IT AI Index
September 2026 Edition · The permanent record of this edition. The unqualified address always carries the latest edition.
Index › Security operations › September 2026 Edition

Third-party risk management

Asked as “third-party risk management platform”, and as “vendor risk assessment tool”, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. 49 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each.
Standing
UpGuard
Clear leader
53% of first choices, clear leader.
ShowinginAll 67 categories in the September 2026 Edition →

By buyer segment

The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment; they sit side by side and are never added together.
Small businessUpGuard44%Clear leaderStanding →Mid-marketUpGuard53%Clear leaderThis pageEnterpriseProcessUnity25%ContestedStanding →

01The standing

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all twelve models, for a mid-market B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01UpGuard53%9%47endorsed leader
02Panorays10%17%35accepted challenger
03Vanta6%17%30accepted challenger
04SecurityScorecard2%21%29accepted challenger
05Bitsight2%24%29accepted challenger
06Prevalent2%26%23criticized challenger
07ProcessUnity2%35%23criticized challenger
Show the four products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
10ServiceNow0%55%11criticized challenger
11Archer0%50%16criticized challenger
09OneTrust Third-Party Risk Management0%37%30criticized challenger
08Riskonnect0%18%11accepted challenger
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its vendor page.
Head to head
UpGuard vs PanoraysUpGuard vs VantaPanorays vs Vanta

One product takes 53% of first choices here, so the chart would put ten markers in one corner and one at the far edge. The two measurements it plots are columns in the standing above: share, and the negative label rate. Five products carry a negative rate above 25% in this category. Jump to the standing

02What they warned about

Four of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, GPT-5.4 mini, Mistral Small, Llama 4 Maverick, Qwen 3.7 Flash, Kimi K2, GLM 4.7 FlashX and MiniMax M2.5 changed. A high negative share on a product with few labels is a warning. A low share on a product with many labels is salience, not sentiment.
OneTrust Third-Party Risk Management
37%
11 of 30 labels negative · 6 of 12 models · 2 hard negative
“Caution level: High — especially for standalone vendor risk teams... "OneTrust's TPRM is absolute garbage except for the questionnaire function."” DeepSeek V4 Flash, negative prompt
Panorays
17%
6 of 35 labels negative · 6 of 12 models · 1 hard negative
“Limited customization options, poor reporting capabilities, lack of clarity in risk assessment processes, inefficient risk management due to false positives” GLM 4.7 FlashX, negative prompt
ProcessUnity
35%
8 of 23 labels negative · 5 of 12 models · 1 hard negative
“Most enterprise tools (OneTrust, ProcessUnity) start at $50K+ annually—unsuitable for limited budgets.” Grok 4.1 Fast, budget prompt
Bitsight
24%
7 of 29 labels negative · 5 of 12 models
“**Why to be cautious:** These tools are excellent for continuously monitoring a vendor's external perimeter ... treating an automated external "letter grade" ... as the complete picture ... is a major mistake” Gemini 3.5 Flash, negative prompt

03What they cite

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list: twelve of the twelve in this edition, and all six flagship models on the expanded tier.

Sites the answers cite

66 of 72 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 12 of 12 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 6 of those lists are Google grounding redirects that name no site and are left out of the counts. 822 links across 181 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

upguard.com
vendor site · UpGuard49 answers · 78 citations · 10 models
gartner.com
29 answers · 42 citations · 10 models
vanta.com
vendor site · Vanta25 answers · 33 citations · 9 models
riskledger.com
vendor site · Risk Ledger25 answers · 28 citations · 9 models
panorays.com
vendor site · Panorays21 answers · 25 citations · 8 models
bitsight.com
vendor site · Bitsight20 answers · 30 citations · 11 models
learn.g2.com
18 answers · 19 citations · 8 models
riskonnect.com
vendor site · Riskonnect16 answers · 16 citations · 8 models
securityboulevard.com
15 answers · 15 citations · 7 models
sprinto.com
vendor site · Sprinto14 answers · 18 citations · 9 models
g2.com
11 answers · 24 citations · 6 models
orbiqhq.com
11 answers · 17 citations · 9 models

Pages the answers cite

The ten pages named in the most answers, by full address. A page here is one the models returned with a recommendation, not one the index endorses.

upguard.com/blog/best-third-party-risk-management-software-solutions
43 answers · 10 models
gartner.com/reviews/market/third-party-risk-management-technology-solutions
23 answers · 9 models
vanta.com/resources/best-tprm-software-for-enterprises
20 answers · 9 models
learn.g2.com/best-third-party-risk-management-software
18 answers · 8 models
bitsight.com/guides/best-third-party-risk-management-platforms-for-enterprises
15 answers · 8 models
panorays.com/blog/third-party-risk-management-software
15 answers · 5 models
riskonnect.com/best-third-party-risk-management-software-platforms-in-2026
15 answers · 8 models
riskledger.com/resources/best-third-party-risk-management-software
13 answers · 7 models
sprinto.com/blog/vendor-risk-management-tools
13 answers · 9 models
securityboulevard.com/2024/05/best-11-third-party-risk-management-software-…
12 answers · 7 models

04How they answered

Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.
ModelDirect“What is the best third-party risk management platform for a mid-market B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which vendor risk assessment tool would you recommend to a mid-sized B2B company?”Comparative“What are the top third-party risk management platforms and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best third-party risk management platform for a company with a limited budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 500 person company evaluating a third-party risk management platform. What should we look at?”Negative“Which third-party risk management platforms should I avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5no first choiceStandardFusion, UpGuardChanged
One alternativeSprinto
no first choice
Seven alternativesDrata, MetricStream, Panorays, Prevalent, SecurityScorecard, UpGuard, Vanta
no first choiceno first choicenothing named
GPT-5.4 miniProcessUnity
Four alternativesLogicGate, MetricStream, OneTrust Third-Party Risk Management, Onspring
BitsightChanged
Four alternativesExiger, Interos, Prewave, Resilinc
no first choiceMitti
One alternativeRisk 365
no first choicenothing named
Gemini 3.5 FlashUpGuard
Three alternativesVanta, Venminder, Whistic
UpGuardHeld
Four alternativesPanorays, Sprinto, Vanta, Whistic
against: Archer, ServiceNowUpGuard
Six alternativesBitsight, OneTrust Third-Party Risk Management, Panorays, Prevalent, ProcessUnity, SecurityScorecard
against: Drata, VantaSecurityScorecard, UpGuard
Five alternativesAttaxion, Risk Ledger, Sprinto, Vanta, VendorCheck
no first choice
Three alternativesPanorays, SecurityScorecard, UpGuard
against: Archer, ServiceNowagainst: Archer, Bitsight, MetricStream, OneTrust Third-Party Risk Management, SecurityScorecard, ServiceNow Integrated Risk Management
Perplexity SonarUpGuard
Three alternativesLogicGate, Panorays, StandardFusion
UpGuardHeld
Four alternativesHyperproof, Panorays, Prevalent, Vanta
no first choiceUpGuard
One alternativeVanta
against: SmartSuiteno first choiceagainst: Archer, Bitsight, OneTrust Third-Party Risk Management, Panorays, ProcessUnity, Riskonnect, SecurityScorecard, ServiceNow, UpGuard
Grok 4.1 FastUpGuard
Two alternativesPanorays, Vanta
against: MetricStream, ProcessUnity, ServiceNowUpGuardHeld
Four alternativesBitsight, SecurityScorecard, Sprinto, Vanta
against: Hyperproof, OneTrust Third-Party Risk Management, Panorays, ProcessUnityProcessUnity
Eight alternativesBitsight, Diligent One, MetricStream, OneTrust Third-Party Risk Management, Riskonnect, SecurityScorecard, ServiceNow, UpGuard
UpGuard
Two alternativesBitsight, SecurityScorecard
against: OneTrust Third-Party Risk Management, Prevalent, ProcessUnity, Vantano first choiceagainst: ProcessUnity, SecurityScorecard, UpGuard, Vanta
Mistral SmallUpGuard
Two alternativesPanorays, Prevalent
Sprinto, VantaChanged
Four alternativesBitsight, Panorays, SecurityScorecard, UpGuard
ProcessUnity
Five alternativesBitsight, OneTrust Third-Party Risk Management, Riskonnect, SecurityScorecard, UpGuard
Sprinto, UpGuard
One alternativeHyperproof
no first choicenothing named
DeepSeek V4 FlashUpGuard
Four alternativesOneTrust Third-Party Risk Management, Panorays, Sprinto, Vanta
UpGuardHeld
Three alternativesDrata, Panorays, Vanta
against: Bitsight, OneTrust Third-Party Risk Management, Prevalentno first choice
Eight alternativesBitsight, OneTrust Third-Party Risk Management, Prevalent, ProcessUnity, SecurityScorecard, ServiceNow, UpGuard, Venminder
ThirdProof
Three alternativesBusiness Radar, RiskXchange, UpGuard
against: Archer, Bitsight, Black Kite, OneTrust Third-Party Risk Management, Panorays, Prevalent, ProcessUnity, SecurityScorecard, ServiceNow Integrated Risk Managementno first choice
Three alternativesAuditBoard, SAI360, StandardFusion
against: Archer, Bitsight, OneTrust Third-Party Risk Management, Prevalent, SecurityScorecard, UpGuard
Llama 4 MaverickPanorays, UpGuard, Vanta
One alternativeOnspring
Sprinto, UpGuard, VantaChangedno first choiceUpGuard
Four alternativesIBM OpenPages, Risk Ledger, Riskonnect, Vanta
no first choicenothing named
Qwen 3.7 FlashPanorays, UpGuard
One alternativeServiceNow Vendor Risk Management
against: OneTrust Third-Party Risk ManagementPanoraysChanged
Three alternativesSprinto, UpGuard, Vanta
against: Prevalentno first choice
Six alternativesBitsight, OneTrust Third-Party Risk Management, Panorays, ProcessUnity, SecurityScorecard, UpGuard
Vendorapp
One alternativeComplies.ai
against: OneTrust Third-Party Risk Management, Prevalent, ServiceNow, UpGuardPrevalent
Three alternativesDrata, OneTrust Third-Party Risk Management, Vanta
against: Archer, ServiceNowagainst: Archer, Bitsight, MetricStream, OneTrust Third-Party Risk Management, Panorays, ProcessUnity, SecurityScorecard, ServiceNow Integrated Risk Management
Kimi K2Panorays, UpGuard
Two alternativesPrevalent, Venminder
against: BitsightUpGuardChanged
Three alternativesPanorays, Prevalent, Vanta
against: ProcessUnityProcessUnity
Six alternativesBitsight, OneTrust Third-Party Risk Management, Prevalent, SecurityScorecard, UpGuard, Venminder
Fair TPRM, UpGuard
Three alternativesLT-VRM, SimpleRisk, Venminder
no first choiceagainst: OneTrust Third-Party Risk Management, RiskRecon
GLM 4.7 FlashXUpGuard
Four alternativesLogicGate Risk Cloud, Panorays, StandardFusion, Vanta
HyperproofChanged
Four alternativesLogicGate, Panorays, UpGuard, Vanta
Panorays, UpGuard
Seven alternativesComplyScore, LogicGate Risk Cloud, OneTrust Third-Party Risk Management, Prevalent, SecurityScorecard, SureCloud, Vanta
against: MetricStream, RiskonnectLT-VRM, ThirdProof
Two alternativesComplyJet, Nudge Security
against: VantaUpGuard
Six alternativesHyperproof, OneTrust Third-Party Risk Management, Panorays, ProcessUnity, SecurityScorecard, SureCloud
against: Panorays, Risk Ledger, Vanta
MiniMax M2.5Panorays, UpGuard
One alternativeSureCloud
UpGuardChanged
Three alternativesBitsight, Panorays, SecurityScorecard
no first choiceUpGuard
Four alternativesBitsight, Panorays, Secureframe, Vanta
no first choiceagainst: Panorays
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against

05The record

One row per call: the version string exactly as returned, whether the model searched, sources cited, and latency. Full answer text is in the free responses file. Download the record
Seventy-two rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
PromptModelVersion stringTime (UTC)SearchedSourcesLatency
Direct recommendationClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 12:16no05 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 13:14yes15 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 11:08yes1522 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 14:13yes206 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 10:41yes3619 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 13:55yes98 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 12:47yes917 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 13:42yes53 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 10:57yes960 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 12:06yes1333 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 11:19yes2071 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 10:26yes934 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 13:45yes98 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 13:55yes27 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 13:24yes921 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 13:38yes205 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 13:14yes3715 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 09:22yes56 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 11:30yes912 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 10:44yes53 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 11:16yes534 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 10:51yes1226 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 11:48yes30140 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 13:08yes524 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 09:55yes1111 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 14:02yes512 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 10:08yes1925 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 13:35yes208 s
ComparativeGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 13:21yes2721 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 13:22yes1213 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 14:10yes1839 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 11:06yes53 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 11:36yes1438 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 10:04yes940 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 10:53yes8218 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 09:39yes922 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 12:08yes1020 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 10:09yes27 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 10:47yes1622 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 10:28yes205 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 11:49yes3114 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 12:11yes55 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 14:08yes1620 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 13:58yes53 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 11:10yes1646 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 12:38yes1442 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 10:39yes22104 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 11:22yes517 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 13:17no05 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 09:33no012 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 13:38yes1323 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 11:46yes207 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 12:19yes1511 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 11:32no08 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 11:53yes1822 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 12:15yes53 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 10:57no039 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 10:55yes1025 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 12:40yes1454 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 10:54yes519 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-09-17 11:22yes188 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-09-17 09:39no04 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-09-17 09:40yes2825 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-09-17 10:21yes207 s
Negative framingGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-09-17 10:33yes2315 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-09-17 11:53yes107 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via fireworks2026-09-17 11:18yes2943 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-09-17 13:48yes52 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-09-17 11:44yes1557 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-09-17 11:30yes3041 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-09-17 09:52yes26258 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-09-17 10:49yes519 s

Normalization in this category

Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.

Category-scoped readings
Diligent read as Diligent One
OneTrust read as OneTrust Third-Party Risk Management
OneTrust (TPRM Module) read as OneTrust Third-Party Risk Management
OneTrust (Vendor Risk) read as OneTrust Third-Party Risk Management
Unresolved, counted raw
Bitsight-style ratings tools
Business Radar
Diligent ThirdPartyBond
Dun & Bradstreet
Lockpath
Prewave
Resilinc
Safe Security
Sourcery
SureDecks
VendorCheck
Venerable
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.

Also in security operations

The other categories of this function, with the leader in each.
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