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Government · head to head

mySidewalk vs Very Good Security

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
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: 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.; 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: mySidewalk covers Prewired federal datasets, 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 mySidewalk and Very Good Security actually diverge.

Attributes where mySidewalk and Very Good Security differ
AttributemySidewalkVery Good Security
Starting priceOn request$1000/month
Pricing modelquotePer month
PlatformsWebWeb, API
CategoryGovernmentCybersecurity

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 mySidewalk

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

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.

mySidewalk

  • A public health department producing a community health needs assessment on deadlinenot Very Good Security
  • A city applying for federal funding that requires demographic and disparity evidence for a service areanot Very Good Security
  • An agency that lost its only analyst who understood American Community Survey margins of errornot Very Good Security
  • A council wanting published neighbourhood indicator dashboards residents can browsenot 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 mySidewalk
  • A merchant negotiating with a second acquirer that needs card credentials portable so the negotiation is real rather than theoreticalnot mySidewalk
  • A fintech collecting bank account and identity documents that wants sensitive fields absent from logs, backups and analytics warehouses by constructionnot mySidewalk
  • A card issuer that must display a full PAN in its own mobile app without the app or its backend touching cardholder datanot 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.

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

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

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 mySidewalk if

  • You need prewired federal datasets.
  • You also want margin of error handling.
mySidewalk 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 mySidewalk or Very Good Security better?
Neither clearly leads. mySidewalk starts at On request 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, mySidewalk or Very Good Security?
mySidewalk starts at On request and Very Good Security at $1000/month.
Does mySidewalk or Very Good Security run on more platforms?
mySidewalk runs on Web. Very Good Security runs on Web, API.
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 Very Good Security is typically brought in for.
What can mySidewalk do that Very Good Security cannot?
mySidewalk covers Prewired federal datasets, Margin of error handling, Custom geographies, Published dashboards. Very Good Security covers Aliasing proxy, PCI scope reduction, Network tokenisation, Processor optionality.

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.

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.

mySidewalk: Is it useful outside the United States?

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

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.

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.

Very Good Security: What does it cost?

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

mySidewalk: Can we see comparable contract values?

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

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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