goes the extra mile by offering support for Service Level Agreements (SLAs) with auditors. We understand the importance of maintaining a smooth and efficient auditing process, which is why we ensure that your auditors receive special access to the platform. This enables them to raise requests, report findings, and successfully complete audits within the agreed-upon SLA timelines. With Scrut’s dedicated support for SLAs, you can streamline collaboration with auditors and ensure timely completion of compliance assessments.

Cons

For smaller companies that do not utilize all modules, the current comprehensive version may not be the most suitable option.

Spoiler alert – we’re on it! Rest assured that we are actively working on developing a ‘light’ version tailored specifically to the needs of smaller companies.

This version will offer streamlined features and functionalities, ensuring a more suitable and cost-effective solution for businesses with limited requirements. With our commitment to continuous improvement, we aim to provide options that cater to the diverse needs of all organizations, regardless of size.

2. JupiterOne

JupiterOne empowers your cybersecurity and governance team by simplifying the process of achieving ongoing compliance. It gives complete visibility across cloud assets, code repo, networks, users, and more to prevent data breaches and maintain continuous compliance.

Pros

Quickly integrates with your environment and starts adding evidence for assessing PCI, HIPAA and SOC controls
It helps you to easily visualize relationships in your environment to understand what’s going on

Cons

Steep learning curve: can be overwhelming initially
Fails to pull many desirable data from some SaaS integrations

3. Drata

Drata is a security and compliance management software that monitors and collects proof of a company’s security measures while expediting compliance workflows end-to-end to ensure audit readiness.

Frameworks such as SOC 2, HIPAA, GDPR, PCI DSS, CCPA, ISO 27701, Microsoft SSPA, NIST CSF, and NIST 800-171 are supported by this GRC tool. With over 75 integrations, Drata brings the compliance status of all your people, devices, assets, and vendors into a single location.

Pros

Simple interface and good automation options
Quick access to compliance experts from the platform

Cons

Lacks integrations like sending Slack notifications when a test fails
Additional charges for a feature like Trust Center
There is a 25MB file size limit for all evidence uploaded to Drata. Whenever you need to upload something larger, you must contact Drata’s assistance

4. Hyperproof

Hyperproof offers a straightforward, adaptable, and accessible GRC solution tailored for modern businesses. The platform empowers security and compliance teams to effortlessly stay ahead of their tasks.

It aids enterprises in effectively showcasing compliance, ensuring ongoing assurance, and managing IT risks seamlessly. With Hyperproof, you gain the visibility, productivity, and reliability necessary to efficiently handle all aspects of security assurance and compliance efforts for you and your team.

Pros

Hyperproof makes program requirements, controls, mitigation planning, tasking, and validation easy to manage
The app reduces redundant work across programs, saving time and reducing errors.
Seamless workflow to link controls to numerous frameworks

Cons

Difficult to get a smoother continuous monitoring posture as Hypersync only has fewer proofs
Security controls are not inherited, resulting in deactivated user accounts remaining in the module

5. ZenGRC

To ensure that your company’s risk and compliance policy meets all applicable InfoSec requirements, ZenGRC provides a tried-and-true solution. It coordinates with your current GRC initiative and grows with you as you progress along your maturity roadmap.

Pros

Reduces manual effort by creating a simple process for users
Allows you to manage the end-to-end audit cycle completely

Cons

There is room for improvement in certain features. These include enhancing role-based access controls, enabling the capability to upload multiple files to a record simultaneously, and refining the setup of the Jira integration.
Additionally, there is an issue where users with read-only access can edit tasks.

6. Sprinto

Sprinto is a GRC software that accelerates cloud-hosted enterprises’ SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, and HIPAA compliance and makes information security accessible to all.

It automates and manages the entire process from start to finish via continuous security control monitoring, removing all regulatory bottlenecks so organizations can focus on boosting revenue.

Pros

The platform works well in the modern IT environment
Sprinto handles most compliance-related tasks, including external audit firm interaction and protocols

Cons

It can be tough to navigate at times
Expensive even when you go for multiple compliance certifications

7. Secureframe

Secureframe is a comprehensive GRC solution designed to streamline information security compliance management for organizations. It simplifies the process of achieving and sustaining compliance with standards like SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, and PCI DSS.

With Secureframe, organizations benefit from automated audit evidence collection, security awareness training, infrastructure monitoring, and additional features. The platform offers seamless integration with over 100 leading services, including AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, Github, JAMF, and Okta.

Pros

It integrates with the majority of major cloud providers, identity providers, HR systems, code repositories, and so on

Cons

A lot of manual entries are required due to bugs in syncing information
There are no auto-reminders

8. AuditBoard

The modern, integrated risk platform from AuditBoard enables you to exploit risk as a strategic driver. The core is surrounded by a set of robust platform capabilities, including collaboration, automation, a powerful workflow engine, business information, and a layer of integration that is highly expandable.