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Government · head to head

CitizenLab vs Teleport

CitizenLab logo

CitizenLab

Government

Digital Democracy Platform

From
$500/month
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite
Teleport logo

Teleport

Cybersecurity

Certificate-based access to servers, Kubernetes, databases and apps, replacing shared credentials and VPNs

From
On request
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: CitizenLab citizenLab has rebranded to Go Vocal and the product now sells under govocal.com; Teleport pricing is not published and is described as active users plus protected resources, so an autoscaling estate cannot forecast the bill and finance teams discover the true cost only after the first true-up.
  • They diverge on capability: CitizenLab covers Participatory Budgeting, Teleport covers Short-lived certificates.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which CitizenLab and Teleport actually diverge.

Attributes where CitizenLab and Teleport differ
AttributeCitizenLabTeleport
Starting price$500/monthOn request
Pricing modelsubscriptionquote
PlatformsWeb, Ios, AndroidLinux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes, Cloud
CategoryGovernmentCybersecurity
Founded2015Unknown

Identical on both: 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 CitizenLab

  • Participatory Budgeting
  • Idea Management
  • Online Consultations
  • Surveys & Polls
  • AI-powered Analysis
  • Single Sign-On
  • Open Data Portals
  • GIS Systems

Only in Teleport

  • Short-lived certificates
  • Protocol coverage
  • Session recording and replay
  • Access Requests
  • Device Trust
  • Identity provider integration
  • Machine identity
  • FIPS and FedRAMP builds

What people use each for

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

CitizenLab

  • Running community consultation and participatory budgeting for a citynot Teleport
  • Collecting resident input through surveys, ideation, mapping and votingnot Teleport
  • Centralising engagement data across multiple municipal departmentsnot Teleport

Teleport

  • Removing long-lived SSH keys and shared database passwords so that offboarding an engineer takes one action in the identity providernot CitizenLab
  • Producing session recordings and per-user database audit trails as direct evidence for SOC 2 or FedRAMPnot CitizenLab
  • Giving contractors or on-call engineers time-boxed, approved access to production instead of standing admin rightsnot CitizenLab
  • Replacing a flat VPN with per-resource authorisation across servers, Kubernetes and internal web appsnot CitizenLab

Where each one falls short

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

CitizenLab

  • CitizenLab has rebranded to Go Vocal and the product now sells under govocal.com
  • No prices are published on the plans page; every tier requires scheduling a demo
  • The Essential plan allows only 1 active project and 1 admin seat, with no project manager seats
  • Standard is limited to 4 admin seats and 5 project manager seats, and Premium to 8 admin seats and 25 project manager seats
  • Standard restricts Sensemaking to Light, capped at 30 inputs; auto-insights require Premium
  • The integrated Konveio document annotation and Echo blended engagement methods are excluded from Standard and require Premium
  • Auto-translation on Premium is limited to 3 languages
  • Custom fonts and other premium styling options are Premium only
  • Priority support is Premium only
  • Plans are split by population band, with separate ladders for cities under and over 100K population

Teleport

  • Pricing is not published and is described as active users plus protected resources, so an autoscaling estate cannot forecast the bill and finance teams discover the true cost only after the first true-up.
  • The proxy is a hard dependency on reaching production, so it needs its own high availability deployment and a tested break-glass path or an outage in Teleport becomes an outage in your ability to respond to outages.
  • The open source Community Edition omits Access Requests, Device Trust and the FIPS builds, which are exactly the controls an auditor asks about, so the free tier rarely survives a compliance review.
  • Self-hosting means running and upgrading a certificate authority and its backing store, and Teleport releases frequently enough that upgrade work becomes a standing operational commitment.
  • Coverage across protocols is uneven in depth, so teams with legacy systems, unusual databases or bespoke network appliances find gaps that still require the old VPN to remain in place alongside it.

Pricing, plan by plan

CitizenLab

$500/month
  • Government$500/month
    • Participatory Budgeting
    • Idea Collection
    • Surveys

Teleport

On request
  • Teleport Community Edition$undefined/year
    • Open source, self-hosted
    • SSH, Kubernetes, database and app access
    • Session recording
  • Teleport Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Cloud-hosted or self-hosted
    • Access Requests and approval workflow
    • Device Trust and hardware key enforcement

Which should you pick?

Choose CitizenLab if

  • You need participatory budgeting.
  • You work on Web, Ios, Android.
  • You also want idea management.
CitizenLab review

Choose Teleport if

  • You need short-lived certificates.
  • You work on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes, Cloud.
  • You also want protocol coverage.
Teleport review

Questions people ask

Is CitizenLab or Teleport better?
Neither clearly leads. CitizenLab starts at $500/month and Teleport at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, CitizenLab or Teleport?
CitizenLab starts at $500/month and Teleport at On request.
Does CitizenLab or Teleport run on more platforms?
CitizenLab runs on Web, Ios, Android. Teleport runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes, Cloud.
What is CitizenLab best used for?
CitizenLab is most often used for running community consultation and participatory budgeting for a city, collecting resident input through surveys, ideation, mapping and voting, centralising engagement data across multiple municipal departments. Of those, running community consultation and participatory budgeting for a city and collecting resident input through surveys, ideation, mapping and voting are not what Teleport is typically brought in for.
What can CitizenLab do that Teleport cannot?
CitizenLab covers Participatory Budgeting, Idea Management, Online Consultations, Surveys & Polls. Teleport covers Short-lived certificates, Protocol coverage, Session recording and replay, Access Requests.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

CitizenLab: How many projects can Essential tier teams manage?

The Essential tier is designed for teams starting small and is limited to 1 active project with 1 admin seat and no project manager seats.

Source
Teleport: Is the open source edition usable in production?

Yes, but it lacks Access Requests, Device Trust and FIPS builds, which most compliance programmes end up requiring.

CitizenLab: How many projects can Standard and Premium tiers manage?

Both Standard and Premium tiers support unlimited projects. Standard includes 4 admin seats and 5 project manager seats, while Premium includes 8 admin seats and 25 project manager seats.

Source
Teleport: How is it priced?

Not publicly. The vendor prices on active users and protected resources and provides a quote after a sales conversation.

CitizenLab: Does Enterprise tier have any user seat limits?

No, the Enterprise tier is designed for organizations aiming to embed engagement deeply within their infrastructure and includes unlimited admin seats and project managers.

Source
Teleport: What happens if Teleport goes down?

Nobody reaches the resources behind it, so you need a highly available deployment and a documented break-glass procedure.

CitizenLab: What are the specific pricing amounts for each tier?

Specific pricing amounts are not disclosed on the plans page. The company directs interested organizations to talk to their team for personalized pricing offers.

Source
Teleport: Does it replace our VPN?

For anything you put behind it, yes. Legacy systems and appliances it does not support will keep the VPN alive.

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Related pages

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