November 6, 2025

The best vendor risk management software in 2025

Written by

Vanta

Reviewed by

Kaylen Little

Accelerating security solutions for small businesses
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Tagore offers strategic services to small businesses.

A partnership that can scale
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Tagore prioritized finding a managed compliance partner with an established product, dedicated support team, and rapid release rate.

Standing out from competitors
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Tagore's partnership with Vanta enhances its strategic focus and deepens client value, creating differentiation in a competitive market.

For many organizations, vendor risk management (VRM) feels like an endless chase—gathering evidence, trudging through questionnaires, wrangling spreadsheets. Add expanding risk surfaces and new scrutiny from AI-driven regulations and customers, and it’s no wonder teams feel overwhelmed.

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The truth is that manual processes, fragmented tools, and point-in-time assessments can’t keep pace with the volume and velocity of today’s vendor relationships, leaving many organizations exposed to evolving threats and compliance gaps.

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In this article, we’ll explore the best vendor risk management software—tools that help you streamline VRM workflows, stay compliant, and reduce risk without slowing down the business.

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Top 5: Vendor risk management software solutions
Vanta OneTrust Drata Whistic Upguard

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The state of vendor risk management in 2025

In 2025, 57% of organizations reported terminating a vendor relationship due to security concerns, up from 50% the year prior. As supply chains expand, digital dependencies multiply, and AI accelerates both innovation and risk, more teams are realizing that traditional, checklist-driven approaches can’t keep up.

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Across the market, we’re seeing evidence-led vendor risk management replacing outdated, questionnaire-only workflows. Security teams no longer want to manually review spreadsheets and vendor forms—they want AI-driven systems that can read vendor documentation, flag risks, generate remediation tickets, and connect findings directly to procurement and governance programs. This shift not only saves time but embeds vendor oversight into the daily rhythm of security and compliance operations.

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At the same time, VRM is evolving from annual checkups to always-on visibility. Leading solutions are now offering continuous monitoring for breaches, vulnerabilities, and even fourth-party risk exposure. Configurable alerts surface relevant changes in real time, so teams can respond faster and keep a more accurate picture of vendor health.

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For buyers, these trends translate into measurable benefits: faster assessments, fewer blind spots, and stronger audit readiness. By automating evidence collection and centralizing vendor data, teams accelerate onboarding, improve trust across their ecosystem, and ensure their security posture keeps pace with business growth.

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How we picked these tools

In our assessment of vendor risk management software, we looked for tools that prioritize automation over manual effort, continuous visibility over point-in-time reviews, and integrated collaboration across security, risk, and procurement functions.

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Here’s the specific criteria we used to assess the following tools:

Criterion	Why it matters	Questions to ask vendors
Agentic and automated assessments
Questionnaire flexibility	Lets you tailor assessments to each vendor’s risk level, using custom logic and formats that make reviews faster, more relevant, and easier to manage at scale	How customizable are your questionnaires—can we add branching logic or tailor questions by vendor type or risk? What import options or mappings make it easy to reuse our existing question banks without starting from scratch?
Automated evidence collection	Saves time for both your team and your vendors—reducing repetitive work while keeping reviews accurate and up-to-date	How do you streamline the evidence collection process? Does your platform automatically map past responses across assessments to avoid duplicate requests?
AI-powered assessments	Speeds up vendor reviews by automatically reading reports, extracting key answers, and flagging risks—so you can focus on analysis instead of admin work	How does your AI extract and summarize answers from vendor documents accurately and securely? What transparency or guardrails explain the AI’s confidence, sources, and handling of sensitive data?
Risk rubric customization	Helps tailor vendor review depth and frequency based on business impact and data sensitivity—so teams focus effort where it matters most	Can we tweak the risk rubric to match how critical a vendor is to our business? How easy is it to adjust scoring or review frequency based on vendor tier or data sensitivity?
Risk intelligence and monitoring
Real-time risk monitoring and customized alerts	Helps you spot breaches, vulnerabilities, and vendor changes as they happen—instead of relying on a point-in-time snapshot	How do you continuously monitor vendors for new threats, breaches, or vulnerabilities? Can alerts be customized or routed to the right team members for quick action?
Fourth-party visibility	Uncover the vendors your vendors rely on—exposing hidden dependencies and cascading risks before they impact your business	How do you identify and track the subprocessors your vendors use? Can your platform alert us when a subprocessor changes or experiences a security incident?
Workflow and collaboration
Procurement intake integration	Makes sure vendors are vetted before purchase	How does your intake connect with our procurement or ticketing system to trigger reviews automatically? Can we track spend, owners, and renewal dates alongside each vendor’s risk profile?
Secure vendor portal	Makes it easy for vendors to submit documents and questionnaires safely and securely	How do vendors access the portal and control who sees their uploaded documents? Can vendors respond and share evidence without needing a full account or internal access? Do you send automatic follow-up notifications to vendors?
Remediation ticketing	Turns identified risks into actionable tasks with clear owners, deadlines, and audit trails	How are findings converted into trackable tasks with owners and due dates? Can remediation tickets sync automatically with tools like Jira or ServiceNow for updates and audit history?
Reporting and support
Executive dashboards and reports	Turns complex data into insights that track progress, highlight trends, and demonstrate the impact of your vendor risk program	What metrics and visualizations are available to show vendor risk trends and performance over time? Can reports be scheduled or shared automatically with executives, auditors, or other stakeholders?
Customer support and services	Helps teams get value faster, resolve issues quickly, and navigate audits or complex vendor reviews with confidence	What level of onboarding, training, and ongoing support do you provide to customers? Do you offer advisory or vCISO services, and how quickly does your team typically respond to support requests?

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Disclaimer: To help you find the best vendor risk management software, we’ve researched and ranked a selection of leading platforms. While we may be biased about Vanta being the top option, we aim to provide a comprehensive view so you can choose the right fit for your organization.

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Best Vendor Risk Management software

#1 Vanta

Vanta’s third-party risk management (TPRM) solution transforms vendor security from a static, check-the-box exercise into a continuous, intelligent, and actionable process. By combining deep risk analysis, agentic AI automation, and real-time monitoring, Vanta helps security teams stay ahead of evolving risks while seamlessly integrating vendor findings into their GRC programs.

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Features list:

Vanta AI: Vanta’s AI Agent removes manual work for both you and vendors with features like automated evidence collection and vendor renewal comparisons, so you can make faster, more informed decisions for your VRM program
AI-driven evidence reuse and versioning: Reuse and re‑validate previously collected evidence with version tracking to cut repetitive vendor requests
First-party data: Access first-party data through Vanta’s growing network of Trust Centers, giving you a more accurate view of your vendor risk
Customized risk rubric: Use Vanta’s rubric to auto-assign default risk scores—or, manually assign risk levels based on your criteria
Smart vendor communication: Automatically request evidence from vendors and manage follow-ups so no details fall through the cracks
Vendor questionnaires: Use pre-built questionnaire templates—or import your own if preferred
Procurement integration: Stay on top of procurement requests by connecting Vanta with your existing procurement workflows and tools
Review rules and scheduling: Define review frequency and required artifacts by risk tier; kick off assessments automatically based on configurable policies
Findings-to-remediation: Convert review findings into tickets, sync status bi‑directionally with ITSM/issue tracking, and store proof of fix in the review
Continuous risk monitoring: Identify and analyze vendor threats with proprietary scanning, expert-driven risk analysis, and customizable alerts for rapid response
Fourth-party mapping: Inventory vendor subprocessors to visualize cascading supply‑chain risk and prioritize follow‑ups
Vendor discovery: Automatically surface unmanaged tools from identity and device systems to catch shadow IT and initiate reviews

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Ideal for: Vanta is ideal for organizations that want continuous, intelligent visibility into their vendor ecosystem. From fast-growing startups to global enterprises, Vanta helps teams automate vendor discovery, simplify security reviews, and unify risk data across the business.

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Pros of Vanta	Cons of Vanta
AI-powered assessments: AI highlights the risks that matter most, helping teams work 54% more efficiently and giving leaders instant clarity on what to prioritize	Real-time risk monitoring: While Vanta covers a broad swath of vendors, your vendor coverage may vary based on your specific portfolio
Real-time risk monitoring: Vanta monitors the attack surfaces of your vendors for a real-time view into vendor risk. Alerts—along with the context, severity, and suggested mitigation—help you prioritize and action insights	Executive dashboards and reports: Dashboards offer strong out-of-the-box insights, but some highly customized KPIs or reporting formats may require manual exports or additional configuration
Secure vendor portal: Gives vendors a single, secure place to upload questionnaires and documentation—simplifying collaboration and keeping sensitive data protected	Fourth-party visibility: Visibility into subprocessors largely depends on how much data your vendors share

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#2 OneTrust

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OneTrust’s TPRM offering helps teams automate third-party risk assessment and lifecycle management—from intake and risk assessment to mitigation and reporting—for a more resilient, secure, and scalable third-party ecosystem. OneTrust’s TPRM solution helps teams automate onboarding and assessment, and surface and treat issues and risks.

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Ideal for: Enterprises that need a highly configurable platform with built-in ratings integrations and flexible, cross-domain risk workflows.

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Key features

AI‑assisted data collection
Contextual tiering by inherent risk
Ratings and breach monitoring partners
Custom and standard questionnaires
Issues, owners, and risk register workflows
Dashboards and exportable reports
Third-party due diligence (e.g., sanctions, adverse media)

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Pros of OneTrust	Cons of OneTrust
Real-time risk monitoring: Leverages security ratings, breach feeds, and external intelligence sources to provide continuous visibility into vendor risk posture	Questionnaire flexibility: Advanced configurations can be time-consuming to set up and may require ongoing admin support to maintain
Risk rubric customization: Offers customizable questionnaires with branching logic and advanced configurations for complex vendor assessments	Automated evidence collection: Reuse workflows exist, but may need manual tuning or mapping to function seamlessly across different assessment types
Executive dashboards and reports: Delivers detailed, role-based dashboards and export-ready reports that help communicate vendor risk performance to stakeholders	Procurement intake integration: Intake workflows depend on users manually filing and submitting intake forms for missing integrations

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#3 Drata

Drata offers a vendor risk management product that helps teams identify, evaluate, and monitor risk so they can feel confident in the vendors they work with. Drata’s VRM tool offers a single place to manage vendor management, helps identify and track vendor risks, supports proactive monitoring, and streamlines reviews. Drata’s VRM AI agent also streamlines vendor risk reviews.

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Ideal for: Growing teams that want to start with vendor risk management (rather than third-party risk management) alongside compliance automation.

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Key features

Vendor directory and impact tiering
Custom questionnaires and tracking
AI summaries of questionnaire responses
Vendor review scheduling and reminders
Issue logging to the risk register
AI VRM Agent
Stakeholder reporting

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Pros of Drata	Cons of Drata
AI-powered assessments: AI-generated summaries help teams quickly triage vendor risks	Automated evidence collection: Cross-review evidence mapping isn’t widely detailed, suggesting limited automation between vendor and compliance workflows
Questionnaire flexibility: Lets users build or import custom questionnaires to align vendor assessments with existing compliance frameworks	Fourth-party visibility: Public documentation suggests minimal insight into subprocessors or extended supply chain risk
Executive dashboards and reports: Dashboards make it easy to share program status, open risks, and progress updates with leadership	Procurement intake integration: Only a few procurement tools, which all require custom integrations, are supported

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#4 Whistic

Whistic is specifically an AI-first third-party risk management platform. Whistic modernizes TPRM with automated assessments, on-demand vendor insights, and continuous risk monitoring for faster, richer, more efficient vendor security assessments. Whistic combines TPRM and customer trust programs into a single, unified experience.

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Ideal for: Organizations focused on vendor collaboration and documentation sharing, with lighter workflow automation but strong tools for transparency and trust.

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Key features

AI Assessment Copilot for streamlined assessments
AI-powered trust centers for secure, easy sharing
AI-powered smart responses with citations for questionnaires
Trust Catalog for exchanging on-demand security and compliance information
More than 50 questionnaire/framework templates
Knowledge base with smart search for self-assessments and security and compliance documents

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Pros of Whistic	Cons of Whistic
AI-powered assessments: AI helps reviewers move faster by generating summaries with source citations and confidence indicators for added transparency	Real-time risk monitoring: Native monitoring options are limited—organizations may need to connect third-party threat feeds for fuller visibility
Secure vendor portal: Trust Centers provide vendors with a centralized, secure space to share documentation, questionnaires, and security profiles proactively	Remediation ticketing: Tasking and issue-tracking features are lighter than dedicated workflow tools, which could limit deeper audit trail visibility—especially without a native GRC platform to centralize risk logging
Questionnaire flexibility: Offers both pre-built templates and fully custom questionnaires, making it easier to tailor assessments to specific vendor types or risk levels	Risk rubric customization: Teams needing granular, tier-based automation may find fewer native controls for tailoring risk rules

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#5 UpGuard

UpGuard is a cyber risk posture management platform with a dedicated third-party vendor risk offering. It emphasizes continuous vendor insights, 360-degree assessments, and efficient AI-powered workflows to help teams take control of third-party cyber risk. UpGuard offers AI-powered security profiles, streamlined questionnaires thanks to automation and pre-configured questionnaires, centralized intelligence, and more.

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Ideal for: Teams that want strong external monitoring and quick insights into vendor security posture, without heavy setup or complexity.

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Key features

Continuous monitoring and alerts with daily scanning
Objective security ratings updated multiple times per day
AI security profiles to uncover vendor control gaps and risks
Questionnaire library and workflows
Risk assessment reports in seconds
One‑click stakeholder reporting

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Pros of UpGuard	Cons of UpGuard
Real-time risk monitoring: Performs frequent external scans and delivers timely alerts to help teams stay ahead of vendor vulnerabilities and breaches	Automated evidence collection: Evidence sharing is supported, but automated revalidation or mapping across assessments isn’t a core focus
Executive dashboards and reports: Generates clear, fast reporting outputs that make it easy to share vendor risk insights with leadership or auditors	Questionnaire flexibility: Building questionnaires and complex logic at scale can be challenging
AI-powered assessments: AI-driven profiles quickly surface security gaps and prioritize high-risk vendors for faster triage	Customer support and services: Customer support may be lacking, resulting in longer response times

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How to choose vendor risk management software

Choosing the right VRM platform starts with understanding your goals—and pressure-testing how well each tool fits into your day-to-day workflow. Here’s a practical way to evaluate solutions and find the one that truly helps your team move faster and stay ahead of risk.

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Clarify pains and outcomes: Start by naming the problems you’re trying to solve—like manual processes that slow reviews, point-in-time assessments that miss emerging risks, or wanting to drive faster, stronger decision making. Then, set measurable goals such as cutting cycle time by 50%, reusing 60% of evidence, or completing 95% of reviews on time.
Define decision criteria: Decide what matters most before you compare tools. Look for depth of automation, AI answer accuracy (with citations), evidence reuse, continuous monitoring, fourth-party visibility, a secure vendor portal, and strong reporting and remediation workflows.
Map your stack and procurement flow: Document how vendors move through your systems—identity, cloud, code, device, ticketing, and procurement. Make sure any VRM platform integrates natively, supports SSO/RBAC, and connects with intake triggers that gate purchases and sync key metadata like owners, spend, and renewals.
Design your inherent risk rubric: Group vendors by data sensitivity, integration depth, and business impact. Then tie those tiers to how often you review them, what documentation you collect, and what evidence is required to approve or renew.
Pressure-test AI and automation: Put each tool’s AI to the test. Upload real SOC 2 reports or security policies, and see if it provides accurate, cited answers. Check how it handles low-confidence responses, human approvals, and sensitive data retention.
Validate monitoring and fourth-party visibility: Connect a few sample vendor domains and see how well the system detects breaches, vulnerabilities, or subprocessor changes. Pay attention to noise controls and how clearly lineage and change notifications are displayed.
Pilot end-to-end: Run a small trial using one renewal, one new vendor, and one critical partner. Track metrics like time saved, percent of AI-answered questions (with citations), findings created, and tasks closed. Use the results to estimate total cost and performance at scale.

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FAQs

What is vendor risk management software?

Vendor risk management software centralizes how you identify, assess, and monitor vendor risk. It automates questionnaires and evidence review, applies rubric‑driven scoring, triggers remediation, embeds reviews in procurement, and provides dashboards and audit‑ready histories.

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How does AI actually help with vendor assessments?

AI takes on the heavy lifting by reading SOC 2 reports, policies, and questionnaires, then drafting answers with clear citations. It can flag exceptions, suggest remediation steps, and surface what matters most—so reviewers spend less time digging through documents and more time verifying and prioritizing real risks.

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How long does it take to implement a VRM solution?

Implementation typically takes two to eight weeks, depending on integrations, procurement workflows, and data migration. Many teams pilot in days, then phase rollout as they import vendors, tune rubrics, convert questionnaires, and connect ticketing for remediation.

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Can vendor risk software integrate with my existing GRC tools?

Yes. Mature platforms integrate with identity and HRIS, cloud and code, asset and MDM, SIEM, ticketing and procurement, and GRC suites. Confirm native connectors, SSO/SCIM, webhooks or APIs, and bi‑directional sync for tasks, findings, and evidence.

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Access Review Stage	Content / Functionality
Across all stages	Easily create and save a new access review at a point in time View detailed audit evidence of historical access reviews
Setup access review procedures	Define a global access review procedure that stakeholders can follow, ensuring consistency and mitigation of human error in reviews Set your access review frequency (monthly, quarterly, etc.) and working period/deadlines
Consolidate account access data from systems	Integrate systems using dozens of pre-built integrations, or “connectors”. System account and HRIS data is pulled into Vanta. Upcoming integrations include Zoom and Intercom (account access), and Personio (HRIS) Upload access files from non-integrated systems View and select systems in-scope for the review
Review, approve, and deny user access	Select the appropriate systems reviewer and due date Get automatic notifications and reminders to systems reviewer of deadlines Automatic flagging of “risky” employee accounts that have been terminated or switched departments Intuitive interface to see all accounts with access, account accept/deny buttons, and notes section Track progress of individual systems access reviews and see accounts that need to be removed or have access modified Bulk sort, filter, and alter accounts based on account roles and employee title
Assign remediation tasks to system owners	Built-in remediation workflow for reviewers to request access changes and for admin to view and manage requests Optional task tracker integration to create tickets for any access changes and provide visibility to the status of tickets and remediation
Verify changes to access	Focused view of accounts flagged for access changes for easy tracking and management Automated evidence of remediation completion displayed for integrated systems Manual evidence of remediation can be uploaded for non-integrated systems
Report and re-evaluate results	Auditor can log into Vanta to see history of all completed access reviews Internals can see status of reviews in progress and also historical review detail