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Cybersecurity · head to head

BigID vs Very Good Security

BigID logo

BigID

Cybersecurity

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

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Very Good Security logo

Very Good Security

Cybersecurity

Tokenisation proxy that keeps card and personal data out of your own systems and out of PCI scope

From
$1000/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • 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.; Very Good Security vGS sits in the live path of every request carrying sensitive data, so its latency and availability become yours, and an outage in the proxy is a payment outage no matter how healthy your own systems are.
  • They diverge on capability: BigID covers Structured and unstructured scanning, Very Good Security covers Aliasing proxy.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which BigID and Very Good Security actually diverge.

Attributes where BigID and Very Good Security differ
AttributeBigIDVery Good Security
Starting priceOn request$1000/month
Pricing modelquotePer month
PlatformsWeb, API, Self-hostedWeb, API

Identical on both: free tier (No), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Cybersecurity).

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 Very Good Security

  • Aliasing proxy
  • PCI scope reduction
  • Network tokenisation
  • Processor optionality
  • Card issuing data
  • Vault and access controls
  • Data residency options
  • Compliance artefacts

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 Very Good Security
  • A privacy team that cannot fulfil deletion requests because nobody knows which unstructured stores hold a given customer’s recordsnot Very Good Security
  • A security team wanting to find sensitive data sitting in publicly readable object storage buckets before an attacker doesnot Very Good Security
  • A company building retrieval augmented AI that must exclude regulated personal data from the index it feeds to a modelnot Very Good Security

Very Good Security

  • A marketplace facing its first PCI DSS Level 1 assessment that wants to keep card data off its own estate rather than harden a dozen servicesnot BigID
  • A merchant negotiating with a second acquirer that needs card credentials portable so the negotiation is real rather than theoreticalnot BigID
  • A fintech collecting bank account and identity documents that wants sensitive fields absent from logs, backups and analytics warehouses by constructionnot BigID
  • A card issuer that must display a full PAN in its own mobile app without the app or its backend touching cardholder datanot 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.

Very Good Security

  • VGS sits in the live path of every request carrying sensitive data, so its latency and availability become yours, and an outage in the proxy is a payment outage no matter how healthy your own systems are.
  • Token portability is the whole selling point yet leaving VGS means migrating tokens back out, a project the vendor has no incentive to streamline, so the lock-in you removed from your acquirer partly moves to VGS.
  • Entry pricing at around one thousand US dollars a month is real money for a pre-revenue fintech, and it buys volume-limited throughput, so cost scales with exactly the growth that made you buy it.
  • Scope reduction is not scope elimination: your QSA still assesses how you integrate, and teams regularly discover that a support tool or an internal admin screen pulled plaintext back in and dragged systems into scope again.
  • Proxy-based interception constrains how you design request flows, and non-standard payloads, streaming uploads or binary formats often need custom routing rules that make debugging production issues noticeably harder.

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

Very Good Security

$1000/month
  • Starter$1000/month
    • Aliasing proxy
    • Vault storage
    • PCI scope reduction
  • Growth$undefined/month
    • Network tokenisation
    • Multiple processors
    • Data residency options
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Custom vault architecture
    • Dedicated support and SLA
    • Contractual compliance coverage

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 Very Good Security if

  • You need aliasing proxy.
  • You work on Web, API.
  • You also want pci scope reduction.
Very Good Security review

Questions people ask

Is BigID or Very Good Security better?
Neither clearly leads. BigID starts at On request and Very Good Security at $1000/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, BigID or Very Good Security?
BigID starts at On request and Very Good Security at $1000/month.
Does BigID or Very Good Security run on more platforms?
BigID runs on Web, API, Self-hosted. Very Good Security runs on Web, API.
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 Very Good Security is typically brought in for.
What can BigID do that Very Good Security cannot?
BigID covers Structured and unstructured scanning, Identity correlation, Data security posture management, Access intelligence. Very Good Security covers Aliasing proxy, PCI scope reduction, Network tokenisation, Processor optionality.

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.

Very Good Security: Does VGS make me PCI compliant?

No. It removes cardholder data from your systems so your assessment covers a far smaller boundary, but you still complete an assessment and your integration is part of it.

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.

Very Good Security: Can I move to another processor without re-collecting cards?

Yes, that is a core reason people buy it. The vault reveals stored credentials to whichever processor you route to.

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.

Very Good Security: What does it cost?

Published entry pricing is about one thousand US dollars per month; growth and enterprise tiers are quoted.

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.

Very Good Security: Is it only for card data?

No. The proxy handles any sensitive field, including bank details, national identifiers and documents, though payments is where the product is now focused.

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