Softwr

Government · head to head

Bonfire vs Semperis

Bonfire logo

Bonfire

Government

Public sector sourcing and bid evaluation software with scored, auditable award decisions

From
On request
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite
Semperis logo

Semperis

Cybersecurity

Identity threat detection and Active Directory forest recovery for AD, Entra ID and Okta, from a privately held US vendor.

From
On request
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Bonfire it is a sourcing and evaluation tool rather than full procure to pay, so requisitions, purchase orders and invoicing stay in the finance system and the join between them is the agency's problem.; Semperis scope is limited to Active Directory, Entra ID and Okta, so an organisation whose critical identity lives elsewhere gets little from it, and the recovery value declines in direct proportion to how much has already moved off on-premises AD.
  • They diverge on capability: Bonfire covers Solicitation posting, Semperis covers Active Directory Forest Recovery.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Bonfire and Semperis actually diverge.

Attributes where Bonfire and Semperis differ
AttributeBonfireSemperis
CategoryGovernmentCybersecurity

Identical on both: starting price (On request), pricing model (quote), free tier (No), platforms (Web), 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 Bonfire

  • Solicitation posting
  • Sealed submission intake
  • Scored evaluation workspace
  • Audit trail
  • Supplier portal
  • Requirement matrices

Only in Semperis

  • Active Directory Forest Recovery
  • Malware-free restore
  • Replication-stream monitoring
  • Automated rollback
  • Attack indicator scoring
  • Entra ID and Okta coverage
  • Purple Knight
  • Forest Druid

What people use each for

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

Bonfire

  • An agency that has lost or nearly lost a bid protest and needs a defensible evaluation recordnot Semperis
  • A procurement team running scoring committees currently held together by spreadsheets and emailnot Semperis
  • A university or health system applying public procurement rules without a public procurement systemnot Semperis
  • An agency wanting suppliers to self register and receive addenda automatically rather than by mailing listnot Semperis

Semperis

  • An organisation that cannot answer an auditor or insurer asking how long it would take to rebuild Active Directory after a destructive attacknot Bonfire
  • Post-incident recovery where domain controllers are compromised and restoring from system-state backup would reintroduce the attacker's footholdnot Bonfire
  • Continuous detection of privileged group changes and directory-level tampering that domain controller security logs missnot Bonfire
  • Hybrid estates where AD, Entra ID and Okta all matter and no single tool currently shows changes across the threenot Bonfire

Where each one falls short

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

Bonfire

  • It is a sourcing and evaluation tool rather than full procure to pay, so requisitions, purchase orders and invoicing stay in the finance system and the join between them is the agency's problem.
  • Since the acquisition path from GTY to GI Partners to Euna Solutions, Bonfire sits in a portfolio alongside products it once competed with, which narrows a shortlist that appears independent.
  • Suppliers must register on the portal to bid, and small local vendors reliably complain about the extra account, which can reduce responses on low value solicitations.
  • Pricing is quoted rather than published and scales with solicitation volume, so an agency with a few very large procurements pays a model designed around throughput.
  • Contract management after award is thin compared with dedicated contract lifecycle products, so agencies often buy a second system for the obligations the award created.

Semperis

  • Scope is limited to Active Directory, Entra ID and Okta, so an organisation whose critical identity lives elsewhere gets little from it, and the recovery value declines in direct proportion to how much has already moved off on-premises AD.
  • The licence buys tooling, not a proven runbook: forest recovery is only worth what your last rehearsal demonstrated, and a plan that has never been executed end to end in a lab is an untested assumption regardless of what was purchased.
  • It overlaps with backup and directory management products from Quest, Veeam, Commvault and others, so the buyer must argue internally why a dedicated product is needed alongside a backup contract that already claims to protect Active Directory.
  • Running Directory Services Protector well requires someone who understands AD internals, replication metadata and Tier 0 attack paths, and without that person the alerts on privileged changes are either ignored or auto-reverted in ways that break legitimate administration.
  • Licensing is driven by identity object counts, so directories carrying years of stale user accounts and service principals pay for objects that should have been deleted, and the cleanup project that would reduce the bill is the one nobody has time for.

Pricing, plan by plan

Bonfire

On request
  • Bonfire$undefined/year
    • Quoted by agency size and annual solicitation volume
    • Supplier side registration is free, which is how the vendor network grows
    • Implementation and training quoted separately from subscription

Semperis

On request

No published plan breakdown. See the Semperis review.

Which should you pick?

Choose Bonfire if

  • You need solicitation posting.
  • You also want sealed submission intake.
Bonfire review

Choose Semperis if

  • You need active directory forest recovery.
  • You also want malware-free restore.
Semperis review

Questions people ask

Is Bonfire or Semperis better?
Neither clearly leads. Bonfire starts at On request and Semperis at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Bonfire or Semperis?
Bonfire starts at On request and Semperis at On request.
Does Bonfire or Semperis run on more platforms?
Both run on Web, so platform support will not decide this one for you.
What is Bonfire best used for?
Bonfire is most often used for an agency that has lost or nearly lost a bid protest and needs a defensible evaluation record, a procurement team running scoring committees currently held together by spreadsheets and email, a university or health system applying public procurement rules without a public procurement system, an agency wanting suppliers to self register and receive addenda automatically rather than by mailing list. Of those, an agency that has lost or nearly lost a bid protest and needs a defensible evaluation record and a procurement team running scoring committees currently held together by spreadsheets and email are not what Semperis is typically brought in for.
What can Bonfire do that Semperis cannot?
Bonfire covers Solicitation posting, Sealed submission intake, Scored evaluation workspace, Audit trail. Semperis covers Active Directory Forest Recovery, Malware-free restore, Replication-stream monitoring, Automated rollback.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Bonfire: Who owns Bonfire?

Euna Solutions. Bonfire was acquired by GTY Technology in 2019, GTY was taken private by GI Partners in 2022, and the portfolio was rebranded Euna Solutions in 2023.

Semperis: Does this replace my backups?

No. It replaces the Active Directory recovery procedure specifically. You still need backups for everything else, and the point of Semperis is that a generic system-state backup of a domain controller is a poor way to recover a forest because it restores the operating system along with whatever compromised it.

Bonfire: Is it full procure to pay?

No. It covers sourcing and evaluation through award. Purchase orders and invoicing remain in the finance system.

Semperis: Is it useful if we are cloud-only on Entra ID?

Partly. Directory Services Protector covers Entra ID and Okta for change tracking and posture, but the forest recovery product, which is the strongest reason to buy, applies to on-premises Active Directory. A genuinely cloud-only organisation should weigh it against Microsoft's own tooling.

Bonfire: What is the real value?

A defensible, time stamped evaluation record when an award is protested, which is the expensive failure mode in public procurement.

Semperis: Are Purple Knight and Forest Druid really free?

Yes, both are free downloads with no licence requirement, and they are widely used by organisations that are not Semperis customers. They are also, transparently, the top of the sales funnel.

Bonfire: Can we see what other agencies pay?

Yes. These contracts are public records. Read several comparable awards before negotiating.

Semperis: How long does forest recovery actually take?

The honest answer is whatever your rehearsal took. The vendor's case is hours instead of days, and automation genuinely removes most manual steps, but the number that matters for your board is the one from a test in your own environment.

Semperis: Does it require agents on domain controllers?

It collects directory changes from the AD replication stream, which is what lets it see changes that bypass the security log. Deployment details vary by product and version, so confirm the exact architecture against your domain controller change-control rules.

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