Softwr

Government · head to head

CentralSquare Asset Management vs Unit21

CentralSquare Asset Management logo

CentralSquare Asset Management

Government

Public sector enterprise asset management, sold for years as Lucity

From
On request
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite
Unit21 logo

Unit21

Cybersecurity

No-code fraud and AML risk operations platform for fintechs and neobanks

From
On request
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: CentralSquare Asset Management the Lucity name is now only a suffix on a CentralSquare product, so long-standing customers should confirm which capabilities carry forward under the current release rather than assuming continuity from the Lucity they know.; Unit21 it is built for fintech scale rather than card issuer scale, so organisations reaching very high transaction volumes generally re-evaluate against heavier platforms and face a migration.
  • They diverge on capability: CentralSquare Asset Management covers Esri ArcGIS integration, Unit21 covers No-code rule builder.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which CentralSquare Asset Management and Unit21 actually diverge.

Attributes where CentralSquare Asset Management and Unit21 differ
AttributeCentralSquare Asset ManagementUnit21
PlatformsWeb, iOS, Android, Cloud, On-premiseWeb
CategoryGovernmentCybersecurity

Identical on both: starting price (On request), pricing model (quote), free tier (No), 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 CentralSquare Asset Management

  • Esri ArcGIS integration
  • Public works asset breadth
  • Citizen request intake
  • Condition assessment
  • Inspections
  • Suite integration

Only in Unit21

  • No-code rule builder
  • Case management
  • SAR filing
  • Backtesting
  • Identity and device signals
  • Data ingestion API

What people use each for

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

CentralSquare Asset Management

  • A city consolidating streets, water, parks and facilities maintenance into one asset register instead of four departmental spreadsheetsnot Unit21
  • A county needing auditable stormwater and backflow inspection records for a regulatory programmenot Unit21
  • A public works department wanting citizen-reported potholes and blocked drains to become work orders without manual re-keyingnot Unit21
  • A municipality already running CentralSquare finance that wants asset and work costs to land in the general ledger without an integration projectnot Unit21

Unit21

  • A neobank whose sponsor bank requires a documented monitoring programme before it will keep the BIN sponsorshipnot CentralSquare Asset Management
  • A crypto exchange needing SAR filing and case management without building an internal compliance engineering teamnot CentralSquare Asset Management
  • A payments startup where the fraud lead needs to ship a new rule the same day a new attack pattern appearsnot CentralSquare Asset Management
  • A lender consolidating fraud alerts from three point tools into one investigator queue with a single audit trailnot CentralSquare Asset Management

Where each one falls short

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

CentralSquare Asset Management

  • The Lucity name is now only a suffix on a CentralSquare product, so long-standing customers should confirm which capabilities carry forward under the current release rather than assuming continuity from the Lucity they know.
  • CentralSquare is private-equity owned and grew by acquisition, so asset management competes for development attention against public safety and finance products with larger revenue, and its roadmap is not independently controlled.
  • Pricing is unpublished and quoted per municipality, and asset management is often presented alongside other suite modules, so a department must work to get a clean, unbundled number it can defend at council.
  • Esri ArcGIS is effectively a prerequisite for the spatial capability that makes the product worth buying, and that licence is a separate cost the software quote will not include.
  • It is North America focused, aligned to United States municipal practice, funding structures and regulatory programmes, which limits its fit for local authorities elsewhere.

Unit21

  • It is built for fintech scale rather than card issuer scale, so organisations reaching very high transaction volumes generally re-evaluate against heavier platforms and face a migration.
  • No-code rule authoring shifts power to the risk team, which is the point, but without governance it produces rule sprawl that nobody can explain to an examiner two years later.
  • Detection quality depends on the signals you feed it, so a thin integration produces thin results and the platform cannot compensate with proprietary consortium data the way larger vendors do.
  • Pricing is quoted by volume with an annual commitment, so a fintech whose growth stalls pays for headroom it did not use.
  • SAR filing coverage is oriented to United States FinCEN reporting, so firms filing in the United Kingdom, European Union or Asia handle those submissions outside the tool.

Pricing, plan by plan

CentralSquare Asset Management

On request
  • CentralSquare Asset Management$undefined/year
    • Subscription or on-premise licensing, quoted per municipality
    • Priced on population, module selection and user counts
    • Esri ArcGIS licensing purchased separately

Unit21

On request
  • Unit21 Platform$undefined/year
    • Priced by monitored volume and modules, annual contract
    • Fraud, AML and case management packaged separately
    • Implementation and historical data backfill quoted with the subscription

Which should you pick?

Choose CentralSquare Asset Management if

  • You need esri arcgis integration.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android, Cloud, On-premise.
  • You also want public works asset breadth.
CentralSquare Asset Management review

Choose Unit21 if

  • You need no-code rule builder.
  • You also want case management.
Unit21 review

Questions people ask

Is CentralSquare Asset Management or Unit21 better?
Neither clearly leads. CentralSquare Asset Management starts at On request and Unit21 at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, CentralSquare Asset Management or Unit21?
CentralSquare Asset Management starts at On request and Unit21 at On request.
Does CentralSquare Asset Management or Unit21 run on more platforms?
CentralSquare Asset Management runs on Web, iOS, Android, Cloud, On-premise. Unit21 runs on Web.
What is CentralSquare Asset Management best used for?
CentralSquare Asset Management is most often used for a city consolidating streets, water, parks and facilities maintenance into one asset register instead of four departmental spreadsheets, a county needing auditable stormwater and backflow inspection records for a regulatory programme, a public works department wanting citizen-reported potholes and blocked drains to become work orders without manual re-keying, a municipality already running centralsquare finance that wants asset and work costs to land in the general ledger without an integration project. Of those, a city consolidating streets, water, parks and facilities maintenance into one asset register instead of four departmental spreadsheets and a county needing auditable stormwater and backflow inspection records for a regulatory programme are not what Unit21 is typically brought in for.
What can CentralSquare Asset Management do that Unit21 cannot?
CentralSquare Asset Management covers Esri ArcGIS integration, Public works asset breadth, Citizen request intake, Condition assessment. Unit21 covers No-code rule builder, Case management, SAR filing, Backtesting.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

CentralSquare Asset Management: Can I still buy Lucity?

Not under that name alone. It is sold as CentralSquare Asset Management powered by Lucity, and quotes and contracts will use the CentralSquare name.

Unit21: Do we need engineers to run it?

Only for the initial data integration. After that the design intent is that risk and compliance staff author and deploy rules themselves.

CentralSquare Asset Management: Do I need Esri?

In practice yes. The spatial asset handling that distinguishes the product depends on ArcGIS, licensed separately from Esri.

Unit21: Does it file SARs?

Yes, it generates and electronically files suspicious activity reports to FinCEN. Non-US regimes are not covered to the same depth.

CentralSquare Asset Management: Is it cloud only?

No. Both hosted subscription and on-premise deployment are available, which matters for municipalities with data residency or network policy constraints.

Unit21: Can we test a rule before it goes live?

Yes. Backtesting against historical data to see projected alert volume is one of the more useful parts of the product, because alert volume is the real cost.

CentralSquare Asset Management: Is pricing published?

No. It is quoted per municipality based on population, modules and users, usually through a public procurement process.

Share

Related pages

More on CentralSquare Asset Management

More on Unit21

Keep looking

Other head to heads