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Cybersecurity · head to head

BigID vs Restate

BigID logo

BigID

Cybersecurity

Data discovery and classification across cloud, on-premise and unstructured stores

From
On request
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite
Restate logo

Restate

Developer Tools

Durable execution engine in Rust with a free tier and low-latency workflows

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Restate has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: BigID pricing scales with data sources and volume, so the cost rises exactly as the estate you need to scan grows, and the modules shown in a demo, including AI security posture and headless deployment, are frequently separate licences that appear only in the final quote.; Restate the runtime is under a Business Source Licence rather than an open source licence, so building a competing managed offering on it is prohibited and some procurement functions will reject it on licence grounds alone.
  • They diverge on capability: BigID covers Structured and unstructured scanning, Restate covers Durable execution.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which BigID and Restate actually diverge.

Attributes where BigID and Restate differ
AttributeBigIDRestate
Starting priceOn requestFree
Pricing modelquotePer month by durable action count
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWeb, API, Self-hostedLinux, macOS, Web
CategoryCybersecurityDeveloper Tools

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in BigID

  • Structured and unstructured scanning
  • Identity correlation
  • Data security posture management
  • Access intelligence
  • Privacy request support
  • Retention and minimisation
  • AI data controls
  • Policy and remediation workflow

Only in Restate

  • Durable execution
  • Virtual objects
  • Single binary runtime
  • Multi-language SDKs
  • Workflows and sagas
  • Restate Cloud

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

BigID

  • A bank that has to prove which of thirty year old file shares contain customer identifiers before a data centre migrationnot Restate
  • A privacy team that cannot fulfil deletion requests because nobody knows which unstructured stores hold a given customer’s recordsnot Restate
  • A security team wanting to find sensitive data sitting in publicly readable object storage buckets before an attacker doesnot Restate
  • A company building retrieval augmented AI that must exclude regulated personal data from the index it feeds to a modelnot Restate

Restate

  • Payment or order flows where a crash between two external API calls must not double-charge or lose the ordernot BigID
  • AI agent loops that call tools over minutes or hours and must survive a deployment mid-runnot BigID
  • Replacing hand-rolled retry, idempotency key and outbox code across a set of microservicesnot BigID
  • A small team that wants durable workflows without operating a Temporal cluster and its databasenot BigID

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

BigID

  • Pricing scales with data sources and volume, so the cost rises exactly as the estate you need to scan grows, and the modules shown in a demo, including AI security posture and headless deployment, are frequently separate licences that appear only in the final quote.
  • Scanning large unstructured estates is slow and computationally expensive, so most organisations sample rather than scan everything, which reintroduces uncertainty into the very question they bought the tool to settle.
  • Classification accuracy on messy unstructured content requires tuning, and out of the box false positives on things like reference numbers create a large triage backlog that a small governance team cannot clear.
  • It discovers and reports but does not remediate, so realising value requires a separate process and often separate tooling to actually delete, restrict or move the data it flags.
  • It is built for large enterprises and both the price and the administrative overhead are disproportionate below a few thousand employees, where a lighter DSPM tool covers the security use case for far less.

Restate

  • The runtime is under a Business Source Licence rather than an open source licence, so building a competing managed offering on it is prohibited and some procurement functions will reject it on licence grounds alone.
  • Restate Cloud jumps from a free fifty thousand actions straight to 300 US dollars a month for twenty million, so a workload sitting at a few hundred thousand actions pays enterprise-shaped money for hobby-shaped volume.
  • It is a young project against Temporal’s established base, so hiring engineers who already know it is unrealistic and the answer to most questions is in the docs rather than on Stack Overflow.
  • The programming model requires structuring code around durable handlers and virtual objects, which is a genuine rewrite for existing services rather than a library you add.
  • The single-binary simplicity that makes small deployments cheap also means fewer operational knobs at very large scale than a system designed as separable components.

Pricing, plan by plan

BigID

On request
  • BigID Platform$undefined/year
    • Priced by number of data sources and data volume
    • Discovery and classification core
    • Optional DSPM, access intelligence and AI security modules licensed separately

Restate

Free
  • FreeFree
    • Fifty thousand durable actions per month
    • No credit card required
    • Community support
  • Starter$300/month
    • Twenty million actions per month
    • Two hundred actions per second, bursting to one thousand
    • Twenty GB storage
  • Pro$1000/month
    • Fifty million actions per month
    • Five hundred actions per second, bursting to two thousand
    • Fifty GB storage
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Negotiated volume
    • Twenty-four seven P0 support
    • 99.99 per cent SLA

Which should you pick?

Choose BigID if

  • You need structured and unstructured scanning.
  • You work on Web, API, Self-hosted.
  • You also want identity correlation.
BigID review

Choose Restate if

  • You need durable execution.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, macOS, Web.
  • You also want virtual objects.
Restate review

Questions people ask

Is BigID or Restate better?
Neither clearly leads. BigID starts at On request and Restate at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, BigID or Restate?
Restate has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for BigID and Free for Restate.
Does BigID or Restate run on more platforms?
BigID runs on Web, API, Self-hosted. Restate runs on Linux, macOS, Web.
Can I use Restate for free?
Yes. Restate has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. BigID starts at On request.
What is BigID best used for?
BigID is most often used for a bank that has to prove which of thirty year old file shares contain customer identifiers before a data centre migration, a privacy team that cannot fulfil deletion requests because nobody knows which unstructured stores hold a given customer’s records, a security team wanting to find sensitive data sitting in publicly readable object storage buckets before an attacker does, a company building retrieval augmented ai that must exclude regulated personal data from the index it feeds to a model. Of those, a bank that has to prove which of thirty year old file shares contain customer identifiers before a data centre migration and a privacy team that cannot fulfil deletion requests because nobody knows which unstructured stores hold a given customer’s records are not what Restate is typically brought in for.
What can BigID do that Restate cannot?
BigID covers Structured and unstructured scanning, Identity correlation, Data security posture management, Access intelligence. Restate covers Durable execution, Virtual objects, Single binary runtime, Multi-language SDKs.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

BigID: What does BigID cost?

It is quoted by data source count and volume. Reported contracts run from roughly 15,000 to 175,000 US dollars a year, and add-on modules such as AI security posture are licensed on top.

Restate: Is Restate open source?

The SDKs are MIT. The runtime is under a Business Source Licence, which permits self-hosting but not offering it as a competing service.

BigID: Does it handle unstructured data?

Yes, and that is its main advantage. It classifies data in files and shares and correlates findings back to individuals, not just to data types.

Restate: How does it compare with Temporal?

Same problem, different shape: one Rust binary with embedded storage instead of a server plus database plus workers, and lower per-step latency.

BigID: Will it delete the data it finds?

Not by itself in most deployments. It identifies and routes findings; deletion and remediation happen through your own processes or connected systems.

Restate: Is there a free tier?

Yes, fifty thousand durable actions a month on Restate Cloud with no card required.

BigID: Is it a privacy tool or a security tool?

Both are sold from the same discovery core. Buyers increasingly come from security wanting data security posture management rather than from legal wanting privacy.

Restate: Which languages are supported?

TypeScript, Java, Kotlin, Go, Python and Rust.

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