Softwr

Government · head to head

mySidewalk vs Teleport

mySidewalk logo

mySidewalk

Government

Community data dashboards for local government and public health, prewired to federal datasets

From
On request
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: mySidewalk it produces analysis and presentation rather than operational change, so the value has to be re argued at every renewal against services with more visible outputs.; 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: mySidewalk covers Prewired federal datasets, Teleport covers Short-lived certificates.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which mySidewalk and Teleport actually diverge.

Attributes where mySidewalk and Teleport differ
AttributemySidewalkTeleport
PlatformsWebLinux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes, Cloud
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 mySidewalk

  • Prewired federal datasets
  • Margin of error handling
  • Custom geographies
  • Published dashboards
  • Local data integration
  • Report generation

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.

mySidewalk

  • A public health department producing a community health needs assessment on deadlinenot Teleport
  • A city applying for federal funding that requires demographic and disparity evidence for a service areanot Teleport
  • An agency that lost its only analyst who understood American Community Survey margins of errornot Teleport
  • A council wanting published neighbourhood indicator dashboards residents can browsenot Teleport

Teleport

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

Where each one falls short

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

mySidewalk

  • It produces analysis and presentation rather than operational change, so the value has to be re argued at every renewal against services with more visible outputs.
  • Budget frequently comes from a grant, which means the subscription is exposed when the grant cycle ends rather than being protected as core infrastructure.
  • The prewired datasets are American, so the platform has effectively no value outside United States federal statistical sources.
  • Analytical depth is bounded by what the platform exposes, so an agency with a genuine analyst will hit the ceiling and move to a statistical environment.
  • Small area estimates remain small area estimates, and presenting them as polished dashboards can lend unwarranted confidence to figures whose error bars overlap.

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

mySidewalk

On request
  • mySidewalk$undefined/year
    • Quoted annually by agency scope and dataset needs
    • Custom geography and local data integration work priced separately
    • No public price list, though agency contracts are public records

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 mySidewalk if

  • You need prewired federal datasets.
  • You also want margin of error handling.
mySidewalk 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 mySidewalk or Teleport better?
Neither clearly leads. mySidewalk starts at On request and Teleport at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, mySidewalk or Teleport?
mySidewalk starts at On request and Teleport at On request.
Does mySidewalk or Teleport run on more platforms?
mySidewalk runs on Web. Teleport runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes, Cloud.
What is mySidewalk best used for?
mySidewalk is most often used for a public health department producing a community health needs assessment on deadline, a city applying for federal funding that requires demographic and disparity evidence for a service area, an agency that lost its only analyst who understood american community survey margins of error, a council wanting published neighbourhood indicator dashboards residents can browse. Of those, a public health department producing a community health needs assessment on deadline and a city applying for federal funding that requires demographic and disparity evidence for a service area are not what Teleport is typically brought in for.
What can mySidewalk do that Teleport cannot?
mySidewalk covers Prewired federal datasets, Margin of error handling, Custom geographies, Published dashboards. Teleport covers Short-lived certificates, Protocol coverage, Session recording and replay, Access Requests.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

mySidewalk: What problem does it actually solve?

Correct use of American Community Survey and federal health data for small geographies, which is difficult and is usually held by one person in an agency.

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.

mySidewalk: Is it useful outside the United States?

No. Its value is the maintained pipeline into US federal statistical datasets.

Teleport: How is it priced?

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

mySidewalk: Who buys it?

Mostly public health departments and city planning or performance teams, often funded from a grant that requires the evidence it produces.

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.

mySidewalk: Can we see comparable contract values?

Yes. Agency contracts are public records and appear in council and health board agenda materials.

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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