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Government · head to head

CitizenLab vs Very Good Security

CitizenLab logo

CitizenLab

Government

Digital Democracy Platform

From
$500/month
Free plan
No
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
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; 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: CitizenLab covers Participatory Budgeting, 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 CitizenLab and Very Good Security actually diverge.

Attributes where CitizenLab and Very Good Security differ
AttributeCitizenLabVery Good Security
Starting price$500/month$1000/month
Pricing modelsubscriptionPer month
PlatformsWeb, Ios, AndroidWeb, API
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 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.

CitizenLab

  • Running community consultation and participatory budgeting for a citynot Very Good Security
  • Collecting resident input through surveys, ideation, mapping and votingnot Very Good Security
  • Centralising engagement data across multiple municipal departmentsnot 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 CitizenLab
  • A merchant negotiating with a second acquirer that needs card credentials portable so the negotiation is real rather than theoreticalnot CitizenLab
  • A fintech collecting bank account and identity documents that wants sensitive fields absent from logs, backups and analytics warehouses by constructionnot CitizenLab
  • A card issuer that must display a full PAN in its own mobile app without the app or its backend touching cardholder datanot 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

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

CitizenLab

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

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 CitizenLab if

  • You need participatory budgeting.
  • You work on Web, Ios, Android.
  • You also want idea management.
CitizenLab 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 CitizenLab or Very Good Security better?
Neither clearly leads. CitizenLab starts at $500/month 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, CitizenLab or Very Good Security?
CitizenLab starts at $500/month and Very Good Security at $1000/month.
Does CitizenLab or Very Good Security run on more platforms?
CitizenLab runs on Web, Ios, Android. Very Good Security runs on Web, API.
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 Very Good Security is typically brought in for.
What can CitizenLab do that Very Good Security cannot?
CitizenLab covers Participatory Budgeting, Idea Management, Online Consultations, Surveys & Polls. Very Good Security covers Aliasing proxy, PCI scope reduction, Network tokenisation, Processor optionality.

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
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.

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
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.

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
Very Good Security: What does it cost?

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

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
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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